Hi,
I have an 18" Obsession and I am proud to say that I can call Peter Read the owner and maker of SDM telescopes, a friend. Last year Peter spent several nights at my house adding accessories to our 3RF Obsessions (2 x 25" Obsessions and 4 x 18" Obsessions). I also chat regularly with him on the phone about matters telescope building. I am currently building the Rolls Royce of 10" truss dobs
. Do you know anyone else who uses solid rolled aluminium altitude bearings on a 10" scope ? I do.
Peter doesn't build telescopes because he wants to make money. He doesn't build enough of them or charge enough for them to do that. He builds them because he wants to show the Australian Astronomical community the quality of work he is capable of producing. He is doing something he loves doing. To give you some idea of the commercial reality of his situation, Peter has built about 22 scopes in the past 3 years. Obsession sell about 300 scopes per year. Peter will custom tailor build each and every scope to the users exact requirements. They are a thing of absolute beauty. The wait is a few months. The quality is worth the wait time. In addition Peter offers you the choice of all the best mirror makers available.
Here is my take on the mirror supplier. I have an OMI mirror in my Obsession which is excellent and I couldn't be happier with it. Over the years I have used scopes with mirrors from OMI, Zambuto, Galaxy, Pegasus, Ostahowski (Discovery), Steve Kennedy, Vaughan Parsons (Intermountain Optics), Tom Cave and Alan Raycraft. All of the previous mentioned premium mirror makers produce or produced outstanding optics (Tom Cave is dead). I have also used plenty of backyard and mass produced mirrors. Some of those haven't been so outstanding. The consistently best optics I have ever used are from Aussie mirror maker Mark Suchting. I have looked through a lot of Mark's mirrors and the quality is always consistent and outstanding. In 20 plus years and several hundred mirrors, as a commercial mirror maker, Mark has never had a customer dissatisfied with the mirror they were supplied. I dare say he is one of a handfull of mirror makers on the planet that can lay claim to that. I just ordered a 10"/F5.3 from him. You will wait for it, the wait is worth every minute. Some mirror makers supply strehl ratios and test certificates in respect of the supplied mirror. Some people take this as a level of comfort. In reality it isn't because these numbers will never be consistent because of different testers and test conditions. Suffice to say Mark is one of the three best mirror makers on the planet and if you buy a mirror from him it gets no better.
For someone buying from Australia, I couldn't think of a better option than an SDM telescope with a Mark Suchting mirror. Mark goes to 24" aperture. If you wanted a scope over 24" aperture and faster than F4, I would order the mirror from Steve Kennedy.
Cheers,
John B