Late 70's

30 yrs 0f Amateur Equipment

Late 1970's

By the late 1970's Meade had introduced it's first in-house telescopes - the 628 and 826 reflectors, but it's main push was imported refractors and accessories. It had experienced considerable growth, as did Parks and Coulter, but still was no match for the highly successful Celestron SCT's. Unitron tried it's hand at a short focal length / rich-field refractor. And Edmund Scientific introduced a compact 4.25" reflector, whose unusual design and resulting longevity, would earn it the reputation as "the VW bug of telescopes".

	Celestron C8 8" Schmidt Cassegrain
	Meade Instruments
	Parks Optical Newtonian Reflectors
	Coulter Optical Odyssey 1 13.1" Dobsonian
	Unitron 3" Short Tube Refractor
	Edmund Scientific Astroscan 4.25" Newtonian Reflector
	Criterion Dynamax 8 8" Schmidt Cassegrain
	Cave Astrola Newtonian Reflectors
	Criterion Dynascope RV-6 6" Newtonian Reflector (price goes up)

References used:
Sky & Telescope magazine - Sky Publishing Corporation
Astronomy magazine - Kalmbach Publishing Co.

30 yrs.

Late 60's

Early 70's

Early 80's

Late 80's

Early 90's

Late 90's