Orion Telescopes and Binoculars

[Ears and Eggs]

I know there are other amateur astronomy enthusiast here too. I didn't know until today that apparently Orion Telescopes and Meade Instruments have closed down their operations and gone out of business. Orion's website is totally dead, Meade's seems to be still up for now. Apparently Orion laid off all their staff back in early July.


Big loss to the amateur astronomy world if they are gone for good. Anyone have any further info about what happened? That really sucks because I have the Orion Astroview 90mm scope. If I need any extra parts or accessories for it now I'm going to be out of luck.


News article from Sky and Telescope magazine:

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/meade-and-orion-cease-operations-maybe/

 

[CurtisOliver]

Damn, that's a great brand to have gone. A big shame for astronomers. I've got a Skywatcher, but I was looking at an Orion scope.

 

[Ears and Eggs]

Yeah, I can't understand why that happened. It seemed to be such a popular, well recommended brand within the community.


When I was looking for my first telescope the top recommendation was always Orion. I got that Astroview 90mm model for that reason. It's been a great scope, I have had it since 2019 and absolutely no complaints.


Whatever happened seemed to have really come completely out of the blue. You'd think that some other company in the astronomy industry would want to buy Orion as it's such a reputable name.


Edit: Damn, whatever happened happened so abruptly, some people whose telescopes and gear were in for repairs seem to have been left screwed. Hearing reports that some are out thousands of dollars for gear that was left in limbo at Orion's warehouse when the close happened. Now they are unable to get in touch with anyone or have any idea if they'll get their telescope back.

 

[Encap]

There are a lot of reasons why they and their parent company closed.
Google search: "Why Orion telescopes closed"
examples:
" it's not like this was a sudden decision; it was inevitable: Orion sealed their fate by purchasing Meade's bloated corpse with their earnings from suing Meade/Synta to death. The entire last few years of "business" by Orion/Meade was a closeout sale - those "new" ETXes were essentially thrown together from spare parts for instance."

"this isn't completely out of the blue, considering all that's transpired between the big players over the last few years with lawsuits/countersuits, bankruptcy, and acquisitions."

"public perception of decreasing quality and low customer support over the last few decades really hurt both companies bottom line. That's especially true now with so many vendors offering excellent quality house branded Chinese optics with full warranty/support for less money."

There is a lot of information about Orion/Meade and the parent company Optronic Technologies, Inc., the parent company of both.

It is unfortunate as they were at one time giants in the business.

See: https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/meade-and-orion-cease-operations-maybe/