Re: [ATM] the future of amateur telescope making and amateur astronomy

["Eric S. Johansson" <esj@harvee.org>]

I believe the number of people making telescopes will shrink for a few reasons.

Increasing urbanization
time constraints
lack of opportunity
reason to make telescopes

Increasing urbanization is a trend that will increase in the future because of 
economic and social pressures to conserve energy.  This this migration will have 
a significant number of mostly negative side effects.  With regards to 
astronomy, the negative side effect will be pressure against coming telescopes. 
  After all, if you have only a few hundred square feet of living space, are you 
really going to take up space with a 25 inch or even a 12 inch telescope?  I'm 
sure that some of you would but then ask yourself if you are carless, how will 
you move that telescope to an observing site?  If you can move it, how many 
times a year when you do so?  Now add a partner to the same number of square 
feet and think about how likely it will be that you will be able to keep the 
telescope of any significant size.

The same problems with transportation that plague telescope making will drive 
down participation in astronomy as well as other space intensive hobbies.

lack of time because of external pressures (i.e. work, partner, children, school 
etc.) make it difficult to put in the tens of hours it takes to just make a 
mirror.  In addition the time to build the rest of the scope makes it 
increasingly unlikely that the project would be completed.

My first mirror was built in my parents basement from an Edmund scientific kit. 
  With increasingly precious personal space, it's again unlikely that someone 
will dedicate the resources to put in a barrel or a mere grinding stand in their 
house and walk around the barrel while watching American Idol reruns on HDTV. 
Potential mirror makers lose opportunity one clubs don't have facilities they 
can use on a weekend or an evening.  They lose opportunities by not being able 
to learn or even know that the practice exists in addition to the lack of 
physical access.

The reason folks make telescopes is also fading.  Commercial scopes are readily 
available if you have enough cash.  But also, why put in all that effort to look 
at gray fuzzy objects that won't change their aspect between your birth date and 
your death date?  You can get pictures from the Hubble telescope that are far 
more spectacular.  Planets are even worse.  Even in really good planetary 
telescopes, the only interesting planets are Jupiter, sometimes Saturn, and even 
  more infrequently, Mars.  A lot of effort, for relatively little payback.

my personal reason for not making telescopes is that my arms are broken.  Nerve 
damage from too many hours on the keyboard.  I cannot push glass and it's 
difficult to do any extensive woodworking.  Since I'm a planetary bigot, I can 
tell the difference between a good planetary scope and a good deep sky scope on 
planets.  No criticism meant on either type, just different scopes for different 
missions.  But you can't get a good commercial planetary scope without dropping 
many more dollars than you would on a good deep sky scope of the same aperture. 
  unfortunately, for a different reason, I am in the same boat as the urban 
person.  I can't move a scope easily and my six-inch F11 Newtonian sits in my 
basement collecting dus.

But let me turn this question around.  Given that people are moving into cities, 
how can we make astronomy accessible to them?  One big issue would be to control 
lighting but for some reason, trying to get amateur astronomers involved in 
light pollution is like trying to give the dog a bath.  Here in New England, you 
can count the number of folks active at amateur astronomy and light pollution on 
two hands (well, maybe 4 hands).  Fewer than 20 people are trying to change 
lighting policy for six New England states.  Successes are few (statewide 
Connecticut for highways, a dozen or so cities across the region).  Part of this 
low success rate is due in part to lack of involvement by the amateur community. 
  So the question would be, what keeps you from being involved?  What keeps you 
from eliminating one of the greatest threats to our hobby?  After all, if 
citydwellers can't see the stars, why should they look any further than the 
nightclub with a pretty twinkling lights?

---eric


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