Brand

Used Celestron telescopes

Celestron grew out of Valor Electronics, the company Tom Johnson founded in 1955. Johnson started an astro-optical division in 1960, the name became Celestron in 1964, and in 1970 the orange-tube C8 put an 8-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain within reach of ordinary amateurs. The C14 joined the line in 1972, tubes turned black in the early 1980s and went back to orange in 2006, and the EdgeHD flat-field tubes arrived in 2009. The company changed hands several times, to Tasco in 1997 and in 2005 to SW Technology, a company tied to Synta, the Taiwanese firm behind Sky-Watcher. Celestron is still in business, so current tubes, hand controllers and support are easy to find, and its SCT optics have kept the same basic formula for decades.

6 models we cover.