Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - A Conversation With Telescope Inventor John Dobson

Episode Date: September 10, 2012

When John Dobson invented the Dobsonian telescope he changed the face of amateur astronomy. The 96-year old pioneer talks with Mat Kaplan. Emily Lakdawalla loves Curiosity’s self-portraits. Bill Nye the Science Guy is in London to host a youth webcast with International Space Station astronaut Sunita Williams. Bruce Betts keeps us from getting Lost in Space and helps Mat give away a cool Curiosity bumper sticker in What’s Up.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

John Dobson and the Dobsonian Revolution, this week on Planetary Radio. Welcome to the travel show that takes you to the final frontier. I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society. People used to tell John Dobson that he should patent his telescope design. No chance, said John. The whole idea was to allow as many people as possible to enjoy the wonders of the sky, just as he did when he first looked through an eyepiece. Now, on the eve of his 97th birthday, we'll talk to the man who brought astronomy to the people.

Bill Nye will tell you why he has left for London, and Bruce Betts will give away a Curiosity ChemCam bumper sticker in the What's Up segment. Speaking of the Mars Science Laboratory rover, here's Emily Lakdawalla. Emily, lots more great photos in the blog of Curiosity, and they really are of Curiosity, not just from Curiosity. Yeah, it's pretty unusual, Curiosity's ability to shoot photos of herself. You know, she's got a lot of cameras, but so have previous rovers. But this one in particular, the cameras that Mail and Space Science Systems built for Curiosity are just so

spectacular. They're much higher resolution than previous landed Mars cameras. And they have this natural color and the detail and the color it just lends this very similitude to the pictures that make you really feel like you're standing right there next to curiosity and she uses this camera on the end of her arm to point at herself she took a self-portrait photo so it's like your you know myspace profile photo like holding the cell phone camera and pointing it back at you there's one that appeared this morning where she did a survey of underneath her. So you can see all six wheels sitting on the ground and see the belly pan of the rover. It's pretty amazing. There is one shot of some wheels and it actually shows little tiny dents in one of the wheels. That's right. It looks like the rocks on Mars

are pretty sharp as Curiosity drives over them. And also Curiosity is very heavy. So there's a lot of force between the wheel and that pointy tip of the rocks. But the engineers say there's no big deal, these little tiny dents in the wheels. Okay, that's a relief. Let's go over to Opportunity, still crawling across Meridiani Planum, which is also still taking some great photos. Doesn't want us to forget her. There is one with these very strange features. Yeah, you know, Opportunity has seen a lot of spherical little nodule type features as she's driven across Meridiani Planum. And these could be the same thing, but it would be strange if they were because they're much deeper buried in the stratigraphic section than the older blueberries that she was looking, or the younger, I should

say, blueberries that she was looking at. And there's just so many of them and they crack in weird ways. There are some people who think they might be lapilli, which is a word for little blobs of impact glass that are melted rock from an impact that solidified as little droplets in the air and then came down as these little glass spherules. So that could be it. But I think the jury's still out on what these things are,

and I'm really looking forward to what the rover scientists have to say at the next science meetings about these strange things. I especially like the theory that is stated in a one-word comment from somebody who calls himself Stargeezer. He simply says, eggs. Yeah, that would be pretty disturbing. I think we can wrap it up for this week. I do want to say that next week, that's when people will be able to hear you and Ed Stone and others in our celebration of the 35th anniversary of Voyager

and hopefully they will also check out the video so that they can see the terrific slides that you presented. These great images that amateurs like you are still getting out of the Voyager mission. They're really spectacular and every time somebody digs into the archive,

they come up with something better. Thanks so much, Emily. Thank you, Matt. She is the senior editor at the Planetary Society and a planetary evangelist. That's Emily Lakdawalla, who is also a contributing editor to Sky and Telescope magazine. Up next is Bill Nye. Bill, we catch you this week just as you were about to leave for where? London? London, in the UK, the United Kingdom. Yes. So whenever I'm in London, Matt, I get on the phone with the International Space Station.

I wish I could say that. That's the first time I've said it. So there's been a competition called Space Lab. Students around the world submit ideas for experiments and the winners and I will be in London talking especially to astronaut Sunita Williams,

who's helping the students conduct their experiments on the International Space Station. And this is going to be Thursday. What would be that? That would be the 13th Pacific time. So if you're watching, if you're listening to this show right now

before the 13th, tune in, listen to it live, I guess 3 in the afternoon British time, which would be in the East Coast to be 5 hours earlier. What's that? 10 in the morning on the East Coast. If you're listening to this podcast later in the week, well,

I encourage you to go check it out at YouTube. This looks like it'll be great fun. It says that you're going to be talking about these experiments that kids have set up on the space station. Yeah, so there's a question about the virulence or the capabilities of bacteria in zero G. in zero g so that there's a bacterium that we rely on because uh because uh farms the bacterium lives in the soil and fights funguses that would attack our farm food and everybody wonders how the how these bacteria will behave in zero gravity and then the other thing is really cool is this guy from egypt has this jumping, the tiger of the spider world. How well can it jump in zero-g?

It can weave webs. Can it jump? Very cool little idea. And I hope that these spiders are very well sealed in their experimental containers. That's all they need are jumping spiders in zero-g all over the ISS. It's a movie script that writes itself man

spiders on a space station the sequel to snakes on a plane no but it's an exciting thing and this is uh we want to uh everybody in the world to get engaged in this because these investigations will help us understand how living things behave in zero G. And this could lead to some discoveries, some understanding of what it'd be like to send people on a seven month trip to Mars. And I'm not kidding. What happens at the cellular level happens to the meta organism, to the big animal that would be a human. So for me, Matt, this is part of the big picture, seeking answers to the two big questions. Where did we come from and are we alone? And you can say, well, why are these kids, why is NASA, why is the international community conducting these two experiments?

What are you going to find out? We don't know. That's why we're conducting the experiments. And I'll be part of the whole situation. I'm very excited this Thursday from London. And inspiring some kids along the way. And I'm sure if you catch this after Thursday, I'm sure it's going to be archived at youtube.com slash spacelab.

Thanks so much, Bill. Have a great trip. Thank you, Matt. He's Bill Nye, the science guy and the CEO of the Planetary Society. Up next, John Dobson, inventor of the Dobson Telescope. Really? How cool! In his great book, Seen in the Dark, the science writer Timothy Ferris states that the amateur astronomy revolution was incited by three technological innovations,

CCD light-sensing devices, the Internet, and the Dobsonian telescope. The DOB, that sublimely simple device that puts the universe within reach of people around the world, was invented by a man who spent 23 years as a cloistered monk. was invented by a man who spent 23 years as a cloistered monk. John Dobson was eventually expelled from his monastery, mostly because he was spending so much time building telescopes for people. It wasn't long before he and a few young friends had planted themselves on the streets of San Francisco, eagerly welcoming all comers who wanted a piece of the sky.

Last month, on the day before Curiosity touched down on Mars, John Dobson became a special guest of the Planetary Society at a PlanetFest reception. Later, we all moved out into a cool Pasadena evening. With a blanket to protect his old bones from the chill, John took a place of honor among several telescopes. I asked the Pied Piper of astronomy if I could spend a few minutes talking with him. Mr. Dobson, it is really an honor to speak to you. There are amateur astronomers

all over the world who are using telescopes based on your design. I know. It's called the Dobsonian Revolution. One time I was at an astronomy club, and somebody was giving a talk about the Dobsonian Revolution, the Dobsonian Revolution. So I got up and said, all the previous revolutions were run with the cannons on Dobsonian mounts. That's right, I guess. Okay, so I had a DAWB 8-inch, and now I have another telescope from a famous manufacturer that is computerized and is all kinds of fancy technology. But it's still 8 inches, but it's still your kind of mount. Yeah. Our 24-incher used to be 24 inches across the glass and 13-foot focal length.

And it weighed 600 pounds. And my friends used to get on my case, you see, because they said it's not portable. But we've hauled it, and it weighed 600 pounds. We've hauled it more than 80,000 miles, and it's too late to tell me it's not portable. That was a 24-inch telescope. Yeah.

We've hauled it more than 80,000 miles. It's been through at least 25 national parks. It's spent more than 100 nights at Glacier Point in Yosemite. What drove you to want to develop a telescope that could be so... I wanted to see what the hell is out there. But you developed something that is so much more accessible, so much less expensive, so much cheaper than so much of the competition. That's because I couldn't afford all that fancy stuff.

However, let me tell you how we first started grinding glass. I was in the monastery, and one of my friends said you can, he knew I wanted a telescope but I had no way to get a telescope and he said you can grind your own glass. That's all I needed to hear. We had been taking care of somebody with jaundice you see and I remembered that on his kitchen table there was a glass, a round glass. I thought it was probably six inches in diameter and half an inch thick. So we asked him, how would you like to have it ground into a telescope? Oh, he would love it. He brought it over.

It's a 12-inch porthole, one inch thick. It's a 12-inch porthole, one inch thick. That's where we started. thick. It's a 12-inch porthole, one inch thick. That's where we started. And then later on, I bought four and a half tons of ship's windows. I bought four and a half tons of ship's windows. And we made a lot of telescopes out of those things. Talk about what your experience is in San Francisco, that place where people knew they could find you. experiences in San Francisco, that place where people knew they could find you. All right, let me tell you where we started. We started with a nine-year-old, a 17-year-old,

and me, a 53-year-old. And so one of those, the 17-year-old says, what do we call ourselves? So he had several names. So when he said sidewalk astronomers, I said, let's call ourselves the sidewalk astronomers. So we got the telescopes out on the sidewalk at Jackson and Broderick Streets in San Francisco. And pretty soon, and we were out there all the time when there was anything to see, every clear night. So very soon, the news spread through the Bay Area, if you want to look through a telescope, go to Jackson and Broderick on any clear night. And then you see what happened was people from all over the world looked through those telescopes. And that's why it spread all over the world. Look what we see the the the amateur astronomers didn't have telescopes that's not what they were

doing they had cameras and the camera weighs as much as a coffee can and the tracking device weighs half as much as a Ford okay And when they saw us running around with big telescopes, they said, look what we could have been doing if we hadn't been taking these stupid pictures. Because your telescopes really were for people who just want to put their eye up to an eyepiece and see something.

And never mind photographing it. Want to see it. So, how did you, what led you to develop these unique mounts that are so simple? Well, first, they're too simple to be unique. They're too simple to be unique. They move around like a chair. Anyway, they move like your eyes. They go around this way and they go up and down this way. But if I had money, I might have thought of something complicated. But I didn't have any money.

We made the 24-incher in three months for $300. And a lot of elbow grease. Well, quite a lot of elbow grease. Well, quite a bit of elbow grease. The other person used to run a machine shop, and he knows how to do everything, you see. So he got a trailer. Once we got the thing done, he got a trailer for it, and we hauled it more than 80,000 miles.

But it says it's got a 13 foot focal length and a 12 foot tube. Oh, I have to tell you a funny story. When we first set it up, he and I did not have a big enough vehicle to haul a 12 foot tube. So we wanted an 8-foot piece and a 4-foot piece of 30-inch tube. So I went down to the company that sells tube and he's standing there and on the loading dock there's a 8-foot piece and a 4-foot piece of 30-inch tube standing there on the loading dock. And I said, did you come down earlier and order this? No, he said, didn't you? This is leftover from somebody else's order on that morning. A four-foot piece and an eight-foot piece of 30-inch tube. And I said to Brian Rhodes, something in this universe wants

that 24. I think you were right. I'll be back with more from John Dobson, inventor of the Dobsonian telescope, in a minute. This is Planetary Radio. I'm Robert Picardo. I traveled across the galaxy as the doctor in Star Trek Voyager. Then I joined the Planetary Society to become part of the real adventure of space exploration. The Society fights for missions that unveil the secrets of the solar system. It searches for other intelligences in the universe, and it built the first solar sail. It also shares the wonder through this radio show, its website, and other exciting projects that reach around the globe. I'm proud to be part of this greatest of all voyages, and I hope you'll consider joining us. You can learn more about the Planetary Society at our website, planetary.org slash radio,

or by calling 1-800-9-WORLDS. Planetary Radio listeners who aren't yet members can join and receive a Planetary Radio t-shirt. Our nearly 100,000 members receive the internationally acclaimed Planetary Report magazine. That's planetary.org slash radio. The Planetary Society, exploring new worlds. Welcome back to Planetary Radio. I'm Matt Kaplan. Go to any telescope store or website, and it's likely that both the biggest and the least expensive quality telescopes on sale will be Dobs. That's short for Dobsonian, and we're in the middle of talking to their inventor.

John Dobson was blown away when he first looked through a telescope that he had built. His first thought was, everyone needs to see this. And he has spent the rest of his life giving people that opportunity. I joined him as an urban star party went on around us back on August 4, the evening before Curiosity's landing on Mars. So here you have this legacy of dobs, as they're often called, Dobsonian telescopes all over the world. Anyway, we ran around with a big telescope. We've run through probably more than 25 national parks.

Now let me tell you how it goes in the national parks. We get there with a lot of telescopes, not just that one you see. But a 24-incher and an 18-incher and some other things you see. And then they let you give a slideshow first and then you flush all those people down those telescopes anyway you do we've done that we've done that in 25 national parks and in some of them we've done it a lot of times yosemite we've done it a lot of times. Yosemite, we've done it a lot of times, not just once. Now I'm going to tell you another funny story. When we first set the 24-incher up at Glacier Point in Yosemite, the security ranger saw it, and he said, you'll have to take it down before dark.

That's good. What did you tell him? I was ready to pack and go, but Brian Rhodes, he was smarter than I, and he took the ranger over to the telephone, and they called the floor of the valley, and we are staying. So you're obviously very proud of that 24-inch scope. But what about all these tens of, maybe hundreds of thousands of scopes based on your design that have opened up astronomy for millions of people? Yes, but I don't know whether they let everybody look through them like we did on that one. Ah, okay. How long has it been?

That was a public telescope. It was used almost entirely for the public. And it was a very good mirror. Four professional astronomers have told me they never had a better show through anything at any time than through R24. Wow. How long has it been since you started spending these nights on that corner in San Francisco, which is a sneaky way of asking how old you are now? I'm 96 years old now, and that was a long time ago.

Let me see. Hang on now. The sidewalk astronomers started in 1968. That's a long time ago, 44 years. Yeah, probably so. These telescopes are probably going to be around maybe forever, using your design. If there was some easier way to do it, they wouldn't be around. There's no easier way to aim at the sky than to go around this way and up and down that way. Yeah.

If there was an easier way, I would have thought of it. I just got to say, once again, it is an honor to be able to speak with you and share your words as your invention has been shared with so many people. Anyway, somebody had to get telescopes out for the rest of the world, not for astronomers. Somebody had to do it. I think of it as kind of like that old metaphor of you can give a person fish or you can teach them how to fish. And you sort of gave a lot of people fishing poles. Fishing poles.

I never thought about it that way. But anyway, they had some access to the sky. And not only that, but that's a good use for ships' windows. I bought four and a half tons of ships' windows. Four and a half tons of ships' windows. Now, I have to tell you a funny thing.

It's 24 and a half inch, it's 18 and a half inch, it's 16 and a half inch. How come? No idea. Because if you put a 24 inch glass in a 24 inch hole, it goes straight out to sea. Right. Yeah, that makes sense. Goes straight out to sea. So the porthole glasses come in an extra half inch. Almost all of them are. So it's a good thing they decided to make portholes circular instead of square.

Yes. Well, our first telescope we made when we were still in the monastery was made of a 12-inch porthole. You mentioned that story, the fellow with jaundice. Yeah, we had to take... Yes, I thought, when I remembered it, I thought it was six inches in diameter and only half an inch thick. I was shocked when I saw what he brought over. It was a good start.

And here is one of your scopes, right over here. I mean, there's a dog. That's what I call a dinky one. And that's about the size that I had. Oh, okay. Thank you very much. You are 24 inches, sleeps three in the tube. Seriously?

Yes, I've slept in there twice with two other people. Talk about getting into your invention. Yes, thank you. Thank you so much. It really has been a pleasure talking to you. Okay. John Dobson, inventor of the Dobsonian telescope, turns 97 this month. Bruce Betts is back with us via Skype. I hear you are almost completely recovered. I'm so sorry that you were not feeling well for, what, almost two weeks there.

Yeah, I'm much better, you were not feeling well for, what, almost two weeks there. Yeah. I'm much better. Much better. Thank you. Thank you for your concern and for everyone who wrote in with their concerns about me. You know what I feel really bad about, though? That no one wrote in? No. Oh, okay.

I was just kidding. Oh, you let that slip, huh? I had the flu. It wasn't death store. It was just unpleasant. Anyway, you let that slip, huh? I had the flu. It wasn't Death Star. It was just unpleasant. Anyway, what, Matt? Tell me. I completely forgot to ask Ed Stone when we did our Voyager thing, our celebration last week.

I was going to have him do a celebrity random space fact and wish you well, give you a get well message because you know each other pretty well, don't you? Yes. Yes, we do. Or, you know, fairly well. Well, another time, I guess. He's a good man. He sure is. People are going to enjoy hearing him on next week's show. What's up? Well, we've got in the evening sky, low in the west, Mars and Saturn. And in the pre-dawn sky, super bright over in the east is Venus. Much higher up is Jupiter. Jupiter coming up in the middle of the night in the east. And if you like the moon hanging out in a nice conjunction with these objects on the 12th, it will be near Venus forming a lovely view in the eastern sky in the morning. And then doing that, you know, that moon, it moves, it

revolves around the earth. So even though it's in that pre-dawn sky, a week later on the 19th, it's next to Mars in the evening sky. Okay, we move on to this week in space history. It was 15 years ago, Mars Global Surveyor went into orbit at Mars and started its very successful more than 10-year run at studying the red planet. And a little something for you, Matt. That's right. 1966, this week, premiere of Lost in Space. No, wait a minute. That wasn't Lost in Space.

I'm sorry. I think that was Time Tunnel. 65, not 65. 65? That does sound more likely right in the middle of the run of uh original star trek no a year before before yeah what am i saying oh my goodness forgive me dr smith danger will robinson danger we move on i'm gonna have to be careful again this week random space fact good i don't want you to have a relapse just because of this show.

The International Space Station, it's up there. It's working all the time. Its solar arrays generate 84 kilowatts of power. Wow. 84 kilowatts. Now let us move on to the trivia contest. And we asked you, what was the first spacecraft to fly by Saturn? How'd we do, Matt?

Lots of entries this week. I think a lot of people wanted that Curiosity ChemCam bumper sticker, or maybe it was the Planetary Radio t-shirt that we're going to throw in with it. But our winner, chosenbyrandom.org. We're going to throw in with it. But our winner, chosenbyrandom.org, this week it's Mohamed Reza Mezidi, who came up with the answer of Pioneer 11, the first to fly by Saturn. And a lot of people pointed out that this was within 20,000 kilometers of the cloud tops of that big ring planet. Among them, John Cato, who also said maybe the biggest discovery

was the discovery of that very thin F-ring. No cover? No, it certainly was a big discovery, and it paved the way for what I thought I might sucker people into the Voyager answer, but indeed, obviously, a well-informed audience. Yeah, very well-informed. And, Mohamed, we are very happy. Reza, I'm not sure.

I think he goes by Reza. We're going to be very happy to send you that bumper sticker and T-shirt as soon as you tell us where you are. So I'll write to him, and we'll try and get a mailing address. How about next time? All right.

Back to curiosity and where it's hanging out. Who was Gail Crater named named after and where was he from go to planetary.org slash radio find out how to enter all right so we've eliminated more than half the of humanity because we know it's a guy now it's named gail it's uh the 17th monday september 17 at 2.m. Pacific time, that you'll want to get us this particular answer. And we'll go back. We'll give away another pen. How about that? Another Fisher Space pen.

You can take it along with you when you fly up there and send us a nice thank you note. All right, everybody. Go out there. Look up at the night sky and think about your favorite statue. Thank you. Good night. Yeah, I don't know if I can pick a favorite, but that monumental Martin Luther King and his new memorial in D.C. would be right up there for me. What about you? Well, offhand, I'd go with the ginormous Abe Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial. Oh, you know what? That wins. You're absolutely right. Me too. He's Bruce Betts. With enormous good taste, he brings us each

week What's Up here on Planetary Radio. He's the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society. Join us next week for our celebration of the Voyager mission's 35th anniversary, when our guests will include Voyager Project Scientist Ed Stone and Carl Sagan's partner

Andrew Yen. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California, and is made possible by a grant from the Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation and by the members of the Planetary Society. Clear skies, John. Thank you.