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 |  | Fans Celebrate Birthday of 'Sidewalk Astronomer'
By Wil Milan
Special to SPACE.com
posted: 07:03 pm ET
12 September 2000
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It’s tempting to call John Dobson a revolutionary, but in truth this monk-turned-astronomer is more of a missionary. In the 33 years since he was expelled from a Vedantic monastery for putting more time into astronomy than his pursuit of Hindu spirituality, John Dobson has been on a single-minded mission to bring the wonders of the skies to earth, making them accessible to the everyday person.
Portholes and plywood
To visual astronomers John Dobson is a living legend, the man who out of necessity invented the type of telescope that today dominates visual astronomy. It’s known as the Dobsonian telescope, a distillation of the reflecting telescope to its simplest, most elegant form.
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| Crude in appearance but very effective, this small Dobsonian telescope can be put together in a few hours. Much larger Dobsonian telescopes are today the mainstay of visual astronomy. Click to Enlarge.
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A champion of astronomy for the masses, John Dobson has changed the face of modern amateur astronomy.
Because of its extreme simplicity, ease of construction and sturdiness of design, Dobsonian telescopes have enabled amateur astronomers to build portable telescopes that rival many observatory telescopes in performance.
The Dobsonian design arose from John Dobson’s attempt to build telescopes from the scrap materials found around his former residence, a Vedanta monastery in Sacramento, California. Using surplus glass from ships’ portholes, sifted sand and scrap plywood, he learned to grind his own optics and build simple telescopes that looked like stacked crates, but functioned quite well.
Dobson was so taken with the beauty revealed by his telescopes that he spent much of his time outside the monastery walls, teaching neighborhood children and families how to make and use their own telescopes But his frequent absences for astronomical activities put him at odds with his strict monastic order.
New start, new mission
In 1967, his pursuit of astronomy and telescope making unabated, Dobson was expelled from the monastic order. At the age of 52 he then set about his new mission -- building his simple telescopes and taking them to the streets. He and his growing group of followers set up telescopes on the malls, parking lots and sidewalks of San Francisco, showing dazzling heavenly sights to any passers-by who cared to look.
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Dobson’s avid disciples eventually came to be known as the Sidewalk Astronomers. Today it is a far-flung organization with chapters in cities from San Francisco to Liverpool, England. They continue their mission of itinerant city astronomy but also visit national parks, taking advantage of the dark skies found in remote locations.
Hammers and glass
On September 9 at the historic Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, the Sidewalk Astronomers celebrated John Dobson’s 85th birthday the only way he would have it: To the sound of grinding glass and hammering nails. Spread out on the lawn in front of the observatory were plywood squares, huge cardboard tubes and a few self-taught telescope makers hunched over disks of glass.
Grinding an optical mirror doesn't require much equipment, just a good dose of perseverance.
It was telescope making turned into an outdoor party, with a festive feel and hopeful air, the beginners in the group hoping to have a telescope made by their own hands ready for the evening’s viewing.
Spellbinding performance
Circulating among them, alternatively exhorting and correcting in an almost nonstop monologue, was John Dobson. He was everywhere followed by a mixed group of the curious and the faithful, fielding questions and waxing philosophical on optics, cosmology, the Big Bang theory (he thinks it’s wrong) and the foibles of modern astronomy. ("I’m opposed to domes," he is fond of saying.)
It was a spellbinding performance -- Dobson unfailingly courteous to questioners, using their questions to slide into long responses. His languid answers continually rambled over the entire landscape of science, philosophy and the nature of truth, occasionally wandering into the nitty-gritty of glass grinding and telescope making.
Onlookers surprised
During the course of the day several new mirrors took shape, and by the end of the day at least one telescope was coming together. Many passers-by were initially puzzled by the curious activity, then were fascinated and surprised at learning that before their eyes new telescopes were being built out of very humble materials, all of them by pure amateurs.
In a world where automated manufacture is the rule, many of the bystanders were amazed at what human hands could accomplish with little more than determination and a bit of elbow grease. It was precisely the lesson that for decades John Dobson has been preaching -- the riches of the heavens are there for the taking by anyone with a few simple materials and the yearning to tour the skies.
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