Celestron founder passes away at age 89

[mr bruess]

Celestron founder dies at age 89

Tom Johnson founded the telescope company in 1960 and revolutionized the hobby with the Celestron 8.
Johnson, first created Celestron as a division of his aerospace electronics firm, Valor Electronics.
Starting with this 1960 6-inch reflector, Johnson moved on to bigger and more sophisticated designs, and his new company was soon offering Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes in 4- to 22-inch models.

[multiweb]

One of a kind. Very sad news. RIP.

[gary]

Sad to hear of the passing of this seminal figure of the telescope manufacturing industry.

By providing iconic instruments such as the C8, Johnson and Celestron helped
popularize amateur astronomy by putting decent apertures into a transportable
mount that could be purchased 'off-the-shelf' and that many in the west for the first
time could afford.

We extend sincere condolences to his family and friends.

Best Regards

Gary Kopff
Managing Director
Wildcard Innovations Pty. Ltd.
20 Kilmory Place, Mount Kuring-Gai
NSW. 2080. Australia
Phone +61-2-9457-9049
Fax +61-2-9457-9593
sales@wildcard-innovations.com.au
http://www.wildcard-innovations.com.au

[gary]

Obituary of Tom Johnson appears in Sky and Telescope here -
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/Tom-Johnson-xxxx1502012-142534025.html

[Ric]

Sad to hear that.

He certainly was a man with a vision and brought amateur astronomy to the masses.

[traveller]

Very sad to hear, RIP. May his legacy live on...

[AstralTraveller]

He certainly made a difference. The orange tube C8 is perhaps the most iconic scope ever made. The mass-produced SCT was one of the three revolutions I've seen in making observational astronomy accessible (the others being Dobsonians and GoTo/PushTo technology) - CCDs have also revolutionised imaging. It's sad he is gone but 89 is a pretty good innings.

[astroron]

I owe my progress to Mr Tom Johnson :thanx:
I always wanted a Celestron SCT and bought My Celestron Ultima 8 in Orlando Florida in 1990 and did a Visual Supernova search with it for over ten years oserving hundreds of galaxies over that time.
The scope is still in my oservatory :D
RIP Tom Johnson:sadeyes:

[Greg Bock]

Sad news indeed.
My orange C8 that I bought in 1985 (1986? - too long ago -) was a quantum leap ahead of my 60mm refractor at the time. The clever compact design on the fork mount was a paradigm shift that allowed me to easily transport an 8" equatorial scope to darker skies away from home. I spent endless happy hours observing visually, and tinkering with astrophotography using that scope.

He certainly had a huge impact on the amateur community over the years.