A New Way of Looking: the Amateur Telescope Making Movement in 1920's America

Details A New Way of Looking: the Amateur Telescope Making Movement in 1920's America A New Way of Looking: the Amateur Telescope Making Movement in 1920's America

Jan 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21320006c&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #213, #200.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.187

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

The hobby of astronomy in America was restricted largely to a relatively few well-off persons prior to the 1920's in part due to the difficulty in acquiring adequate instruments. Even modest telescopes were quite expensive and very few in number. The standard "beginner's” instrument was a three-inch diameter refracting telescope, precision crafted by expert manufacturers. Early Twentieth-century astronomy popularizers recognized the problem of availability of instruments and saw that this hindered growth of the hobby. The idea of making one's own telescope was limited to a hardy few with the time, equipment, machining skills, and information required and very few attempted the task. This situation changed dramatically by the late 1920's due to the publication of a series of articles in Scientific American that provided detailed, practical instructions for a six-inch Newtonian reflecting telescope, a project well within the means and skills of the average "handyman". Publication of these articles initiated a profound change in perception for amateur astronomers, who quickly became amateur telescope makers as well, creating precision instruments for themselves and in part leading to a widening of the amateur astronomy hobby and interest in astronomy generally. This paper forms a portion of a doctoral dissertation being written by the author.

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