August 2, 2008 #016 – Unitron Telescope

One of the premier advertisers in Sky & Telescope during the 60's was Unitron. As with Questar my eye gravitated to these refractors made in Japan. I began to think about an equatorial mount, slow motion controls, rotary eyepiece selectors, and yes, just the shear beauty of these instruments.

How could a young man of limited means even think of finding $225 for a telescope. You have to realize that in 60's money that was a fortune. At that time gasoline was about $0.25 a gallon, a hamburger was $0.15 or $0.17 with cheese at the Golden Arches, you could buy an excellent home for $12,000 dollars as my dad committed to with payments for 30 years, even having to borrow the down payment. I found you could buy a telescope with a payment plan!

No one anticipated the delivery more than this young man. It finally arrived. A wonderful gleaming brand new 2.4 inch Equatorial Unitron Reflector with a Unihex rotary eyepiece selector and bunch of eyepieces to fill it with. It even had a projection system to view the sun.

A whole new world of astronomical possibilities was delivered by that postman.

Clear Sky - Rich