Tag: Tele Vue

Meet the Amateur Astronomers at Tele Vue Optics #1

Tele Vue Optics was founded by an amateur astronomer, Al Nagler, and it is no surprise that amateur astronomers have been drawn to fill the ranks of Tele Vue employees. In this week’s blog, we meet one of the amateur astronomers at Tele Vue.

Jon Betancourt
Customer Care

Jon is a Chicago native born and raised. Before joining Tele Vue Optics, he worked for 8-years on the retail side of amateur astronomy, splitting his time between 20/20 Telescopes outside Chicago and Woodland Hills Camera & Telescopes in Los Angeles. In this blog post we interview Jon about the “many hats” he wears at Tele Vue headquarters. 

Jon at Cherry Springs Star Party (A. Martinez).

One role you’ll often find Jon fulfilling is quality control on Tele Vue eyepieces. Unlike other manufacturers, that may inspect a representative sample (or none at all), every single Tele Vue eyepiece is checked before going out the door. You might assume that inspecting and boxing dozens of eyepieces a day is tedious. But not for Jon. “I find it therapeutic,” he says while inspecting a 55mm Plössl for cosmetic defects under the glowing fluorescent ring of a magnifier lamp. He eschews the built-in magnifier on the lamp because he feels he sees more just holding the eyepiece close to his eye.

Tele Vue MPT telescope with iris adjustment.

Continue reading “Meet the Amateur Astronomers at Tele Vue Optics #1”

Tele Vue: What’s in a Name?

Where does the name Tele Vue come from? Just look at the initials: TV. Al Nagler’s initial products were television projector lenses. These lenses were placed in front of your television to project an enlarged image on a screen. That was “big screen TV” in 1977! However, Al also wanted a name that would be appropriate if he ever entered the amateur astronomy market.   Continue reading “Tele Vue: What’s in a Name?”