Classic Telescopes by Neil English

Author:Neil English
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer New York, New York, NY

Clearly, these were not the bogus ‘scopes so derided by the astronomical cognoscenti! They performed well beyond my expectations! So why aren’t more of us wooed by the charms of the humble 2-in. glass? For many, that enchanted state was shattered utterly and forever sometime beginning in the mid-1980s, when the shifting sands of corporate beliefs led to the slow relegation of the 60 mm refractor to the trash heap of amateur astronomy.

Formed in 1954, Tasco (or more accurately, Tanross Supply Co.) commissioned its telescopes from various suppliers in Japan. The best glass, so this author has been reliably informed, came from Astro Optical Industries Co., Ltd. (Royal brand), but later Tasco contracted the work to other Japanese companies (Towa, especially) just like a proliferation of other instruments marketed by Swift, Unitron, Jaegers, Sears, Jason, Pentax and Mayflower, to name but a few. In Britain, many fine Japanese objective lenses found their way into telescopes marketed by Hilkin and GreenKat (Fig. 6.22).

Fig. 6.22The fine 60 mm f/13.5 Hilkin achromat looks very similar to those sold under the name of Swift (Image by the author)

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