Sunday, July 15, 2012
The Parade’s Gone By
As my fellow
old-timers will agree, amateur astronomy has changed in the last half century—though
opinions will differ on whether that’s been for the good or bad. I don’t think
much remains the same as it was in the mid-sixties when Unk got started. Well,
I’ll qualify that statement to say, “Everything has changed about the gear we use.” Amateur astronomy has not
changed in that it is still a special sort of pursuit for a few thoughtful
people fascinated by The Great Out There.
One other
thing that has not changed is that amateur astronomers are obsessed by telescopes.
That being the undeniable case, I thought it would be fun to take a look at
what has changed in the equipment market. Dang near fifty years is a long, long
time, but I was still amazed to sit down with the June 1966 copy of Sky and Telescope magazine and
see just how many of the oh-so-famous telescope makers in that issue’s
advertisements are not just gone, but long gone, and usually barely
remembered.
Edmund
Edmund
I’ve said it
before and I will say it again: in the sixties and well into the seventies,
Edmund Scientific WAS U.S. amateur astronomy. Their ad in the June 1966 Sky and Telescope is a full page, but is
not lavish. It’s mostly made up of little black and white pix, some of which
don’t even concern the company’s astronomy products. Didn’t matter. We all knew
Edmund was it, where most of us went or
wanted to go for what little astro-stuff we could afford.
That
continued well into the eighties, though Edmund’s prominence in the
astro-market had been waning since the seventies. What changed Edmund Scientific
was the retirement of its founder, Norman Edmund,
and, more than that, the change in amateur astronomy. By the seventies’ end,
the traditional Newtonians sold by Edmund and most other U.S. scope manufacturers
were on their way out, displaced by the new Dobsonian Newtonians and by the
higher tech and more astrophotography-capable Schmidt Cassegrains sold by those
west coast upstarts, Celestron. Unlike some of their competitors, Norman’s son
and his staff had the sense to cut back on scopes, and were thus able to keep
on trucking.
Edmund
Scientific is still around, but it’s not the Edmund it used to be; it’s been
split in two. There’s Edmund Optics, which is
the direct descendant of the original company, but its focus is different.
Mostly it’s devoted to selling optical and other “scientific” supplies to
industry and the educational market, mostly the latter, I would guess. Like similar
outfits, many of their prices are high and nobody other than a secondary school
or college would consider paying them. They do still sell the famous Edmund RKE
eyepieces for reasonable prices, but last time I checked the catalog, they were
listed as microscope eyepieces. Sigh.
The other
half of the cleaved Edmund is “Scientifics,” the consumer part of the business,
which is independently owned, having been sold off some years ago. Not that that
made much difference. The stuff they are selling is about what Edmund
Scientific was offering before the sale. There’s even astro-gear. Amazingly, some
of the old stuff is still there, like Sam Brown’s How to Use Your Telescope and The
Mag 5 Star Atlas. Telescopes, though?
All that’s left in the catalog or on the website other than Celestron and Meade
products is the little Astroscan.
Criterion
If there was
a competitor for Edmund in the hearts and minds of li’l Rod and his amateur buddies
of fifty years ago, it was Criterion. They won us over by selling a line of
Newtonian telescopes that were more reasonably priced than most and also performed
better than most. Especially the RV-6 six-inch,
which even staunch Edmundite Unk had to admit was a cut above Norman’s Super
Space Conqueror. Uncle Rod and many other amateurs still love and use that
simple but effective telescope even unto this day.
What happened
to Criterion? The same thing that caused Edmund to move to the shallow end of
the astronomy pool: SCTs. Unlike Edmund, however, who knew how to read the
cotton-picking tea leaves, Criterion decided to take on Celestron on their own
turf, producing a line of Schmidt Cassegrains, the Dynamaxes. You can read the
whole gory story in my Used CAT Buyer’s Guide, but the bottom line is
that Criterion was unable to produce consistently good Schmidt Cassegrains.
That was purty
disappointing for us Criterion fans who had expected great things from the
company given the (relatively) high quality of their German mount reflectors.
Luckily for them, Criterion’s owners, a father and son, knew when to give up
the ship and bailed out in 1982 just before the Halley debacle, selling the
company to Bausch and Lomb. The then-huge B&L no doubt thought they might
do some serious business with SCTs with the big Comet on the way. While B&L
did turn out a good CAT in the form of the 8-inch 8001 Pro, by the time they
found their feet in the bidness the astronomy gear crash was upon us and they quickly
shut the whole thing down.
While some
of the old telescope companies survive, at least in shadow existences, and
some, like Edmund, are more or less still in the astronomy game, nothing has
been heard of Criterion since the 1980s. I’ve halfway expected B&L or
somebody else to resurrect the name and plaster it on cheap imported scopes
from China, but that has not happened, which is maybe a good thing.
Jaegers
Third place for
Unk and his fellow penniless teenage amateur astronomers of the Age of Aquarius
was occupied by a little company out of Lynbrook, New York, A. Jaegers. They
didn’t sell telescopes other than the occasional Tasco, but they sold dern near
everything else. Lotsa WWII surplus, but, most of all, amateur telescope making
components. Tubes, focusers, complete GEM mounts, primary and secondary mirror
mounts, even mirror making kits.
Jaegers had
a big two page ad in Sky and Telescope,
but they ran the exact same ad month after month for over a decade, which led
to young Unk considering them a little low-rent compared to, say, Edmund. That
didn’t stop me from buying from ‘em of course—quite the opposite. Being as
bereft of funds as a twelve year old amateur astronomer can be, their stuff was
a god-send. Just a year or two after the June ’66 issue of S&T appeared in
the folks bright green mailbox, I took the bit between my teeth and used the $11.95
I’d laboriously saved (and begged from Daddy) and bought one of Jaegers’
“Astronomical Kits,” to grind and polish my own 6-inch mirror.
What
happened to Jaegers? The same thing that happened to Edmund and Criterion: the wind-change
in astronomy. By the 1980s, the ATM market had begun to collapse. Us teen astronomers from the 1960s now had the
money for store-bought telescopes, and didn’t have time for ATMing what with
getting careers and marriages started. The period at the end of the Jaegers sentence
was a fire that caused severe damage to their shop.
A. Jaegers
is remembered fondly, not just for their Newt parts and pieces, but for their
achromatic objectives. Their 4, 5, and 6-inch lenses and the refractors
amateurs fabricated with ‘em are sought after and can fetch surprising amounts
of moola today. And Jaegers may not be completely gone, continuing in a ghostly
existence today. A couple of years ago good buddy Phil Harrington reported that
Jaegers has a storefront in Millbrook New York, and I see Jaegers stuff for
sale on Surplus Shed’s website every now and then.
Cave
If there is
a company amongst the old guard that is as well thought-of or maybe even better
thought of today than they were in 1966, that is Cave Optical, the maker of the
famous Astrola GEM Newt telescopes. They were a big presence in S&T in the
sixties and on through the seventies, and were much admired by us in the peanut
butter and jelly brigade, though there was no way we could afford Mr. Thomas
Cave’s creations. Adding to their mystique and reputation were the facts that
Cave was not just the owner of the company; he was an observer of legendary
repute. And Astrolas were the choice of the day’s top names in amateur
astronomy—folks like pioneering astrophotographer Evered Kreimer.
Were Cave’s
telescopes as good as their reputation? Has that held up over time? Mostly yes
to both. Not all Cave optics are good, some are bow-wows. Most, however, are pretty good, and some, especially
those done by Cave’s superstar optician, Alika Herring, are superb. The scopes
themselves, the mounts and OTAs, are OK, but not that great by today’s
standards. Those long, gleaming white tubes and big GEM mounts look cool even
now, but in typical 60s fashion they are shakier than they look.
Cave could
probably have carried on through the 1990s and beyond despite the changing
market due to the stellar reputation of Astrola Telescopes. Alas, Tom Cave, who
was Cave Optical, was forced to
retire in 1979 due to failing health and sold the company.
“Astrola” is
still alive, off and on at least, with Hardin Optical, who purchased the rights
to the name, occasionally marketing eyepieces and other gear under that brand.
Certainly Cave is alive today for amateurs who appreciate a good Newtonian. Prices
for used Astrolas continue to climb, and the dream of many amateurs is finding
a big honking 10-inch or 12-inch at a yard sale for fifty bucks. Unk? After
admiring Astrolas in the pages of The Magazine for a decade, he fulfilled his
dream by purchasing an 8-inch in the 1970s. Only to find it really wasn’t the
scope for him. So it goes.
Starliner and Optical Craftsmen and
Pacific Instruments
I lump these
three together because I don’t know a whole lot about the businesses that
produced them. I have used their scopes, so I do know something about those,
however. The bottom line is that the three produced traditional Newts not much
different from any of the others on the market. Pacific Instruments did add a
few semi-innovations to their mounts, but not enough to really make them stand
out. The optics? I’ve used all three brands in numbers that reflect the small
numbers produced. Pacific Instruments scopes generally impress. Starliner sometimes does. Optical Craftsmen? Not so
much.
What
happened to these companies is what happened to all the other small/garage businesses
in astronomy in the seventies-eighties. Pacific and Optical Craftsmen, anyway. Starliner
continued on until at least the mid 1990s, even running small ads once in a
while. I doubt they produced many telescopes—if any—after the 80s, though. A
buddy of mine gave ‘em a call out of curiosity in the early 1990s. The person
he spoke to—maybe the company’s owner—didn’t seem much interested in
telescopes, and was especially not interested in selling telescopes.
Unitron
Ah Unitron,
Unitron, Unitron. By god, they are
still some beautiful telescopes. In The Day, their ads in Sky and ‘Scope, one
full inside page and the back cover, were almost holy. ‘Course their prices, which began at 125 bucks for a 60mm
alt-azimuth refractor, made little Rod want to holler “Holy spit!” (this is a family oriented blog, y’all) when
Mama wasn’t around. $125.00 in 1966 greenbacks is equivalent to about $1000.00
now, and Unitron’s prices just went up from there. Neither Unk nor any of his
pals in The Backyard Astronomy Society were ever able to order a telescope from
that vaunted address in Massachusetts—though one kid in the neighborhood, not
one of our members, did score the 2.4-inch Model 114—despite the hours we spent fantasizing over the little Unitron
catalog.
Unitron
telescopes were high in quality and are still fairly impressive today. Their
achromatic objectives can’t hold a candle quality-wise to modern refractor
glass, of course, but they still do pretty well given their high f/16ish focal
ratios. You probably won’t be surprised to learn Unitron telescopes are highly
sought after today by aging baby-boom astronomers attempting to relive or
rewrite their youth. Over on the Cloudy Nights
Classic Telescopes bulletin board, the mere mention of the U-word causes an immediate stampede of fanboys.
What killed Unitron?
Like everybody else, they were hit hard by the recession of the seventies, and
even moreso by the growing interest in astrophotography. Imaging Stephan’s
Quintet with an f/16 scope did not have much appeal, after all. Most fatally,
the Japanese company Unitron bought its parts/scopes from, Nihon Seiko, went
out of business. Unitron continued selling refractors and mounts through the
80s, and their website showed a couple of telescopes in the product lineup as
recently as the late 1990s (though I doubt they could have supplied one by
then). Unitron is actually not dead; it is still alive selling microscopes.
If little
Unk had read the above paragraph in 1966 he would have been shocked to learn
that Unitron did not make its own scopes. He would have been doubly shocked to
learn that most of the parts used to make the scopes, and usually the entire
scopes and mounts, were made in Japan, just like the dreaded Tascos. Like Tasco, Unitron (“United
Trading Company”) never made a thing. They imported Japanese parts and
telescopes, just like Tasco. Generally the scopes they sold were of far higher
quality than the Tascos, but not always.
Tasco
Until
recently, you didn’t hear many amateurs talk about Tasco, even though they played
a huge—if often uncredited—role in the amateur astronomy of the 1960s, at least
amateur astronomy as practiced by us younguns. There is no doubt more of us had
Tascos than Edmunds or Criterions.
I went into
the details here, but the fact is Tasco
imported some excellent telescopes, including ones made by or including
components by legendary Japanese companies like Goto and Royal. The dirtiest
little secret of them all? That Ford Pinto of amateur telescopes, the 4.5-inch Tasco
Lunagrosso, was equal to most and superior to some American-made telescopes of
similar aperture.
As I wrote
in the above-linked article, what ended Tasco was the retirement of their owner
coupled with a need, or at least a desire, to compete in the Halley driven
telescope market of the mid 1980s by importing cheaper and cheaper scopes. The
name “Tasco” is still around and on plenty of the inexpensive Chinese telescopes
that inhabit Wal-Mart at Christmastime, but that company has no relation to the
original. The most surprising thing, given how me and my mates used to badmouth
everything Tasco, is how almost any Tasco
telescope is now much desired by, yep, nostalgic Boomer amateurs. Never thought
I’d live long enough to see that, y’all.
And so the parade has gone by. Most of the companies who ran those
drooled-over ads in the summer of 1966 are no more or have changed beyond all
recognition. Do I miss the amateur astronomy of that long gone time? Once in a
while. Who ain’t nostalgic for their youth? And my youth was amateur astronomy. That is tempered, of course, by the
knowledge that I am having just as much or more fun in the amateur astronomy of
today, and am seeing one hell of a lot more. Still, muchachos, when Unk’s eye is
at the eyepiece of his RV-6 it is not unusual to hear him emit the occasional
sigh.
Next Time:
DOWN CHIEFLAND WAY!..
Comments:
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Rod,
I too fondly remember those days of old. I bought an 8 inch Cave Astrola.. It was a beast but had wonderful optics. I too drooled over the Unitron ads and the full page Questar ad in Sky and Tel. When I could finally afford a Questar I finally realized it was only a 3.5 inch telescope built like a jewel though. I remember putting together a 5 inch refractor with a Jaegers objective. Anyway another great article as always.
Best regards,
Pat Noisworthy
I too fondly remember those days of old. I bought an 8 inch Cave Astrola.. It was a beast but had wonderful optics. I too drooled over the Unitron ads and the full page Questar ad in Sky and Tel. When I could finally afford a Questar I finally realized it was only a 3.5 inch telescope built like a jewel though. I remember putting together a 5 inch refractor with a Jaegers objective. Anyway another great article as always.
Best regards,
Pat Noisworthy
# posted by 
: 9:21 AM
: 9:21 AM
Yeah, that's a big "me too" on the Questar, good buddy. Though I still think about getting one every once in a while... As for the Astrola? A couple of times of loading it back in the car in the depths of an Arkansas Ozard Mountains winter is what killed that "dream scope" for me. LOL.
I have an eight inch Cave that needs some serious restoration work. She was given to my by a college science department about 10 years ago. The focuser and mount are bad, but the optics are "WOW". The scope I believe is an f/7. One of these days I will have the mirrors re-coated and mount it on my Losmandy G-11 and see how she works with a CCD.
# posted by : 11:20 AM
: 11:20 AM
Millbrook? I don't recall saying that, Unk. Last I saw (2004), Jaegers had reopened *Lynbrook*, their original town, but at a different address. www.ajaegers.com
Millbrook, Lynnbrook, they are both "brooks" ain't they?! Oh, well, I've got to admit my memory is ONE of the things that's been going south lately. LOL.
Sigh...nothing but amazing. I love Unk's blog. I'm a little younger, but not a lot, and spent many formative years as a teen and young teen in the 70s drooling over the same catalogs, for the same reasons. Jaegers, Edmund...yup, bought stuff from them.
A buddy got an RV6 and yes, that was the bomb-diggedty of our crowd. (Till I mowed enough lawns to build an 8" with a mirror from Coulter, I had to go bigger than Jim, of course!)
Now staring my 50's in the face, it's all changed, and I too fondly look back at those uncomplicated days. On the other hand, I sure like that CCD imager and GOTO! I figure I earned 'em, after decades of starhopping with the Skalnate Pleso, by golly.
And...the stuff I drooled after, I can now afford...especially since used scopes few understand are often crazy cheap on Craigslist! So now I have a 4 1/4" Edmunds Deluxe Space Conqueror, an original astroscan, a 3 1/8" inch Jaegers refractor..and a massive piece that screams Science with a capital S, a Unitron 76mm photo equatorial, festooned with guide scopes and finders, and which I set up with trembling hands after 30+ years of wanting one so bad I could taste it, but never dreamed I'd ever even see..let alone in my living room. It's a rare day you get something you've wanted so long for so bad, and boy was it a good day. Especially for $200 2012 dollars! (The ad said make an offer, and apparently, I was the only one who would commit to one!)
anyhow, thanks again for your blog, Unca Rod
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A buddy got an RV6 and yes, that was the bomb-diggedty of our crowd. (Till I mowed enough lawns to build an 8" with a mirror from Coulter, I had to go bigger than Jim, of course!)
Now staring my 50's in the face, it's all changed, and I too fondly look back at those uncomplicated days. On the other hand, I sure like that CCD imager and GOTO! I figure I earned 'em, after decades of starhopping with the Skalnate Pleso, by golly.
And...the stuff I drooled after, I can now afford...especially since used scopes few understand are often crazy cheap on Craigslist! So now I have a 4 1/4" Edmunds Deluxe Space Conqueror, an original astroscan, a 3 1/8" inch Jaegers refractor..and a massive piece that screams Science with a capital S, a Unitron 76mm photo equatorial, festooned with guide scopes and finders, and which I set up with trembling hands after 30+ years of wanting one so bad I could taste it, but never dreamed I'd ever even see..let alone in my living room. It's a rare day you get something you've wanted so long for so bad, and boy was it a good day. Especially for $200 2012 dollars! (The ad said make an offer, and apparently, I was the only one who would commit to one!)
anyhow, thanks again for your blog, Unca Rod
# posted by : 7:46 PM
: 7:46 PM << Home
