About Orion USA

Orion (USA) have been producing their popular Skyquest™ range of Dobsonian mount telescopes for many years, with aperture sizes ranging from 6" to 12" (named correspondingly the XT6, XT8, XT10 and XT12).

Astronomy for Kids

Orion even complement their Dobsonian range with a lower-budget 4.5" scope named the Starblast Astro which is aimed squarely at kids, so they begin astronomy with a worthwhile high quality telescope capable of grabbing their interest from the very beginning.

Orion Telescopes and Binoculars based in Santa Cruz, California was started in 1975 by Tim Gieseler. Originally known as "Optronic Technologies", it designed and manufactured electronic accessories for amateur telescopes.

Popular & High Quality

If you spend much time exploring the popular astronomy forums and personal review sites (I spent about 2 months research before deciding to get the XT10i), you will quickly determine that the XT range are highly regarded not only as excellent telescopes for newbie astronomers, but the other impression you get is that people who buy an Orion Skyquest™ IntelliScope XT scope, continue to use it as a long term favourite, even if they later purchase other telescopes.

Next section: The Orion XT10 Primary Mirror

Reference Links:

• Orion Telescope & Binoculars Website
• SCS Astro (the only UK supplier I could find of the Orion USA Skyquest XT range)