Jerry Oltion (born 1957) is an American science fiction author from Eugene, Oregon, known for numerous novels and short stories, including books in the Star Trek series.

Oltion is the designer of the trackball telescope, a light weight equatorial mounting system with an electromechanical star tracking drive.

He placed the patent-able portions of his design in the public domain, making them more easily accessible to other telescope makers.

[2] In June 2016 Oltion became a contributing editor at Sky and Telescope magazine, writing the monthly Astronomer's Workbench column.

[3] In 2007, Oltion and Adam-Troy Castro won the Seiun Award for Best Foreign Language Short Story of the Year for "The Astronaut from Wyoming."