Celestron

The predecessor of Celestron was Valor Electronics, an electronics and military components firm founded in 1955 by Tom Johnson. Johnson became involved with telescopes when he built a 6" reflecting telescope for his two sons. In 1960, Johnson established the "Astro-Optical" division of Valor, which would later become Celestron.

By 1964, Johnson had founded "Celestron Pacific" as a division of Valor Electronics offering Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes from 4" to 22". In 1970 Celestron introduced its "C8" 8" diameter 2032 mm focal length, ƒ10 telescope, the first of a new line of telescopes built using methods developed by Celestron to produce Schmidt-Cassegrains at a high volume and low cost. These models made significant inroads into the amateur astronomical and educational communities.

Johnson, the founder of the company, sold Celestron in 1980. Celestron was acquired by Tasco in 1997 and almost went out of business when Tasco folded in 2001.

In early 2002 Celestron's rival, Meade Instruments, attempted a takeover but a bankruptcy court allowed the sale of the company back to its original owners. The company had been U.S. owned until April 2005 when it was acquired by SW Technology Corporation, a Delaware company and affiliate of Synta Technology Corporation of Taiwan. Synta is a manufacturer of astronomy equipment and related components and at that time had been a supplier for Celestron for over 15 years.

On March 13, 2012, Tom Johnson died at the age of 89.

Celestron was the first large scale commercial manufacturer of the Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, introducing its "C8" 8" diameter 2032 mm focal length, ƒ10 telescope in 1970. The primary innovation Celestron/Tom Johnson devised was a method to produce Schmidt corrector plates using a vacuum to pull the glass blanks into a pre-shaped curve mold called a "master block" during the polishing process. This allowed for inexpensive mass production of corrector plates of uniform shape. The telescope line had a trademark matte orange tube (changed to glossy black in 1980, and back to semi-gloss orange in 2006), and double-fork equatorial mount, and became a popular large aperture, compact design.

Other telescope product lines include the CGE, CGEM, CPC, Origin, Evolution, NexStar, Omni, Onyx, AstroMaster, Ambassador, TravelScope, StarSense Explorer and PowerSeeker product lines. These range from large computerized reflectors with GPS to decorative/casual viewing telescopes with brass tube refractors on wood mounts.

Celestron products (as of 2026) include:

5", 6", 8", 9.25", 11", and 14" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes (the number denoting the aperture) on German equatorial mounts (all) or fork mounts (all excluding C14), with most benefiting from GoTo control.