A Dobsonian telescope is an altazimuth-mounted Newtonian telescope design popularized by John Dobson in 1965 and credited with vastly increasing the size of telescopes available to amateur astronomers. Dobson's telescopes featured a simplified mechanical design that was easy to manufacture from readily available components to create a large, portable, low-cost telescope. The design is optimized for observing faint, deep-sky objects such as nebulae and galaxies. This type of observation requires a large objective diameter of relatively short focal length and portability for travel to less light-polluted locations.
An eyepiece, or ocular lens, is a type of lens that is attached to a variety of optical devices such as telescopes and microscopes. It is named because it is usually the lens that is closest to the eye when someone looks through an optical device to observe an object or sample. The objective lens or mirror collects light from an object or sample and brings it to focus creating an image of the object. The eyepiece is placed near the focal point of the objective to magnify this image to the eyes. The amount of magnification depends on the focal length of the eyepiece.
The Meade Instruments is an American multinational company headquartered in Watsonville, California, that manufactures, imports, and distributes telescopes, binoculars, spotting scopes, microscopes, CCD cameras, and telescope accessories for the consumer market. It is the world's largest manufacturer of telescopes.
The Maksutov is a catadioptric telescope design that combines a spherical mirror with a weakly negative meniscus lens in a design that takes advantage of all the surfaces being nearly "spherically symmetrical". The negative lens is usually full diameter and placed at the entrance pupil of the telescope. The design corrects the problems of off-axis aberrations such as coma found in reflecting telescopes while also correcting chromatic aberration. It was patented in 1941 by Soviet optician Dmitri Dmitrievich Maksutov. Maksutov based his design on the idea behind the Schmidt camera of using the spherical errors of a negative lens to correct the opposite errors in a spherical primary mirror. The design is most commonly seen in a Cassegrain variation, with an integrated secondary, that can use all-spherical elements, thereby simplifying fabrication. Maksutov telescopes have been sold on the amateur market since the 1950s.
Celestron, LLC is a company that manufactures telescopes and distributes telescopes, binoculars, spotting scopes, microscopes, and accessories manufactured by its parent company, the Synta Technology Corporation of Taiwan.
UNA Observatory is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by the University of North Alabama. It is located in Florence, Alabama (USA). It has 2 telescopes, a Celestron 0.35 m Schmidt–Cassegrain telescope. The UNA Planetarium is a 65-seat planetarium with a Spitz A3P projector and East Cost Control Systems controller.
Naylor Observatory is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by Astronomical Society of Harrisburg. It is located near Lewisberry, Pennsylvania, United States.
Questar Corporation is a company based in New Hope, Pennsylvania. It manufactures precision optical devices for consumer, industrial, aerospace, and military markets. Its telescopes produced for the consumer market are sold under the brand name "Questar".
Tasco sells consumer telescopes. Tasco mainly imports telescopes for amateur astronomers but has expanded into other optical products, such as spotting scopes, microscopes, binoculars, telescopic sights, and other rifle accessories. Tasco sells via retail stores, catalogs, and online retailers. Tasco is based in Miramar, Florida. George Rosenfield founded the firm as the Tanross Supply Company in 1954. It started as a distributor of fishing tackle and hardware. The name was later shortened to Tasco as its offerings expanded to include binoculars and eyepieces.
Sky-Watcher is a commercial distribution company established in 1999 by the Synta Technology Corporation of Taiwan. It markets telescopes and astronomy equipment, such as mounts and eyepieces, aimed at the amateur astronomy market. The products are manufactured at Synta Taiwan's Suzhou Synta Optical Technology Co., Ltd. in Suzhou (Jiangsu), China. The brand is distributed in Canada, Europe and in the late 2000s, it was extended to the United States market.
The Givatayim Observatory is a public observatory that was founded in 1968 by the Israeli Astronomical Association and the Givatayim municipality.
The Heights Observatory is an Astronomical Observatory at The Heights School in Modbury Heights, Adelaide, South Australia.
Explore Scientific is a company founded by former Meade Instruments Vice President of Brand Community Scott W. Roberts in 2008. Headquartered in Springdale, Arkansas, the company designs and manufactures telescopes, spotting scopes, binoculars, microscopes and other scientific devices. Products are manufactured in China by JOC and imported. For Europe the Explore Scientific GmbH is responsible for the distribution of these products.
Observatory Robert A. Naef is an astronomical observatory located at Épendes, Canton of Fribourg, Switzerland at 7.13938 degrees east of Greenwich and 46.76236 degrees north latitude. Its parallax constants are : ρ sin φ' = 0.68632 and ρ cos φ' = +0.72501.
The SUNY Oneonta Observatory is an astronomical observatory in Oneonta, New York, home to the state's largest optical telescope and one of the largest publicly open east of the Mississippi, a one-meter Newtonian reflector constructed by JMI Telescopes of Lakewood, Colorado.
The Hector J. Robinson Observatory, located in Lincoln Park, Michigan, is an astronomical observatory that features a 14-inch Celestron SCT telescope. After a renovation, the observatory resumed operations in September 2009.
The Whakatane Astronomical Society is a voluntary, non-profit society for people interested in amateur astronomy in the Whakatane District of New Zealand. The society was founded in September 1960, and maintains a small observatory in Whakatane, which has been operating continuously since 1964. The society is affiliated with the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand.
Thomas Jasper Johnson or Tom Johnson was an American electronics engineer and astronomer who founded Celestron, a company which manufacturers telescopes, which revolutionized the amateur astronomy industry and hobby. Sky & Telescope magazine has called him "among the most important figures shaping the last half century of amateur astronomy."
Suzhou Synta Optical Technology Co., Ltd. is a Chinese company located in Suzhou, Jiangsu, China, the primary manufacturing subsidiary of Synta Technology Corporation of Taiwan. It produces telescopes and astronomical equipment like mounts and eyepieces for the amateur astronomical market.
UCL Observatory at Mill Hill in London is an astronomical teaching observatory. It is part of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at University College London.
