Talk:Astroscan

Name
"When Edmund Scientific introduced it in 1976 they had a public contest to come up with a name for the telescope, which was to have the catalog item number 2001—a "distinguished" number because of Kubrick's movie."

The claim the catalog item number was 2001, that the catalog item number came before the name, and that the name was influenced by Kubrick's movie is unreferenced. Moving here to talk so it can be verified. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 13:26, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Was able to verify the part number. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 13:54, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Different Model March 2016
I have a commercial conflict of interest so I am putting this on a talk page. Editors: please consider what to do.

As of March 28, 2016, Scientifics Direct posted a different model of telescope under the model name "Astroscan Millennium". It is a Dobsonian reflector with strong resemblance to an Orion StarBlast. I do not know if it is the same telescope with different trade-dress, or copied by a different manufacturer. There may be differences I have not taken notice of. This new telescope is similar enough to the old Astroscan in aperture, but has an importantly-smaller field of view. It completely eliminates the ball-in-socket mount and uses an altazimuth mount instead. The StarBlast has been on the market for many years, has many fans, and is a competent astronomical instrument in my personal opinion. Scientifics Direct owns the "Astroscan" trademark and can apply it to any product they wish. But this new instrument is so different in mount and field of view (the two most distinctive aspects of the old one) that the difference should be reported to readers.

Background: I was co-designer of Astroscan in 1976. Edmund sold its "Scientifics" division to VWR in 2001, and VWR sold it to Leisure Living in 2011. The Astroscan mold broke in 2013 and no ball-in-socket Astroscans were made after Fall 2013.

Foreground: For more than a year I have been developing and publicizing an updated successor, hence the commercial conflict of interest. Planning is far advanced but the new telescope does not actually exist as of this date and I think that Wikipedia should not mention vaporware. Anyone wishing further information should ask me: normsperling@gmail.com. StarryEye (talk) 15:05, 31 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Ty for the info. It actually helps to have this on the talk page and it probably won't hurt to put bits of it in the article IMHO. Since this new scope seems to be a re-badged Synta/Orion Starblast it has little connection to the Astroscan article (Wikipedia goes by what things are, not what they are called), other than to mention the company moved the name on, if we can establish that with a source/quote. Look forward to seeing your new "Astroscan". Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 16:00, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Here's my Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1592946658/bright-eye-telescopes StarryEye (talk) 21:38, 22 April 2016 (UTC)