- Questar Corporation
Infobox_Company
company_name = Questar Corporation
company_
company_type = Private
company_slogan =
foundation = 1950
location = New Hope,Pennsylvania , USA
key_people = Donald J. Bandurick, President and CEO
num_employees =
industry =Manufacturing
products = Optical / mechanical devices
revenue = | net_income =
homepage = [http://www.questarcorporation.com www.questarcorporation.com]Questar Corporation is a company based in
New Hope, Pennsylvania , which manufactures precision optical devices for consumer, industrial, aerospace, and military markets. Its telescopes produced for the consumer market sold under the name brand name "Questar" have been referred to as the "Rolls Royce" of astronomical instruments. [ [http://home.earthlink.net/~haldeman/astronomy.html Astronomy - Partial Eclipse of the Setting Sun - "My other small telescope is a Questar, the classic Maksutov that for fifty years has been a kind of Rolls Royce for amateur astronomers."] ] [ [http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/reviews/showproduct.php/product/363 Questar - birder 90mm - "Questar is truly the Rolls-Royce of spotting scopes"] ]Origins and history
Questar was founded in 1950 by Lawrence Braymer who set up Questar to develop and market
Maksutov telescope s and other optical devices for the consumer, industrial, and government customers. The Questar Standard telescope has been in production since 1954 probably making it the longest running production consumer oriented telescope.Fact|date=May 2007Questar does not produce their own optics. The earliest Questars used optics produced in part by Cave Optical, but for most of their history the optics were produced by Cumberland Optical. [ [http://www.cumberlandoptical.com/questar.htm J.R. Cumberland, Inc - Questar] ] The optics are hand-aspherized.Fact|date=May 2007
Questars have been popular with many well-known scientists and other personalities;
Wernher Von Braun purchased one in 1959. [ [http://www.4saleusa.net/kscaa/questar/index.html Kennedy Space Center's Amateur Astronomers' "A TELESCOPE FROM HISTORY OWNED BY DR. WERNHER von BRAUN"] ] Talk show hostJohnny Carson , well known as a fan of astronomy, purchased an early model. Today Show founding hostDave Garroway andArthur C. Clarke are other well-known owners.Products
Questar's telescopes are widely used in consumer, military, police, security, and industrial applications. Some of the products sold by Questar include:
* 3.5” and 7” aperture Maksutov Cassegrain astronomical/terrestrial telescopes for the consumer market.
* Surveillance versions of their Maksutov Cassegrain models.
* Long distance microscopes, an adaptation of their Maksutov Cassegrain telescopes modified to image subjects at close range, used in research and manufacturing process quality control.
* Specially built Maksutov Cassegrains for use in test range imaging and radar calibration/
boresight ing.* While it was produced in very limited numbers, Questar once offered a convert|12|in|mm|sing=on-aperture optical-tube assembly. Some barrels were sold coupled with an equatorial mount based on a Byers drive system.Fact|date=May 2007
* The 12" Questar also found application by
NASA for tracking launches optically (see below)The Questar 3-1/2” Maksutov Cassegrain
In development since 1946, the Questar 3-1/2” has been the company's most notable product. Braymer’s basic concept for the telescope was one of portability, compactness, and ease of use. He used a "
Catadioptric " Maksutov design, named after its inventor Dmitry Maksutov, for the optical tube assembly. Braymer used a modified Cassegrain design that added an aluminized spot to the Maksutov corrector plate creating a compact folded light path (this design is sometimes called a "Spot- Maksutov). To avoid a conflict with a design patent held by John Gregory licensed toPerkin-Elmer , Braymer put the secondary spot on the outer (R1) surface of the corrector lens. In the mid 1960s the patent issue was settled and Questar’s Maksutov-Cassegrains after that time use the Gregory design with the aluminized spot on the inside of the corrector (R2).Fact|date=May 2007Braymer designed a built-in “Control Box” that allowed the user, looking through the main eyepiece, to switch between the main telescope and a coaxial
finderscope via moving a diagonal out of the way with a flick of a knob. This also allowed a camera or other device to access the focal plane through a hole on the back of the Control Box. A knob for focus and another to switch in and out a magnification doublingbarlow lens rounded out the controls. The cast aluminum double fork arm mount was designed with a built inclock drive and became equatorial by adding the collapsible legs included.The Questar 3.5” entered commercial production in 1954 and almost immediately this “observatory-in-a-box“ was considered the "Rolls-Royce" of telescopes. Ads for the model have run in many astronomy, science, photography, and nature related magazines such as
National Geographic ,Scientific American and Sky & Telescope. They have focused on the telescope's mechanical and optical excellence, educational value for children, ease of use, and adaptations as aspotting scope andtelephoto lens . The Questar of the 1950s and early 1960s offered little capacity to employ third party accessories although there was a range of accessories made by Questar itself. Later models have the added advantage of accepting standard 1.25" eyepieces and other accessories.A convert|7|in|mm|sing=on model was introduced in 1967 for industry and government. It appears as a scaled up Questar 3-1/2" with the integrated Control Box. But because of its high cost compared with similar-aperture consumer telescopes, the Seven has never been a big seller among the amateur market.Fact|date=May 2007
Versions of the Questar 3-1/2" were used by
NASA during its early years. The first telescopic images of earth taken by astronauts in space were with a Questar 3-1/2" from a Geminispacecraft . TheApollo astronauts used Questars on their missions to the moon as well. For camera tracking of launches, NASA still uses convert|12|in|mm|sing=on Questar telescopes mounted on ananti-aircraft gun mount, in the style of the original rocket tracking systems used atWhite Sands , as invented byClyde Tombaugh , the discoverer ofPluto .Fact|date=September 2007Since the telescope is made in a small production run by a relatively small company, the
economies of scale have meant that the Questar 3-1/2” comes with a high price tag. Also the basic design has been remained almost static since its first production. For use in the field ofamateur astronomy where resolution and light-gathering power are the primary requirements for a telescope, the Questar 3.1/2's comparatively small aperture has led the instrument to be to criticized as being too small and too expensive, [ [http://homepage.mac.com/joebergeron/scopes.html Joe Bergeron's Astronomy Equipment Reviews - Questar 3.5"] ] especially in a market where instruments more than twice its aperture are available at half its price.This model was originally envisioned as a convert|5|in|mm|sing=on telescope, but it was decided a telescope of that size would not fit the market they were aiming for since it would be too heavy and expensive.Fact|date=May 2007
References
External links
* [http://www.questarcorporation.com Questar Corporation’s website]
* [http://www.company7.com/library/questar/notes.html Historical Reprints of Advertising and Brochures for Questar Telescopes]
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