Oddly enough, this ‘new’ design solved all the issues that critics had complained about with the Astroscan: it had different eyepieces, you could now collimate it, etc. Of course it lost its classic design and character in the process, and if that design looks a bit familiar it is because other companies have been producing for over a decade:

The Voyager was not as sturdy as the Astrscan, having a coated styrofoam body instead of ABS, but it had a cost of $199 vs the Astroscan’s $360. Other imitators soon popped up, such as the Orion Funscope:

EdmundScientific catalogPDF

The Astroscan used standard 1.25″ eyepieces so almost any eyepiece produced today will work with it. (The only other standards are .965″ which is rare these days and 2″ which are for larger telescopes). Color filters and light pollution filters thread onto the eyepieces and are also pretty universal. You can find some at our website http://www.spectrum-scientifics.com in the telescope accessories section, but we are by no means the only supplier.

what happened to the edmundscientificcatalog?

The Spirit of the Astroscan is not gone forever, either, Astronomer Norm Sperling, who actually worked on the original Astroscan design ran a Kickstarter Program to develop an Astroscan inspired telescope.  In fact, it is essentially the Astroscan made by more modern methods and suppliers. The kickstarter has ended, however, and it is unknown if production will continue.

I was always about to buy an Astroscan because of the portability but never did. Instead I ended up with a Meade 8″ SCT…a bit more expensive!

So what was the story behind this little telescope? Why was it so different than other telescopes? What happened to it? Why was it so loathed and loved? I shall try to answer these questions with my limited experience of having worked for Edmund Scientific for the last couple of years that the Edmund family owned the Scientifics division (The Edmund family still owns the Industrial Optics portion of the company).

Its not clear what happened, but somewhere someone dropped something shouldn’t have, or something wore out, or …well anything. The mold used to produce the Astroscan body broke. That is all we know at this point. It could have been wear & tear, having been used to produce at least 90,000 telescope bodies.

I’m afraid I do not. I am unaware of any listing of serial numbers and I suspect the Edmund Company long discarded any such listings when they sold off the Scientifics division.

EdmundScientificCompany

Great and informative article. I was given a used astroscan as a gift years ago so naturally it came with no manual or accessories. Thanks for such a detailed history of this unique little telescope. I like it even more now. Do you know if I might be able to find accessories such as extra lenses, filters etc. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Quite a few of the astroscans you see on ebay have a “made in china” sticker on the secondary holder. When did that take place? It’s not mentioned but I believe the early versions used Japanese optics made by Carton.

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Some rays on an aberrated wavefront focus to a different point, W, than do rays that are perpendicular to the reference sphere.

Is EdmundScientificstill in business

I had an astroscan from 1960’s til the 1990’s when my husband knocked it over and it broke. Easiest scope I’ve ever used. I loved it and was able to view many deep sky objects with a Barlow lens. Took it everywhere that hanging strap was handy. So easy to locate objects that to this day I can’t get used to a standard mount. Interesting to read about it’s history. Sad it’s no longer made what with the retro craze now.

Other, ‘interesting’ Astroscan imitators appear courtesy of Edmund’s Chinese agents. The most internally infamous of which was a model (one never developed for the consumer) which was just straight optical tube shoved into a painted metal ball. It was immensely heavy compared to a traditional astroscan and had just a piece of colored tape to cover the seam between to the tube and the ball. The telescope famously used the rack end of a zip-tie for its focuser rack. Oddly enough the optics in the telescope were not bad!

I had an astroscan from 1970’s til the 1990’s when my husband knocked it over and it broke. Easiest scope I’ve ever used. I loved it and was able to view many deep sky objects with a Barlow lens. Took it everywhere that hanging strap was handy. So easy to locate objects that to this day I can’t get used to a standard mount. Interesting to read about it’s history. Sad it’s no longer made what with the retro craze now.

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In 2001 it was announced that Science Kit & Boreal Lab would purchase the Edmund Scientific. All work on the New Astroscan Project ceased. Edmund continued to produce the Astroscan for SK&BL while they consolidated the move to their facility, but eventually they set up production of the Astroscan in China. The quality was a bit more concerning and the classic RKE eyepieces were replaced with generic Plossl eyepieces (partly because the Edmund family still claimed the rights to the RKE eyepieces and sold them in their Industrial Catalog for years afterwards).

Some decisions were made for its contruction. It initially did not have any aiming mechanism as it being a rich field telescope was assumed to be good enough to along (it wasn’t). The problem was mostly aesthetics: Any aiming mechanism would spoil the clean lines fo the Astroscan’s body. Eventually a sheet metal aiming deveice was developed that helped. Later models, as shown in the above picture, had a red-dot finder added for aiming.

In Toy Fair 2018 I encountered what could be called the remains of VWR’s Edmund Scientific division and the man in the booth mentioned they were working with Edmund Optics to bring the original Astroscan back. No word if that has gone anywhere but I did not see them with a booth at this year’s Toy Fair.

A reference sphere isn’t a physical structure; it’s just a mathematical construct that the wavefront of the electromagnetic radiation is compared to. If the electromagnetic wavefront has the shape of the reference sphere, then the wavefront will come to a perfect focus at the center of the sphere. Remember that the definition of a ray specifies that rays are drawn perpendicular to the wavefront. All of the rays associated with a spherical wavefront will intersect at the center of the sphere. If the wavefront is not spherical, some of the rays will pass through the center of the sphere.

The Astroscan was aimied squarely at novice users and this was both a help and hinderance. Hardcore amatuer astronomers were grumpy that so much effort was put into a telescope that wasn’t aimed at their needs, and didn’t address what they felt was ideal in a beginner telescope. The validity of their arguments continues to be debated to this day.

By this time, the Astroscan had quite a number of years since its development and was starting to look a little long in the tooth. It hadn’t had much attention paid to its design in years (the last major changes happened when the production was moved to Japan). There were other issues:  The Astroscan screamed 70’s design, but not loudly enough to provoke nostalgia. It’s cost had also risen to over $350 Much higher than optically similar models), the product copy hadn’t even been rewritten in what seemed liked decades (dated-sounding references to ‘Space-Age design’ were still present as of the 1999 catalog).

Spherical aberrations occur for lenses that have spherical surfaces. Rays passing through points on a lens farther away from an axis are refracted more than those closer to the axis. This results in a distribution of foci along the optical axis.

EdmundScientific catalogVintage

Other features of the Astroscan would be introduced later, mostly as accessories: A threadable solar projection system, a moon hook that would allow the Astroscan to be mounted to classic Equatorial mounts, a camera-style tripod that was designed especially to allow the Astroscan’s base to thread onto it, an image inverter, and a few more items were developed.

Monochromatic aberrations can be grouped into several different categories: spherical, coma, astigmatism, field curvature, and distortion.The idea of reference sphere is often used in discussions of aberrations. For all spheres, a ray drawn perpendicular to the sphere’s surface will intersect the center of the sphere, no matter what spot on the surface is picked.

My only complaint is that there’s no way to lock it in place if I want to attach a camera. I used to have the aluminum arm that could be used to attach it to a tripod, but it seems I lost that years ago. Maybe I can find one online somewhere.

The Astroscan did well as telescopes sales go. The exact numbers are unclear but in its lifetime it is assumed to have sold around 90,000 units, making for around 2400 units per year, which is good numbers for a company that does not exclusivelty sell telescopes.

EdmundScientificstore

Thanks for the great article! I was very sad when I discovered that the Astroscan wasn’t being made any longer. I hope someone eventually brings the model back into production.

Other features of the Astroscan were controversial: To reduce costs the focuser used a rubber wheel (as opposed to a rack and pinion system) that would press against the eyepiece’s base and move when the focuser knob was turned. But this wheel would develop ‘flats’ that made for a bumpy focusing experience, and in very cold weather it could shrink and not ‘grab’ the eyepiece properly. That said, some people loved it, including the founder of Orion Telescopes, Tim Geisler.

Great article! My high school had an Astroscan and my physics teacher woul let me take it home over summer holidays. I always had a soft spot for that scope. A couple years ago I stumbled upon one for $50.00! I’m in love all over again! My primary scope is an 8″ Dob but, “Red Dwarf” is so easy to use and rugged. I keep it in the trunk of the car.

The Astroscan had been planned on being sold below $100.00 and much of the developement issues were based on that cost limit. But this was to cause a few growing pains for the Astroscan. For one, the 70’s were an era of major inflationary pressures and keeping costs down just was not possible. At some point in the 80’s a decision was made to move production to the less expensive Japan. Production began in that nation after many, many, many long meetings and trips by the senior brass from Edmund.

The simple fact is that Edmund Scientific was not really poised to become a full manufacturer of telescopes like Meade, Celestron, or Orion. They had a great contender with the Astroscan, but all of their other models were not as able to support their costs of development. While some of the telescopes  Edmund made in the 60’s were classics, they would not be able to compete in the modern market.  Edmund did not develop an import line of telescopes the way other major telescope brands did. This is not a surprise as the Edmund company found there was more money to be made developing industrial optics than there was in the telescope market.

Only the specialty items for the Astroscan will be hard to locate, such as the solar projector, the sheet metal finder, the image erector,and the various tripod mounts.

Japan’s production, like most things in the Astroscan’s history, was polarizing. Some considered the Astroscans of that era to the worst ones ever made (even calling them ‘Astroscams’) while others declared Japan’s attention to optical details produced some of the best models made. In any case, production costs in Japan rose steadily over the years to the point where, when combined with the overseas shipping costs, it was no longer economical to produce the Astroscan in Japan. Production was returned to Barrington, NJ in the USA.

Under SK&BL or one of the other administrating companies the Astroscan continued to be sold until 2013, when disaster struck.

EdmundScientificfreecatalog

I bought my Astroscan forty years ago when I was sixteen. I still have it and I still love it! I don’t know where it was built but the optics are excellent and the focus knob works fine. Mine has the sheet metal aiming device. Last December I used it to view Jupiter and Saturn during the Great Conjunction!

By comparing the wavefront of the electromagnetic radiation with the reference sphere, it is possible to determine what aberrations are present in an image and how severe they are.

Hi thisguy, I went and looked and, well, that reminds me of that China-made knock-off I mentioned in the article: A tube stuck in a globe. The only difference is that the China model was metal and very heavy. I have no idea what these are made of. I hope that your assessment is wrong, but this does seem to be a long time being made. I was a little concerned with the low level of cost for the kickstarter as a mold for the design would eat up a huge chunk of any development money.

Even worse, the patent on the design was due to run out in 2000 and a slew of imitators came in. The most visible of which was the Bushnell Voyager

Another interesting design from Jerry Oltion that he calls the track ball telescope, and placed intentionally in the public domain- maybe Norm Sperling should have teamed up with him!

EdmundScientificwebsite

Other issues were a problem. Edmund had introduced a series of lower-cost beginner telescopes to work as a fleet with the Astroscan as the Flagship, but none of them garnered much success. The wholesale program became a morass as other retailers undercut Edmund’s pricing, or even broke up the telescope into its component parts and sold them individually to get around any Minimum Advertised Price policy Edmund might introduce. The wholesale program also did not account for retail inventory needs, so telescopes were often shipped out to other retailers when Edmund’s own retail telescope sale needs were not fulfilled.

In 1976 the Edmund Scientific company started developing a telescope that would be its flagship model. The idea was to make something that was easy to use, easy to transport, and wouldn’t look out of place in a 1970’s Living Room. Given that in that era almost all commerically sold telescopes were tripod mounted things that took up a lot of real estate when set-up this was bit of a sea change. The optical system was developed so that the customer would not have to do any maintenance (or collimation) that reflectors often required. It was also designed with an optical window so that dust and other debris entering the tube would be minimized. The body was developed out of ABS plastic to be as durable as possible, and was smooth enough so that it would ‘roll’ on its base without being so slippery as to move with a hard breath.

Interesting! Indeed, I maybe am being a little harsh, but his kickstarter supporters are pretty frazzled. I was noticing the “prototype” seems like an actual astroscan, painted. In any case, maybe the story will have a positive end, but I do not think it will be a rebirth of the astroscan. In any case, maybe you have seen this, Jerry Oltion built a scaled up tribute to the astroscan, including a clock drive: http://www.jerryoltion.com/astroscan.htm

A harder barrier for the Astroscan to overcome was its low-power. Being a rich field telescope with only 1 eyepiece included it had what seemed like an anemic 16x magnification. This was in an age where retail department store telescopes were sick with ludicrious claims of unattainable magnification (640x!!!!). Edmund had hoped to have their new telescope sold by wholesale as well as through their famous catalog, and seeing this stylish but-low-powered telescope next to the fake claims of cheaper telescopes was a hinderance to those long-term wholesale plans.

Aberrations are errors in an image that occur because of imperfections in the optical system. Another way of saying this is that aberrations result when the optical system misdirects some of the object’s rays. Optical components can create errors in an image even if they are made of the best materials and have no defects. Some types of aberrations can occur when electromagnetic radiation of one wavelength is being imaged (monochromatic aberrations), and other types occur when electromagnetic radiation of two or more wavelengths is imaged (chromatic aberrations). The origins and consequences of chromatic radiation were discussed in the previous section.

Molds are costly, and while developing a new model could have been done it would have required new machining, new engineer work, and a host of other aspects. ScientificsOnline decided to not produce a new mold. Instead they introduced the Astroscan Millenium, a mini Dobsonian with similar optical characterisics.

When Science Kit and Boreal Lab bought Edmund Scientific (not Edmund Optics) they set up production so it could be produced in China (this was after a year or so of having the Edmund facility produce the Astroscan for them). This is also when they went from having RKE eyepiece to Plossl eyepieces.

Unfortunately, it appears Norm Sperling essentaily scammed his kickstarter supporters out of $30K – he had no actual design for a telescope, if you read his updates they sound like complete BS. He does not really respond to those who donated, and he has some malarkey on there about the backers giving him suggestions, and hiring an “engineer”. He has a picture of a conventional little relector in a plastic sphere, sitting in a stainless dog bowl as a stand …..

Someone on Cloudynights is compiling a list of Astroscan serial numbers. It looks like the first 2 digits on Japanese serial numbers refers to the year of manufacture, so mine must be one of the last made in Japan. https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/614587-classic-edmund-astroscan-2001-serial-number-registry-add-your-info-here/

In 2000, plans and committees were set up at Edmund to help revitalize the aging Astroscan. Message boards were inquired, costs assessed, ideas explored, et cetera. Among those plans it was decided to do an ‘almost-overhaul’ of the Astroscan. The optics would be changed to more modern and less costly counterparts. A mechanical engineer was sourced to develop and improve the focuser. Sourcing parts from Asia was explored to reduce cost while still keeping the production in the USA. Eyepiece changes were considered and it even variations on the body color (a star pattern on black was considered, not uncommon today but radical for the time) were considered, as well as a possible oversized (6″ mirror) version! The overall plan was to get the Astroscan competitive in the new playing field, to answer as many of its criticisms as we possibly could, and overall revitalize what had become a dusty corner of the world’s telescope offerings. How much would the new Astroscan differ from the old one? We’ll never know.

Now, a granddaughter is interested in astronomy and I thought of the Astroscan and ended up here reading your excellent history of the scope. Unfortunately, living in the Chicago area, the light pollution is awful and I’m thinking a pair of binoculars might be a better idea as the field is very wide and only the brightest objects are visible here. Binocs are cheap for the optical quality, incredibly so, are easy to aim and usually come with a screw mount for a tripod…

“Its an old design that should have been put to rest a long time ago, there are much better models in that size and price range!”

Although not as rage-inducing as the PC/Mac wars, there definitely was an element of form vs function with the Astroscan. Yes, they did go out of collimation despite the claims, and it was very hard to get them back. That said, I have seen ones bought in 2nd hand stores on the cheap that were perfectly collimated – everything else was messed up, however.

It essentially a red version of the Orion Starblast Mini-Dob. The irony here is that the StarBlast was designed to match the optical features of the Astroscan. Welcome to your closed circle.

The back and forth actually reminds me more than a little bit of of the old Mac vs. PC wars on newsgroups, where PC advocates objected to people buying things that might not have been as  powerful or economic as what they used and Mac advocates vehemently defended their choices with rabidity and dared to be a fraction of the marketplace. Of course, in this case the scale was much smaller.

I have a Japan Edmund Astroscan and I have a early American Edmund Astroscan I love how they perform and my grandchildren love them as well. would not sell or trad them for nothing. These are heirloom telescops. So easy to use that my 3 year old granddaughter uses it. So sad that they are not making them no more. I enjoyed reading this article. thank you.

Hallo Lisa, every now and then you can find Astroscans in the US market of used telescopes. Try Ebay for example. But try to get one still made in the USA. They were better. I still have my Astroscan from the 80s and there was never and will never be a more fun and practical scope for the pure pleasure of observing wide fields at f4.2.

The Astroscan may hold a record for the longest running mass-produced telescope on the market, possibly only beat out by some of the classic Cassegrain models. It is also was one of the most controversial telescopes made (at least that wasn’t an outright scam or waste of people’s money). A simple search for the Astroscan in Astronomy forums reveals that the little red telescope has many detractors, and many defenders: