On the Road to an Ultralight

For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted a simple set-up telescope, easy take down, easily transportable with a no-tool set-up. I also wanted a telescope that had a low center of gravity, so I didnt have to stand up very high or on a stool to look in the eyepiece. It had to be lighter in weight than its predecessor and be something that was eyecatching as well. The result is what you will see in the next few pages. I could not have had as much fun when building this scope as I have had when making other scopes or at least re-designing them as well.

I had read every article about the Obsession line of telescopes, the Starmasters, the Tectrons with ease of set-up and breakdown and transportability. I didnt have the large budget to spend on any of those higher priced, but finely crafted scopes, so I redesigned the Coulter. It took me 2 months to build of 4 and 8 hour daily sessions in the workshop while I was recovering from an illness and about $1400 in cash for wood, hardware and more hardware, plus the spider, diagonal, diagonal holder, truss tubes, primary mirror holder, focuser, 8x50 finder and Quik Finder, truss tube covers, power tools that I didnt already have and stain and polyurethane.

I spent another $1600 on eyepieces, filters and Star Atlases, which I will mention after I tell you how I built the scope.
Although listed above, these are the criteria I needed in the scope to be built:

1. Light in weight, one person set-up
2. No Tool set-up and take down
3. Easy to transport
4. Few components, easily stored
5. Nice to look at
6. Radical design
7. Contemporary features
8. User friendly

The picture on the left shows an original Coulter Odyssey I. The photo on the right shows the same scope minus everything except for the primary mirror. Thats right, I re-designed the scope to fit the above criteria. I saved weight and gained portability, lost the bulkiness and gained easy breakdown and storage. It goes together with nothing except what is shown and I do not need any tools to set it up.

I saved about 35 Lbs. in weight over the original Coulter scope. Most of the weight of the original is in the rocker box, with heavy thick particle board. The tube was heavy too. My scope I cut the rocker box down to practically nothing and made the center of gravity about 1/2 of what it was of the original. Viewing height is about 68" off the ground.

Set up time is about 6 minutes and after collimation, only 10 minutes have elapsed (if it needs collimation). Cool down time is greatly reduced , due to the truss tube design and a fan on the bottom.