Orion Telescopes & Binoculars

[1] A large proportion of its products were manufactured by the Chinese company Synta for the Orion brand name.

[3][may be outdated as of July 2024] In 1975, Orion Telescopes & Binoculars was founded in a garage in Santa Cruz, California by Tim Gieseler, who served as its only president and CEO.

[citation needed] In January 2005, Orion was acquired by Imaginova, the U.S. conglomerate founded in 1999 by CNN business anchor Lou Dobbs.

In late 2005 Celestron (which had recently been purchased by Synta Technology Corporation of Taiwan) announced an agreement that would allow Celestron 8, 9.25, and 11-inch (280 mm) Schmidt-Cassegrain optical tube assemblies (OTA), painted in metallic gray and using the "Orion" brand (Celestron OTAs are painted either gloss black or semi-gloss matte orange), to be sold with Orion branded German equatorial mounts (also made by Synta)[7] and eyepiece accessories.

Orion also sold binoculars for astronomical and terrestrial observing, microscopes and monocular spotting scopes of the type used by birdwatchers and marksmen.