Celestron Telescopes History

Celestron began in the 1950s as Valor Electronics, an aerospace electronics firm. Celestron’s founder, Tom Johnson, became interested in telescopes and astronomy when looking for a suitable telescope for his two young sons. Tom decided to build a telescope from scratch. Starting with a 6" reflector, he progressed to building increasingly larger and more sophisticated designs. Tom’s hobby soon grew into a full-time business, offering Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes in 4" to 22" models.

In 1970 Celestron telescope designers and engineers announced a revolutionary method of producing Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes at a reasonable cost and in volume. This optical breakthrough was incorporated in the first Celestron C8. The popularity of the C8 Celestron telescope in the consumer marketplace led to the C5 Celestron telescope and then to larger versions, including an 11" and 14" telescope. The Celestron telescopes product line still features 5", 8", 11" and 14" models but has been broadened to include a number of refractors, reflectors and a complete line of binoculars and spotting scopes. Many people still remember Celestron for its orange color C8’s, but many more are now familiar with the other product offerings. Major colleges and universities worldwide use Celestron telescopes in their astronomy programs. Throughout the world, Celestron telescopes have always been the "telescope of choice". The Celestron reputation is so good in the scientific community that the C5 from the Celestron telescope line has been chosen over all competing models by NASA to be taken on several space shuttle research missions.