Saturday, July 26, 2014

This is Stellafane!


I have been coming to the Stellafane Convention, a gathering of amateur telescope makers,  for 26 years now.  Springfield, Vermont is where amateur telescope making was born, back in the 1920's.  Telescopes were so expensive, that if you wanted one, and you were not rich, you had to build one yourself.  Springfield was home to a number of precision machine tool makers, and they had the knowledge and skills required, and through articles in Scientific American, the information was passed on to other interested amateurs across the United States.  But it all started here.  The "Pink Clubhouse" is now on the national list of historic places.  You can see home made telescopes set up all around the field.  The white structure with the domed front is a concrete telescope, made in 1939, and you observe from inside the structure, during the bitter Vermont winters.

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