Oh yeah , I forgot all about those GSO focusers . They made a decent 2 speed Crawford style unit for the money and made models for multiple applications . I was gonna upgrade to one on. my 8” Schmidt Newtonian years ago since the stock Meade focuser was such a poor piece . I ended up using some teflon strips self sticking to take the massive amount of play out of the Meade focuser . It’s a lot better now and didn’t really have the money to spend back then .
@Starrancher yeah their focusers are pretty good, better then the Synta focusers in my opinion.
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I have no clue who Orion had those manufactured by . It could have been any of those companies you listed . The stuff coming out of Taiwan was pretty impressive for the most part . I’ve always been very happy with my Meade Plossls . Could never see a difference in the expensive Tele Vue Plossls I tried at star parties . The Vixen stuff was really nice to but I compared side by side to my Meade’s at a star party and couldn’t really see improvement in image quality . I think the Vixens had 5 elements and were 55 degree apparent FOV instead of the typical 52 degree of a Plossl .
Right . If I recollect correctly, they also made a helical focuser too . I haven’t bought anything new since around 2010 . So is GSO still making all that stuff ?
I bought a GSO 8x50 finder last year, so I guess they are still making stuff. Agena Astro is still offering them for sale.
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Agena Astro . I heard they bought out the stock from OPT when they went out .
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Yup, I heard that too.
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It’s sad . OPT had such a nice store there in Oceanside . I’d been there quite a few times when I was still living in California . They used to have star parties in the parking lot years ago where they’d take a bunch of display scopes out of the store so you could look through all different sizes and types of scopes . That was the coolest thing . It gave people a first hand experience of what you would get for the money .
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I think they did those on Saturday nights a few times a year .
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@Starrancher yeah i heard the same thing.
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That’s a shame. I never went there but I heard about their great customer service. Too many astronomy retailers have gone under. Recently OPT and Orion/Meade. All three of my telescopes were made by companies that are now out of business: Cave, Parks and D&G. It’s really a shame. I was also a regular at Lumicon when they were in Livermore, and now they’ve been gone for a long time too. That reminds me of a story. About 15 years ago I was up at Lick talking to one of the astronomers. He was showing me his equipment and I asked if the fabricated it up there, because they are equipped for that. He said no, he got all his electronics OTS from Orion. I was shocked. I also wondered why Orion never advertised that.
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I can honestly say i have never in a store dedicated to selling telescopes. They don’t exist in Ohio lol
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They seem to not exist in California anymore either, although there used to be quite a few. When I bought my Cave I went down there and ordered it directly from Tom Cave. Now in NorCal it’s about a five minute drive from where the Orion store was, and Lumicon was about 40 minute drive.
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Scope City is gone . They had a couple locations maybe more . Obviously the Orion store is gone , OPT is gone but there is Orange County Telescope in Santa Ana . I get weekly emails from them . It looks like a fairly small store but at least there someone interested in keeping it going . They host star parties at a park in Irvine once a month too . Not a really dark sky site but it seems people don’t want to drive out very far anymore . When I left California it was about a 2 hour drive for me to get out to Joshua Tree National Park and the skies were pretty good out there back in 2010 . Of course suburbia keeps spreading so I don’t know what it’s like these days .
Right . It was a niche market at best even back in its heyday . I doubt the numbers of enthusiasts have grown and with internet retailers it’s even become harder to make a go of selling telescopes and related equipment . OPT was 2 hours or more for me when I was in California . Scope City had a couple locations and the closest on was over an hour away . Now I’m out in the boonies so everything is far . Even the grocery store is an hour from me . I don’t even know but there still might be a Telescope Shoppe in southern Arizona but that’d be a 4 hour drive each way . I’m glad I don’t need to buy anything else . It’s gotten a bit tough unless you know exactly what you want and buy on line and I did buy all my filters , a few eyepieces , some Astrozap stuff as well as my 12 volt cigarette lighter cords to power my mounts on line but the scopes themselves I bought at a brick and mortar store .
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My 16 inch and 10 inch are used and i drove to get those. Everything else was ordered online.
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I currently use the 9x50 finderscope that came included with my Celestron 8 inch CPC Deluxe HD SCT telescope. However, I will be adding my blinking Telrad to it soon as it is easier to look through. My Telrad is currently used on my 16 inch Snyder truss tube Dobsonian telescope, so I mail ordered a second Telrad Base to install on my 8 inch OTA on the Celestron.
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The Telrads are nice units . Is your mount a go to ?
Here is the new Stellarvue 10x60 Finder that arrived early this week. It rides on a dual mount and i use it in conjunction with a green laser pointer.
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That’s a nice finder . Pretty extravagant setup with the dew heater straps . I’m glad I don’t have to deal with all that . I’ve only been out one night where I had things dew up . What is that square unit sitting atop of the OTA on the far right side ?