ATM "Say it ain't so!"

["Fred Maxwell - No spam e-mail accepted." <fmaxwell@erols.com>]

Dear Sirs,

I recently received the following disturbing message through the Amateur
Telescope Makers' list server on Internet:

> The new S&T has dropped the name for the department Telescope Making and
> renamed it Telescope Techniques. Also this department may not appear every
> month!

I have watched "Gleanings For ATMs" turn into "Telescope Making."  Back
in the '70s, when I was in high school, the column used to feature
articles about beautifully crafted telescopes -- sometimes the featured
telescopes were on the front cover.  More recently, it seems just as
likely that one will find themselves reading about how some numb-nuts
with a circular made an 80 pound, "portable" observing chair.  Still I
have soldiered on, buying hundreds of issues at my local newstand.

If there is no column devoted to amateur telescope making in a given
month, I will buy Astronomy or one of the Canadian or British astronomy
magazines instead of Sky and Telescope.  I will think about whether I
really need each month's issue of S&T even when it does have the
column.  It won't be the automatic buy that it has been -- unless the
column appears on a monthly basis.

When amateur telescope makers have supported S&T since the 1940s, they
deserve more than a bone thrown to them when it is convenient.  There is
no lack of material.  Between Stellafane and Riverside, there are enough
innovative telescopes to give you rich columns every month.  There are
technical articles to be written on everything from basic mirror
grinding to effective light baffling to collimation tools and
techniques.  Even reprints of older, but still useful, "Gleanings for
ATMs" columns would be better than months with nothing.

I ask you to reconsider your editorial decisions about the ATM column. 
Even the new name, "Telescope Techniques", sounds more like a how-to of
telescope operation than a column for ATMs.

Comets Shoemaker-Levy, Hale-Bopp, and Hyakutake have given a boost to
your magazine (and the amateur astronomy industry as a whole).  You have
new readers and increased circulation.  What happens when we go through
another 10 year dry spell, where the brightest comet is magnitude 5? 
All of your excited new readers will have mothballed their telescopes
and, if you play your cards right, you'll have your long-time readers to
fall back on.  If not, Sky & Telescope will "go gentle into that good
night."

Regards,
  Fred Maxwell