Astronomical Art & Artifact Russell W. Porter, Albert G. Ingalls, and RASC Amateur Telescope Makers (ATMs)

摘要

The ancient cosmologist Heraclitus the Obscure (535-475 BC) reputedly said: "you cannot step into the same river twice" (Kirk et al. 1983, 194-197)1. A later recondite commentator, Archivista the Lucid (date unknown), illustrated this as follows: "Someone took a bite out of my biscotto, and my hot espresso is now cold. The Universe is constantly metamorphosing. I wish I was alone in the Universe." Most of us have indeed seen the face of amateur astronomy change before our eyes. The ready availability of electronic detectors, computer programmes and, in the developed world, very good but relatively inexpensive optical equipment is a development of about the last two and a half decades, devices veritably driven by desires ~2. At the time of Canada's Centenary — and the Society's — such plenty would have seemed either Utopian, or alien. The wealthy always had a choice: Unitron refractors, Parks or Cave reflectors, Questar Maksutov-Cassegrains, or more recherché bespoke instruments. Good quality, commercially-produced telescopes were the stuff of fantasy launched off the pages of Sky (v) Telescope, or the back of the Observers Handbook. Most of us were not wealthy. Those who wanted their own telescopes had to fashion them from glass, metal, and wood. The sole way the dream could be brought to Earth and materialized was through hard labour. The only approved and practicable cure for aperture fever was more labour.