What is the future of the well known names such as Tele Vue, Takahashi, Astro Physics, TEC, Pentax, Vixen etc ?

[Carbon Brush]

Another consideration is worsening sky in many places.
Forty years ago I could not buy a decent scope on my budget. But skies were good.
Now I am spoilt for scope choice all the way from 'beer money' to 'sell the house' prices.
But what is the point in owning a super (insert brand) scope if there is awful light pollution, increasing cloud, etc.

We still see 'old' good quality scopes on sale for big money. The owners look after them and they hold their price.
Can the quality brands find new people to buy their new products?
An old scope may benefit from a focusser upgrade and the like. But a good lens, if coatings are not abused, will still be good after 20 years.
 

 

[John]

1 minute ago, Carbon Brush said:

.....Can the quality brands find new people to buy their new products?

 

 

That was very much on my mind when I composed my original post !

[Elp]

5 minutes ago, Carbon Brush said:

Another consideration is worsening sky in many places

Totally valid. I could have the most expensive telescope in the world and still not see much of value from my LP area.

[omo]

Can i add Agema to the list as one of the younger high end suppliers? 

The market at the lower end is like a tank full of sharks competing - the market for imagers in particular, it's less frenzied in the premium tank, where imagers and visual are both catered for. 

 

[bosun21]

We can discuss and speculate until the cows come home about their respective futures, but in the end it will be decided by the upcoming and next generation of users. Perhaps an indication could be found if the waiting lists for AP scopes and mounts could be broken down into the ages of those placing the orders. Are they mostly middle aged to old age or do they include it's share of younger buyers. It's this factor that will decide their future or fate 

[Ratlet]

I'd say absolutely they'll find new people for their items.  Whilst not strictly applicable, as Taiwanese, I'm currently consider swapping out the 102ED I just got, for a Megrez 90, which is what? Over 15 years old?

Despite my join date it I've only really been doing this for a 2-3 years, but the Megrez has been one of the scopes that keeps popping up.  There is a mystique about it (and it's flaws), my favourite youtuber uses one and loves it.  Heck I only got the 102ED because the 90s are like hens teeth (which in my mind means people don't want to sell them).

I couldn't really quantify it, but there is something about it and I just want it. 

It's why I think the high end companies will be okay.  They cultivate that feeling in people and whether you grew up with it or not, once it bites, you are bit.

I'd trust baader to drop £300 on an eyepiece, I wouldn't do that for an svbony.  Jeepers, people were reluctant to spend £100 on the 3-8mm zoom until the reviews started to pour in.

 

[RT65CB-SWL]

5 minutes ago, Elp said:

Totally valid. I could have the most expensive telescope in the world and still not see much of value from my LP area.

Now days we SGL’ers and professional astronomers are having to contend with the mega-satellite constellations and space junk. I am currently happy with what I presently own.

No matter what ‘scope manufacturers release to entice us with parting money from our paycheque or retirement funds/pots, etc., mega-satellite constellations and space junk is going to be with us all for a long time.

It is going to be tough and bumpy ride for everyone. 🤔

[Ratlet]

10 minutes ago, RT65CB-SWL said:

Now days we SGL’ers and professional astronomers are having to contend with the mega-satellite constellations and space junk. I am currently happy with what I presently own.

No matter what ‘scope manufacturers release to entice us with parting money from our paycheque or retirement funds/pots, etc., mega-satellite constellations and space junk is going to be with us all for a long time.

It is going to be tough and bumpy ride for everyone. 🤔

Thing is, it just becomes normal.  Messier did his work from Paris.  Good luck observing fuzzys there now.

[Carbon Brush]

26 minutes ago, Ratlet said:

Messier did his work from Paris.  Good luck observing fuzzys there now.

Indeed. No street lighting. No security lights. No doubt some smoke from coal or wood burning.
A bit like Greenwich observatory moving out to Herstmonceaux.
Serious work now being done overseas.

[DirkSteele]

A very interesting questions.  Never discount the human condition of wanting to have ownership of a "premium" product and bragging rights etc, even in the face of growing evidence that the gap between mass market and premium is vanishingly small.

 

However, I have wondered this as well.  Certain brands have such a close association with the founder, Roland with Astrophysics, Yuri with TEC and Al with Televue for example, that there would be a question if those businesses can really continue post a retirement?  Astrophysics has a well established mount business which no one states is great because of Roland (unlike the scopes) so that could continue. (I could see a two-level market for AP scopes if that line continued...Was it made by Roland or not?)  Televue has an established EP line but who does the design work without Al (and after Paul sadly passed away) for new products?  Takahashi and LZOS (ignoring the geo-political environment which does not make them readily available) do not suffer the same level of association with an individual so could continue but with everything machiine made these days, and QC improving across the board, the arguments beyond feeling good about the purchase (and my scope list shows I am very guuilty of it) does make one question the longer term viability of all the premium makers.

 

I hope I am overly pessimistic as it would be a shame to lose some of these brands that have been at the top of the tree for almost my entire time in the hobby, but other brands that once had that status (Unitron, Parks Optical etc...) have long since gone.  Agema does show new premium makers can appear though so perhaps the batton is just passed to the next generation

 

[Xilman]

2 hours ago, Elp said:

Totally valid. I could have the most expensive telescope in the world and still not see much of value from my LP area.

I rather doubt that claim.

The  Hale telescope is in an area which has suffered every worsening light pollution over the years. It still does world-class research.

Even worse is Cambridge (UK, not MA). The IoA not only has typical British weather, it is also about 2km from the city centre.  The 36" was doing excellent work on double stars until the principal researcher died a couple of years back.

Neither of the above are the most expensive telescopes in the world.

Yes, clear dark skies with excellent seeing are important for work at the bleeding edge. No, they are not necessary to perform bleeding edge astronomy.

 

[Elp]

1 hour ago, Xilman said:

Even worse is Cambridge (UK, not MA). The IoA not only has typical British weather, it is also about 2km from the city centre.  The 36" was doing excellent work on double stars

Yes, but I can't fit or afford a 36" telescope at home. The topic is about scopes that can be bought. My LED LP is also immediately around not KM away, lampposts right next to my wall and surrounded by factories with LED lights lighting the skies mere metres away.

Edited September 27 by Elp

[Xilman]

43 minutes ago, Elp said:

Yes, but I can't fit or afford a 36" telescope at home. The topic is about scopes that can be bought. My LED LP is also immediately around not KM away, lampposts right next to my wall and surrounded by factories with LED lights lighting the skies mere metres away.

OK, let's restrict ourselves to telescopes which are not the most expensive in the world.  (Leaving aside rather compact systems which most certainly can be bought if you have the readies. I would love to have one of these https://www.planewave.eu/en/products/telescope-systems/pw1000-nasmyth-astrograph-f/6 and could fit it into my garden. I can't afford the asking price, which was a tad over €1M the last time I looked. Call it a tad under £1M.)

You can still do good quality research with a 5cm Seestar and a number of people do--- variable star measurements for instance, or nova /supernova patrols.

Going up to 20cm allows you to work on exoplanetary transits or asteroid rotational periods, to give two more examples.

I don't know how large an aperture is required to do good work in lunar and planetary astronomy but I would guess a 20cm would be easily sufficient.

Please give it a try. I know for certain that undergraduates at UCL, slap in the heart of London, have made discoveries as well as conducting routine observations. They work in the near infra-red from about 750nm to 1100nm where the light pollution is much lower, largely because people can't see light at those wavelengths.

[Elp]

Planewave would certainly sit up there in the desirability list.

I have been recently imaging in 850nm hoping to find stuff, but I know it'll take many hours of exposure, latest M27 did reveal very very faint signal in the centre hourglass feature.

 

[ONIKKINEN]

If these brands keep up their quality control then they will have customers for a very long time. Yes some more affordable kit has appeared on the market but there is still the off chance that you get a product that was less than perfect, which as i've understood it just doesn't happen with say TeleVue products.

I only own 2 TeleVue products, a Paracorr and a 2'' to 1.25'' adapter. The Paracorr is perfect for what it is meant to do, which was replacing an affordable coma corrector that didn't do its job well at half the price (TS Maxfield 0.95x). I bought the TeleVue 2'' to 1.25'' adapter because i have full trust in the brand and know im going to get a well engineered and quality controlled product that does its job as it was intended. Cost was 3-5x of what a typical far east generic brand adapter would be, but this cost is worth it in my opinion because i know it will work.

We will see if these brands can keep up their quality in the future. No doubt some of the more affordable brands are eating into their profits at least a little bit, but as long as they dont start to compromise on quality they will survive. My 2 cents at least.

[Xilman]

27 minutes ago, Elp said:

Planewave would certainly sit up there in the desirability list.

I have been recently imaging in 850nm hoping to find stuff, but I know it'll take many hours of exposure, latest M27 did reveal very very faint signal in the centre hourglass feature.

 

May I tentatively suggest that you may be choosing the wrong kind of things to observe?

If you have a bright sky background you are better off observing bright and/or high contrast objects rather than faint fuzzies.

If you want pretty pictures, go for the Moon Jupiter, Saturn and star clusters, including brighter globulars such as M13 and M92.

If you want to do research, concentrate on photometry of stars and asteroids.

A personal experience: although I live in a Bortle 3/4 area, it is also common to have very hazy skies from Saharan dust coming over. On windy nights the turbulence can worsen the seeing to well over 10 arcseconds. Add in some moonlight, and the naked eye limiting magnitude may be about 2, so only 7 stars are visible in Orion.  Roughly the same as an inner city sky in other words.

On such nights I don't even think about imaging fuzzies. I take images of variables and, over the last couple of years, asteroids. They don't look at all pretty, especially if the seeing makes for bloated stars, but they sure are worth taking for the information which can be extracted from them.

I have even experimented with imaging in extremely light polluted sky. In particular, I've images of stars in the Pleiades, M45, taken in broad daylight at around 2pm local solar time.  OK, idiotic I know, but I will try for other bright star clusters in daylight, just to see what is possible. I hope to be able to find at least 10 Messier objects.

 

 

[Xilman]

55 minutes ago, Xilman said:

You can still do good quality research with a 5cm Seestar and a number of people do--- variable star measurements for instance, or nova /supernova patrols.

I am very tempted to get a Seestar for two reasons. First it can do good research down to, say, 13th magnitude and second it is both portable and easy to use.

Oh, and it is about the price of a top of the line eyepiece, not that I use such things, or a set of photometric filters. Dirt cheap, in other words.

[Elp]

2 hours ago, Xilman said:

If you want pretty pictures

No issues imaging here, see my profile on flickr, it's why I image more than observe.

Edited September 27 by Elp

[John]

Are we getting just a little off topic here ? 🙂

[Captain Scarlet]

Another risk with premium brands is that they get bought by pure investors (e.g. private equity) and “milked”, increasing quantity and reducing production cost and thereby quality. Ray-Ban springs to mind, as does Canada Goose. If done wisely, quality can stay up, but prices tend to go up in those cases not down. Church’s shoes are an example. Pinarello bike-frames have been bought by a luxury conglomerate. Hopefully the Astro market is small enough that that route is not attractive.

[DirkSteele]

20 minutes ago, Captain Scarlet said:

Another risk with premium brands is that they get bought by pure investors (e.g. private equity) and “milked”, increasing quantity and reducing production cost and thereby quality. Ray-Ban springs to mind, as does Canada Goose. If done wisely, quality can stay up, but prices tend to go up in those cases not down. Church’s shoes are an example. Pinarello bike-frames have been bought by a luxury conglomerate. Hopefully the Astro market is small enough that that route is not attractive.

Never say never, but our hobby is still small fry.  Meade back in its hayday around the turn of the millenium had revenue of c.$100 million per annum (peak was around $126 million in 2000 as I recall) and it was the largest scope company in the world and very much mass market.  While I think the market has grown overall, the premium guys are all low volume producers, which means even with the higher prices they charge, the revenues and profitability are just too small to interest almost all financial sponsors.  Look at the number of scopes APM LZOS have sold (brand I am most familiar with given my scopes) and the total sales since 1998 when the relationship started is limited to a few thousand scopes (some models have had total production runs of less than 150 in almost 20 years of production).  APM clearly sell a lot of other stuff, but that means the two decade revenue total is a few tens of millions, so perhaps a couple of million per year on average for LZOS scopes).

 

Rayban by contrast reported $8.7 billion of revenue in its last financial year.

[M40]

Thought provoking topic. I think disposable income is currently prime mover, however, we all aspire to the top kiddy stuff. 

The future? As long as quality and the differential between top brands and other other brands is maintained, the top brands in all aspects of the hobby will survive. Once that quality and differential between brands has gone, my guess is that the names will soon follow, either that or go to a very niche market.

[Elp]

I think following on from my previous point about being able to see things visually and photographically, the market is saturated by capable imaging scopes which don't cost the earth together with good post processing software to help, so premium scopes aren't needed so much. So if this is indeed true, the target market is even smaller for those who like the best visual experience, or maybe it's a bit of both AP and visual use via a premium scope, but if they're catering for one market rather than both that doesn't work so well commercially, especially if cheaper competition is knocking on the door. A company can only survive as long as there are paying customers covering their overheads and profit margins.

[niallk]

It was very sad to hear of Paul Dellechiaie's passing, and natural to wonder how it impacts succession plans and the future of Tele Vue.  I'm not expecting any new designs but hope to be wrong.  TV led innovation & disruption- a great brand with great history, and great products - albeit at a premium.

I've an Obsession scope - no Takahashi! - and tbh, I decided to take the plunge on my 15" Classic before Dave Kriege retires and you just can't get one.  I've his book - the "Haynes Manual" for it, and parts can come from a hardware shop if required in the future - a lifetime purchase.  We've seen Webster, Teeter, Starmaster, Portaball, JP Astrocraft, David Lukehurst and others unfortunately no longer available. 

Geez, surprising to even see Orion & Meade cease trading.

Honestly can't imagine we'll see another TV or Teeter.  I just hope I can get my mirror recoated at some point in the future if it needs it from Ireland: OMI are no more too...

I've a fairly pessimistic view unfortunately, I guess.

Lunt though are an example of hope and optimism - I'm a fan 😎

Edited September 28 by niallk

[icpn]

I think TV are finished as they have not had anything new out now for a few years and seemed to concentrate then on night vision devices then. I doubt Uncle Al is designing anything new so they will just survive on what designs they have now.