Two weeks ago we received our new telescope - an Obesession Telescope 18" Ultra Compact. We placed the order for it two months ago from Obsession telescopes with an estimated delivery date of June 1st - it arrived two weeks ahead of schedule. We spent half of a day unpacking the 4 boxes, reading the instructions, and getting the telescope set-up inside our house. The 18" UC is really well built and the attention to detail is readily apparent. When fully assembled, the UC slightly shorter than a Classic 18" Obsession, but much lighter and more transportable. When pointing at the zenith (straight up), the eyepiece is just too high for our eye level so we have a small folding stool to reach that level.On Friday, we planned to take the UC out to Joshua Tree National Park but we wanted to practice setting it up fully and collimating (aligning) the optics using Catseye collimation tools. We got a late start out to Joshua Tree and arrived there around 10pm. There were a few other campers and only one other astronomer there. We unloaded the car and had the UC set up within 15 minutes and left the fan running to cool the mirror down. Set-up was actually quicker and easier than our previous Celestron 11" Nexstar telescope.
The Clear Sky Clock Clear Sky Clock showed that the seeing conditions were going be decent but not great and it was pretty accurate. Our first target was M13 using a TeleVue 13mm Ethos eyepiece. The view was amazing! The UC was extremely easy to push to the target (our previous scope was automated) and to keep it on target. Next we headed on over to Jupiter. We knew our telescope wasn't fully collimated but this was the best view of Jupiter we have ever seen. The details were so easy to see, I can't wait until we get better seeing conditions and get our optics better aligned to look at it again! We also looked at M51, M57, and M101 until a little after 2am when we packed everything back up and headed back to Riverside.
Overall, we have been very impressed with the quality, ease of assembly and use, and the visual quality of the optics. I know we are going to have some great nights to come!