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Orion Telescopes & Binoculars: telescope brand overview

Orion Telescopes & Binoculars was an American retail company that sold telescopes, binoculars and accessories online and in-store for astronomy and birdwatching. It was founded in 1975 and had corporate offices in Watsonville, California.

Who Orion Telescopes & Binoculars is

Orion Telescopes & Binoculars was an American retail company that sold telescopes, binoculars and accessories online and in-store for astronomy and birdwatching. It was founded in 1975 and had corporate offices in Watsonville, California. A large proportion of its products were manufactured by the Chinese company Synta for the Orion brand name. Orion Telescopes & Binoculars shipped its products to the United States and over 20 other countries. Orion put out a semi-quarterly mail-order catalog as well as email catalogs. The company was a prominent advertiser in North American astronomy magazines, such as Sky & Telescope and Astronomy.

Orion Telescopes & Binoculars has been founded in 1975 and based in United States. It is one of the makers whose telescopes amateur astronomers meet most often, so understanding its ranges helps when you are choosing a scope or fitting accessories to one you already own.

What they are known for

Orion Telescopes and Binoculars was a long-running retailer and house brand known for its SkyQuest Dobsonians, StarBlast and SpaceProbe reflectors, and a broad accessory range aimed at beginners and intermediate observers.

Ranges from a single maker often span several optical designs and both beginner and premium tiers, so two telescopes wearing the same badge can behave very differently. The important numbers for choosing an eyepiece are always the telescope's own aperture, focal length and focuser size, not the brand on the tube.

Fitting eyepieces and accessories to a Orion Telescopes & Binoculars telescope

Whatever telescope you own from this maker, the eyepiece maths is the same: magnification is the telescope's focal length divided by the eyepiece's focal length, and the true field of view is the eyepiece's apparent field divided by that magnification. Confirm your own model's focal length and focuser barrel size, since a range can span several designs and both 1.25 inch and 2 inch fittings.

A longer focal-length scope reaches high power with ordinary eyepieces, while a short fast scope needs shorter eyepieces for the same magnification and rewards better-corrected glass. Use the Fit My Telescope tool with your exact focal length to get the magnification, true field and exit pupil for any eyepiece pairing before you buy.

FactValue
CountryUnited States
HeadquartersCalifornia
Founded1975

Structured facts from Wikidata (CC0).

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Sources: Orion Telescopes & Binoculars (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA) ยท Wikidata (CC0)