Blog

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 launchpadThese 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...

It’s World Space Week—Day 2. So, let’s start with some humor. Around the shop, we often joke that the best lasers are the ones mounted on sharks. But what’s better than shark-mounted lasers? Well, that’s easy. Space lasers (and no, we don’t mean the Death Star). Ok, back to space lasers. Real space lasers. We provide a lot of optics for lasers, and some of the baddest lasers are coming from our clients at NASA. These space lasers are capable of doing incredible things, including measuring surfaces and elevation from space. Precision performanceWhat makes the lasers so amazing is that they’re...

Can you imagine what it would be like if we never landed on the moon? How would we get all of these great observations about our planet? Most likely, we would have to rely on satellites which were actually the first things to go into space. The first satellite, Sputnik, was launched by the Soviet Union (now Russia) on October 4, 1950—exactly 67 years ago today. While only the size of a beach ball, that first satellite forever changed space exploration and set the stage for the space race between the USSR and the United States. Here’s a quick timeline...

 At Esco, we’re always looking for new and innovative ways to do things and develop new products. And who better to partner with when where pushing the envelope than NASA? Currently, we have a few top-secret projects in the works with the space administration. We’re documenting the whole process and capturing all the details as we create optics for NASA’s groundbreaking technologies. We can’t wait to share it with you. But for now, you’ll just have to trust us—it’s some pretty cool stuff. Today, we want to talk about something different—World Space Week (WSW). It’s an annual holiday observed from...

There’s been plenty of movies and television series professing the mystical superpowers and unexplained phenomena which occur during a solar eclipse. For the upcoming eclipse on Monday August 21st the facts are: there is a powerful force that occurs and it's truly dangerous. Gaze up at this marvel for just a few seconds and you could be doing irreversible harm to your eyes. When Moon completely blocks the Sun, daytime becomes a deep twilight, and the Sun’s corona shimmers in the darkened sky that’s the moment of vulnerability. Solar eclipses are dangerous because the sun can come out from behind the...