10-inch f/4.5 EQ Newtonian model DS-10A pictured below…

It was a large and heavy telescope that I stored in an inside closet, requiring a lot of effort to set up and take down. So, last year (2025) I realized that the time had come for me to find a new owner for this telescope. It was getting heavier and heavier with each passing year. However, this telescope served me well for 34 years, and with more than 2,000 hours under a night sky.

In February of 2026, I was able to find the perfect person that appreciated this pristine 34 year-old “All American Made” Newtonian reflector, which included the primary mirror also.

I ordered the telescope from Pauli’s Wholesale Optics in Danbury, Connecticut, on Wednesday, February 5th 1992 at 9:00 PM from the owner himself…Fred Pauli. It was Fred that recommended the 10-inch. This was in the days before email or ordering online. I would purchase a lot of astronomy equipment over the next eight or ten years from Wholesale Optics.

Sometimes I’d call and place an order at 10:00 in the morning, sometimes 10:00 at night, but whenever I’d call, it was always Fred who answered the phone. I’d talk with Fred briefly, give him my Master Card number and would normally receive my order in about a week.

The day the telescope arrived!

When I got home from work on Monday, February 10th, some large brown corrugated boxes were stacked up in front of my garage door. The optical tube was in one box, the mount in a couple more, then the 25-pound counter weight, the mirror and cell in another, and then the focuser box.

I was wanting to purchase a smaller Newtonian, but Fred Pauli recommended a larger telescope…

I’m really glad I talked with Fred Pauli on that February night, so many years ago and “made the decision upon his recommendation ” to purchase the 10-inch. At that time, I had no idea I would eventually spend more than 2,000 hours with this telescope under a night sky over the next 34 years. I would also make hundreds and hundreds of observing notes with more than 1,500 pencil sketches using this telescope.

If not for Fred Pauli recommending the 10-inch on that night in February 1992, I would not likely have become a serious amateur. I would have continued as a casual observer, using a much smaller reflector. And I would not have met Fred Rayworth in Las Vegas, who along with myself, founded the Observer’s Challenge report. The first report was issued in February 2009, and Fred who continued with me through ~2017.

After years as a report contributor, Sue French became an administrator in 2018, and then co-editor with myself in compiling the report for its last five years. It was Sue’s notoriety, as an editor for “Sky & Telescope” magazine that helped gain a much wider audience of more serious amateurs. Sue deserves much credit for the report’s success and continued success.

The report continues to have high daily downloads, despite the last report being issued in June 2024. There are both astronomy clubs and amateurs at-large that continue to use the challenge report for reference or as an observing agenda.

Roger Ivester (North Carolina)

The larger aperture of the 10-inch versus smaller telescopes I’d been using, allowed me to make far better pencil sketches.

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