John Dobson
From AstronomyOutreach network
Revision as of 08:30, 27 April 2011 by Astronomyoutreach1 (Talk | contribs)
John Lowry Dobson (b. September 14, 1915) is a legendary figure in astronomy outreach for the public as the co-founder of the amateur astronomical group, the San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers, and for the Dobsonian telescope.
Dobsonian telescopes revolutionized amateur astronomy because his design of a low-cost, high performance mounting system for Newtonian reflecting telescopes made it possible for amateur astronomers to build or buy affordable telescopes of large aperture. The large-aperture telescopes telescopes that John Dobson built made it possible for people in the city to see deep sky objects; and for some city dwellers, it was the first time in their lives to see nebulae and galaxies.