Orion has been marketing good quality telescopes and accessories since the 1970's. The well known mail order house has had a reputation for excellent service. In the late 1980's they began to market a line of Japanese refractors under their own name.
|
One of the first telescopes to bear the Orion appeared in 1988. The TeleVista 60 was a 60mm f/11.7 refractor on an inexpensive alt-az mount with slo-mo in both axes. It had a .965" focuser, 2 eyepieces and a 5x24 finder. This was updated in 1993 as the TeleVista II, which replaced the former .965"" diagonal and eypieces with a hybrid diagonal and a 1 ¼" eyepiece. The Observer 60 began its life at Orion at the same time as the TelaVista. This too was a standard 60mm f/11.7 refractor on an inexpensive alt-az mount, but it had slo-mo in altitude only. It also had the .965" focuser and 5x24 finder. Later this was offered with an equatorial mount as the Observer 60 EQ. Later still the pattern was followed with the Observer 80. This was a 80mm f/11.3 optical tube on a moderate equatorial mount. It included 1 ¼" accessories and a 6x30 finder. The Sky Explorer series was started in 1989 and incorporated .965" focusers on a light duty equatorial mount with a 6x30 finder. The first were the Sky Explorer 60, a 60mm f/15 tube with .965" accessories and a 6x30 finder on an equatorial mount and the Sky Explorer 80, an 80mm f/15 tube with the same mount and accessories. A few years later both telescopes were upgraded with 1 ¼" accessories as the Sky Explorer II series. | |
| Observer 60 EQ | ||
|
In the early '90's a wider field 60mm telescope, the 60mm f/7 OmniVista 60 was made available. This was a simple but effective optical tube assembly with a 6x30 finder, 1 ¼" focuser and tripod mounting block. Also included was star diagonal and eyepiece. In 1990 a Wide Field Refractor was also added which shortly became known as the UltraScan 80. This was a high quality 80mm f/6.25 optical system with a two element low dispersion (ED) objective. It was supplied with a 2" focuser, 6x30 finder and tripod block. No diagonal, eyepiece or tripod was included. | |
| UltraScan 80 | ||
|
In 1996 the ShortTube 80 was introduced. This was an 80mm f/5 optical tube with a standard achromatic doublet objective. This unit performed surprisingly well for a short focal length optical tube. It was supplied with a 6x30 finder, 45 degree erect image diagonal, a tripod block and two 1 ¼" eyepieces. | |
| ShortTube 80 | ||
| The Skyview 90 was introduced in 1995. The tube consisted of a 90mm f/11 multi-coated objective with a 1 ¼" focuser and a 6x30 finder. Dual mounting rings attached the tube to a moderate sized "SkyView" equatorial mount with 360 degree worm gears on both axes on a collapsible aluminum tripod. An AC motor drive was optional. | ||