Celestron is located in southern California and has remained in southern california since it first opened.

Celestron Headquarters

Celestron is a leading manufacturing company of telescopes and other astronomical accessories. Tom Johnson founded Celestron, then known as Valor Electronics, an aerospace electronics firm in the 1960s.

Tom Johnson, founder of Celestron

Tom had wanted to find a suitable telescope for his two young sons. Tom had decided to built one himself from hand, a six inch reflector. What started out for Tom as a small hobby eventually grew into a full time business. Tom started building larger and more complex designs such the popular telescope design of the Schmidt-Cassegrain.

Celestron has had many growth opportunities over the years since Tom Johnson sold the company in 1980 to Diethelm, Ltd. In 1988 Celestron was bought by Tasco, a leading optics manufacturer. Then in 2002, Celestron's top management team bought Celestron to better ensure that Celestron would remain a leader in the telescope industry. With Celestron top managers at the wheel, the company branched out into new distribution channels and product offerings.

In April of 2005, Celestron was purchased by SW Technology Corporation, affiliate of Synta Technology Corporation run by David Shen. Synta, a well-known optics manufacturer, had been a Celestron supplier for over 15 years and participated in the development of some of Celestron's most popular products, such as the NexStar SLT entry-level computerized telescope line.

Throughout the world, Celestron telescopes have become the “telescope of choice” for the consumer. In addition to being popular with consumers, colleges and universities throughout the world use Celestron telescopes in their astronomy programs.

In addition to astronomy, Celestron is also known for their spotting scopes, binoculars, compact binoculars and CCD cameras.