Few Days ago, I received the Australian Sky and Telescope issue #53. It still mentioned the Astro Optical Supplies as the dealer in the Orion two-page advertisement.
I also purchased my first scope as a teenager. Well my parents bought it, but it was in about 1989. It was a 5" Vixen Newtonian, on a GE mount. Had a slide focuser, which was pretty unusual. That was from the Melbourne store when they were in the Bourke Street, in a little mall. 200 Bourke Street I think from memory. Some others may remember the shop. Used to love going there and just looking, and I still have a picture in my head of the shop.
Very sad indeed, have visited both stores many times over the years, I wish all involved all the best for the future and thank them for there past service and advice, clear skies.
It is sad news indeed to see such a long establish business shut down. I read with interest all your comments and will take this on board. For my part, I started my astronomy business online in 2007 and now have a store in cairns only opened on the 1st of December. The online part of my business is important although not such a cheap option as many might imagine (google costs big $ if you are prepared to spend it)
I still have my greatest success by talking to people finding out there needs, demonstrating products to them and providing good after sales service. It is a shame that so little is made in Australia today including in Amateur Astronomy, except at the very highest end of custom built.
I also purchased my first scope as a teenager. Well my parents bought it, but it was in about 1989. It was a 5" Vixen Newtonian, on a GE mount. Had a slide focuser, which was pretty unusual. That was from the Melbourne store when they were in the Bourke Street, in a little mall. 200 Bourke Street I think from memory. Some others may remember the shop. Used to love going there and just looking, and I still have a picture in my head of the shop.
A bit sad, and has brought back some memories.
G'day Marshman, I hope you're doing okay up there mate!
Keith Bambury from the ASV worked/managed the store and I received my first scope in 1983 for a XMas present - a 60mm Amasco refractor, along with my first 6" blank and grinding/polishing supplies.
The first I knew of Astro Optical Supplies, though it was then The Amateur Astronomers Supply Company, was in 1969 when I met him at an Astronomical Society of NSW meeting. I had just joined the Society,and am still a member. We became friends and I use to go to the shop after work on Thursday nights.and we would talk telescopes. My first serious telescope was the one I assembled from the components from Eric's shop. It was a 8 inch Newtonian on an equatorial mount. I built a variable frequency 240 volt AC power supply for tracking and guiding it for photography.
In early 1973 I was at the shop when Eric said this looks interesting but too expensive, and handed me a brochure for the Celestron 8 inch SCT. The next time I visited the shop, I said Eric, get me one, so he did. I believe it was the first one sold in Sydney and possibly in Australia. I still have it but I removed the forked mount and mount it a German equatorial mount.
Where have you been all these years Kevin? I am sure you must much to contribute to this forum so welcome.
I can recall AASC when it was at Willoughby, before the move to Clarke St. So long ago now.
As a member of ASNSW do you attend the star parties at Ilford? I can recommend attending if you need to spark up your interest.
I also remember fondly Astro Optical in Melbourne as a child of the 1980s.
It was at Mid-city arcade, 200 Bourke St when I first “discovered” Astro Optical. As a child, I simply couldn’t afford a telescope, so it was always a real big treat for me when I go into the city just to see their telescopes from the window display. Comet Halley craze in 1986 was also a real delight for me seeing Myer devoting a big section of their store at Level 4 or 5 selling those mainly red/white tube Tasco telescopes (at least red tube on Tasco’s packaging box), and even Coles was selling 50mm Tasco red tube refractors. Dick Smith also belt out a 40mm dull brown red tube refractor telescope to cope with/cash in the Halley fever. The icing on the cake for a refractor then for me was the 80mm equatorial Tasco on display at the shop front at Michael’s camera store (corner of Lonsdale and Elizabeth St selling close to $900 from memory).
I still remember Astro Optical hanged a small 6 or 8 inch tin Moon map globe on their shop window at 200 Bourke, eventually they had to stick a sign saying “not for sale” as they obviously had so many people asking about it!
Back then, Astro Optical were big in selling a line of Vixen refractors and reflectors, they are dream instruments for me.
Eventually, in the early 1990s, I saved my money, bite the bullet and splashed and bought my 60mm F700mm white tube Skymaster refractor on a yoke mount with wonky wooden mount legs from Astro Optical. By then it moved to a shop front underneath Southern Cross Hotel in Bourke St (now dismantled and replaced with the new Australia Post building).
I still have the scope, instruction manual, packaging box, outer carton box, and THE Astro Optical receipt, a whopping $220 I paid for it! Now I can buy the same/similar thing second hand (with aluminium legs) on eBay for $10-20…! Keeping this frac as a memento of my wonder years…The shop keeper at Astro Optical told me they threw away the three crappy eyepieces that originally came with the scope and replaced with 9mm and 25mm Kellner eyepieces instead. I asked if I can also have the original eyepieces but he said he threw them out. He did warn me about the wonky legs that came with this batch of 60mm scopes, but I was going to buy my brand new frac no matter what.
I also asked him about the stopped down 6 x24 finder scope and he pulled out a 30mm white tube finder scope, another unreachable dream unit for me then…but, although things were harder to get then, you treasure them more. Certainly I still appreciate my 60mm frac as much as my larger fracs. Each has its place and function, accepting its limitation as a 60mm frac, I love the unmatched text book perfect diffraction rings from my 60mm fracs, and the grab and go with ease option they offer.
Last I saw Astro Optical was when they moved to an arcade at Flinders St, Melbourne in the late 1990s. Still decent units being sold there then.
Astro Optical has an everlasting place in my astronomical memories…an era when the sun was warmer yellow and the sky ever more blue. I miss those good old days and Astro Optical……time always flies too quickly…..sad....
Probably going to cause a storm here, but these were the guys that were recommended to me a few years ago by the Tak distributor in Australia for doing collimation work on Tak refractors. My TOA130 had a mishap at home and I sent it to them as they advised they could re collimate. Wrong move, it ended up having to be sent back to Japan for a complete rebuild/repair. The Tak engineers were somewhat less than impressed at what they received. A very expensive exercise indeed.
i'm restoring my grandfathers 72-75 10" newt at the moment
mount is all fixed up and working with the clock drive, just had to fix some circuitry in the box - any tips on polar aligning other than roughly pointing to polaris australis
the declination axis has an adjustment knob but it seems like its not actually moving the scope but ill work that out, there are 2 pins labeled (drive index ring dec) that i think may have something to do with it)
I missed this thread a few years back when it started, so it's good to see it revived. I also have a lot of memories of AOS, starting in the 60's when it was the Amateur Astronomers Supply Company. My first visits were before Eric Witcombe took it over. The original guy, whose name I no longer remember, was a nice guy but apparently had problems with keeping the business side turning over. He disappeared, was the impression I was given, when I visited the shop one day and the people who I had the impression were the receivers were there.
I first used the place to buy some Ortho eyepieces and a better finder for my first telescope, these were Polarex/Unitron items. And a big improvement on the Huygens eyepieces that had come with the 6-inch reflector I'd bought second hand. The finder, 40mm, was likewise a big step up from the 20mm or so brass spyglass that the scope had.
Later years, Eric ran the place, then Monty. Monty had a good technician, who generally did seem to know how to test scopes, how to fix things, and when he'd reached his limits. That was in the 80's.
I bought a few Newtonians there over the years, including a 10-inch f/6 on an Astro-optical mount that had good mirrors and was a very nice deep-sky instrument. That was in the early 80's. It was one of quite a few telescopes I bought there over the decades, a more recent one being a Celestron 9 1/4 SCT , one of the new versions with XLT coatings, in 2004. A good scope, except for the barely adequate diagonal that Celestron supplied, that I soon replaced.
I'm not too surprised that they went out of business eventually, because as mentioned already their web site was not helpful, with its price categories and patchy information. Not an encouraging interface to the outside world. And that makes a big difference with an online world.
just as a follow on from above,. it was Keith Banberry who ran the Melbourne shop for a while. He took over from a fascinating German who used to grind his own mirrors in the back of the shop. He had some stories to tell about crossing from East Germany to West Germany and going back for his relatives. As far as I know, Keith was only an ordinary member of the ASV but he did distinguish himself later after returning to complete his degree at Monash. finally becoming a lecturer in the physics department and then moved, a few years ago I believe, to ANSTO and the Australian Synchotron.
Going through my files the other day I came across an old Amateur Astronomers Supply Co. catalogue (foolscap). What is interesting is that they were also located at 17 Alexander St , Crows Nest. I only ever went to the Clarke St. store and that was around 1966-1967. The Alexander St. catalogue shows £'s and then in $'s, which is indicative of the change to decimal currency at that time. I looked at Google Earth and both shops appear to be still there, albeit one a cafe and the other a pizza shop. In fact it looks like most of Crows Nest shops look like eateries I can't believe that it is over 50 years since my first visit to the AASC and as as many of us oldies ask "where has the time gone?" Still got my first telescope from them along with eyepieces, books, charts etc.
Like others I recall the store with fondness, early to mid-80's, although as a teenager I was rarely able to afford anything of substance and usually had to be content with looking. It was a great day when I handed over the cash for the three volumes of Burnham's Celestial Handbook.