Optic solutions for amateur astronomers and NASA engineers

Esco started out as an optics supplier for amateur astronomers. And things just took off from there. Today, we work with NASA and other leading aeronautics organizations, helping to develop the optical technologies that are providing first looks at never before seen galaxies, light years away. Talk about moving up to the big leagues.

Satellite optics on the launchpad
These new technologies are everywhere, from everyday items to satellites orbiting the Earth. The James Webb Space Telescope launched in Dec 2021 is the most sophisticated space telescope ever built with an estimated cost of $10 billion dollars. Space instrumentation is expensive and very complicated to fix. Do you remember the Hubble kerfuffle? Within weeks of its 1990 launch, mirror flaws returned images with far less resolution than expected. Something was off. It turned out to be a very small defect, but in optics, the difference of a human hair’s tolerance can be everything.

The solution involved new components, service missions, and space-walk repairs. But that’s what it takes to achieve that level of precision. It’s a process we understand, and it’s a big part of what we do—and why clients trust us. We apply this results-driven, iterative, and collaborative approach to developing all our optic prototypes.

The world’s most productive telescopes
Now, we know this is space week, but what about telescope systems based here on Earth? You know the telescopes searching the sky every day—and night. There are some extremely sophisticated Earth-bound telescopes, designed around some amazingly high-powered optics. Take a look at our friends at W. M. Keck Observatory in Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The twin Keck Observatory telescopes are the world’s most scientifically productive optical and infrared telescopes. Each telescope weighs 300 tons and operates with nanometer precision. The telescopes’ primary mirrors are 10-meters in diameter and are each composed of 36 hexagonal segments that work in concert as a single piece of reflective glass.

Not sure you, but we think they are some damn fine telescopes, and a far cry from our humble beginnings with backyard astronomers. But that’s what it’s all about, looking for new ways to see more clearly—and further. And that’s what we do.