Sky and Telescope - January 2016 - 73

style domed observatory. Impressive.
Some readers doubtlessly regard these
as examples from a kind of "golden age"
for telescope making - an era in which
you not only had to have the skill to grind
and polish your own mirror, but also the
talent and equipment needed to fabricate
the rest. But not everyone did, even in
1966. A less fondly remembered product
of the era was the abundance of mediocre
optics mounted on shaky pipe mounts.
Over the years I've received letters
bemoaning the current state of the telescope making art with its cardboard-tubed
light buckets. But in my view, telescope
making has simply moved on. It's undeniably the case that today fewer amateurs
machine their own mounts or even grind
their own mirrors. But it's also true that
no one in 1966 was acquainted with the
virtues of big Dobsonians! For the current
state of aﬀairs to be lamentable you'd have
to see the past as being intrinsically superior to the present. I for one do not.
It's important to keep in mind that we
live in an extraordinary time in which
you can purchase a decent 8-inch reﬂector for roughly half of what a bare-bones
2.4-inch Unitron refractor sold for in
1966. As a result, there simply isn't the
same ﬁ nancial incentive to build a scope
today. Yes, that means fewer people are
making them, but it also means that
when they do, quite often they make
something not commercially available.
That could be an instrument designed
for extreme portability, or a really big/
fast telescope that would be prohibitively
expensive to buy. We even see new optical designs popping up, thanks to computerized ray-tracing software. Doesn't
that seem like a new golden age?
As always, we continue to make scopes
to observe with, and generally see far
more thanks to the big, simple reﬂectors
that are today's standard ATM fare. And
if you could go back in time 50 years to
ask that engineering student whether
he'd rather observe with his beautifully
machined 6-inch or one of today's 24-inch
Dobs, I have a hunch that he'd jump at
the chance to use the big scope. ✦
Contributing editor Gary Seronik can be
contacted via his website, garyseronik.com.

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Call toll free: 888-253-0230
oor order online at ShopatSky.com

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http://www.takahashiamerica.com http://www.ShopatSky.com http://www.garyseronik.com
Sky and Telescope - January 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky and Telescope - January 2016
