Celestron’s C8-NGT Newtonian reflecting telescope has always been one of the
company’s seminal scopes, with the modern version living up to even
higher standards than the original. Celestron
Surely most of our readers here are familiar with
Celestron, one of (if not the) most famous telescope makers in the world. But how many of you also know that 2010 marks the company’s 50th anniversary?
In writing a news story detailing Celestron’s anniversary, I came across a few other little facts even the most hard-core astronomy devotee might not know.
- Celestron remains a private company with corporate offices in Torrance, California.
- Tom Johnson founded Celestron as a division of Valor Electronics in 1960, all because he was looking for a “suitable” telescope for his two sons.
- Initially named Celestron-Pacific, in 1964 the company decided to shorten its name simply to Celestron.
- In 1962, Johnson dazzled attendees of the Los Angeles Astronomical Society Star Party with his first 18-inch Cassegrain telescope.
- The Celestron C8 was the first Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope to be reliably mass-produced, resulting in lower costs.
- Celestron’s C5 telescope, a descendant of the C8, has flown on board the space shuttle on multiple missions, after NASA selected it as a worthy observation tool.
- President Obama and his wife enjoyed looking through a Celestron CPC 800 at the first star party on the White House lawn, during the International Year of Astronomy (October 6, 2009).
Feel free to add any more tidbits about Celestron you may know in the comments. And if you’re a big fan, you may want to head to http://www.celestron.com/50/ and sign their guest book, too.
Related: Celestron celebrates its golden anniversary