John Dobson - A Biography

This is a color portrait of John Dobson. John Dobson is the co-founder of the Sidewalk Astronomers.


 
      He has been called the "Pied Piper of Astronomy", the "Star Monk" and the "MacGuyver of Astronomy".  He is arguably the most influential person in amateur astronomy in the last 30 years.  He has almost single-handedly revolutionized  backyard astronomy by bringing it out to the street,  making it accessible for anyone who has ever looked up in wonder, and asked "Why?"
      John Dobson was born in Peking (Beijing), China, on September 14, 1915.  His maternal grandfather was the founder of Peking University.  His mother was a musician; his father taught Zoology at the University.
     In 1927, John's parents moved the family to San Francisco due to political & social unrest in China.  John had 3 brothers: Ernest, Lowry, and Harrison.  John's father accepted a teaching position at Lowell High School and taught there from 1927, until he retired in the 1950's.
     After completing a degree in Chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley in 1943, John took defense-related jobs, which he held until he joined the Vedanta Monastery in San Francisco in 1944, thus becoming a monk of the Ramakrishna Order.  He spent the next 23 years in the Monastery.  When he joined the Order, known for its intellectual rigor & public service, he was given the assignment of reconcilling the teachings of religion with those of science.
      Having graduated from the university as a chemist, he wanted to see for himself what the Universe looked like, so John built his first telescope in 1956.  It was a 2", made from a lens he got in a junk store, and an eyepiece from an old pair of Zeiss binoculars; through it, he could see the rings of Saturn.  One of his fellow monks told him that it was possible to grind a telescope mirror, so John then made his first mirror out of a marine-salvage 12" porthole glass.  When he looked at the third-quarter moon with his finished telescope, he was surprised and deeply moved by what he saw.  His first thought was, "Everybody's got to see this."  So began John's long commitment to public-service in astronomy.
     John was transferred to the Vedanta Monastery in Sacramento in 1958, and started getting seriously involved in telescope making.  The first telescope he made at Sacramento was a 5" reflector; the mirror made from the cut-out bottom of a discarded gallon jug.  It was John's greatest delight to share the beautiful things he saw through the telescopes with others.  One of his friends was so amazed by what he saw through the 5" telescope, that he told John, "You've got to make something bigger!" - and donated some salvaged portholes which had to be smuggled into the monastery in fertilizer boxes.

     John had to screen his own sand for grinding, and made his own rouge out of garden supplies, (ferrous sulfate and oxalic acid).  All of this had to be done without attracting the attention of those members of the monastery who felt that public service astronomy was not an appropriate pursuit for monks.  The noisy job of grinding mirrors had to be done  under water  to deaden the sound.  Since John was a monk and had no money, he had to find a way to mount the mirrors using scrap materials that could be gathered up at no cost.  His telescopes were made from discarded hose reels, lumber core cut-outs from school house doors, and scrap wood.  This was the humble origin of what has come to be known as the "Dobsonian" mount.
      These are Newtonian telescopes.  A Dobsonian  is really a kind of  an alt-azimuth telescope mount.  It's like re-inventing a cup.  We've had cups all along, and if you try to patent a cup with a handle, you can't."
    The desire that drove John to make more and larger telescopes, and to put himself in increasing peril of expulsion by monastic authorities, was to give everybody the opportunity to see the Universe first-hand.  He put discarded wagon wheels on his telescopes to facilitate wheeling them around the residential neighborhood surrounding the monastery - delighting kids & adults with the views of the night sky.

      Naturally, when they started to look through John's telescopes, some of the neighbors and their kids wanted John to help them make their own telescopes, and he realized that this would cause his AWOL hours to increase.  Nevertheless, he continued and expanded his activities, till he was thrown out of the monastery in the Spring of 1967, after 23 years as a monk.  He was not expelled because the monks were against his telescope making, but because they couldn't imagine that that was all that he was doing.

    John decided to dedicate the rest of his life to public service, and hitchhiked to San Francisco.  Then as now, John had many friends, and they helped to keep him fed, clothed, & sheltered.  He retrieved some of his telescopes from Sacramento and set them up at the corner of Broderick and Jackson streets, in San Francisco, every clear night.  Thousands of people looked through the telescopes, while John talked to them in detail about what they were seeing.  (This practice is still an integral part of Sidewalk Astronomy: astronomical information must be supplied by the telescope operator in order that the viewers can understand what they see.)  Eventually, John was able to support himself by teaching classes in telescope-making and astronomy at the Jewish Community Center, and at the California Academy of Sciences, where, among other places, he still teaches to this day.
     In 1968, some of the kids who had made telescopes under John's guidance, and who joined him in setting up scopes at Jackson & Broderick, started a public-service organization, and named it the San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers .  As the organization grew, larger telescopes were made and taken out to the streets.  By 1970, the Sidewalk Astronomers had a 24" telescope which was freeway portable.  The possibility of showing deep sky objects to large numbers of people through very large telescopes led the growing band of Sidewalk Astronomers to National Parks and Monuments, Indian reservations, and out of the country to places where "dark skies and the public collide".
     Several years ago, as members of the original San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers spread out into new areas of the country, and new "chapters" started to form, it was decided to remove the "San Francisco" from our name, and call our organization simply The Sidewalk Astronomers.

     Millions of people all over the world have looked through the telescopes of the  Sidewalk Astronomers.  John has helped to simplify the art of mirror making, enabling thousands of kids and adults with no previous experience or special training in optics, to experience the joy of turning slabs of glass into powerful "eyes into the heavens" with their own hands.  The "Dobsonian" mount has made large, "user friendly" telescopes affordable and accessible to the general public.  Thousands of people have made their own sturdy, low-cost telescopes under John's direction, or on their own by using his simple design.  Telescopes with lightweight mirrors previously considered unusable, long focal ratios previously considered unmanageable, and apertures previously considered unthinkable - are now in the hands of lovers of astronomy around the globe.
     John Dobson's life has been a tremendous inspiration to a great many people.  John and The Sidewalk Astronomers continue to serve the public with large telescopes, providing free "star parties" and slide shows under dark skies and city lights, encouraging the citizens of this planet to think and wonder about the Universe, and giving them a chance to see its beauty with their own eyes.
To members of The Sidewalk Astronomers, John continues to provide guidance and inspiration. His life of enthusiastic, selfless public service, and his genuine love and concern for this planet and those that live on it are the foundation and guiding principle of our organization.

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