Greetings fellow astrophiles,

CNYO is organizing a Syracuse session for the seventh International Sidewalk Astronomy Night (ISAN 7) being held in honor of John Dobson. We’ll have weather and event updates as we approach March 8th (the 7th and the 9th are official weather-alternate dates) and will be setting up next to Walt the Loch West Monster, the same place several hundred Syracusans observed the Transit of Venus in 2012 and a few of us participated in solar observing for the NASA Climate Day in 2013 (map below). Please spread the word and consider stopping by to celebrate John Dobson’s contribution to amateur astronomy. Several Dobsonians built by West Monroe’s own New Moon Telescopes will be on hand to show you their workings and, of course, show you the sights!

Walt, just above the center green oval between Walton and W. Fayette.

A little background…

The 20th century was, by far, the most important century for amateur astronomy, as it was the first in which telescopes were mass produced for the consumer market (ours wasn’t much of a busy field for all of the rest of human history). The great science aside, it was the major jump in technology for our field that really grew our numbers.

John Dobson, 1915-2014. Image from latimes.com.

While the list of names responsible for this transition is considerable, a few names are easily recognized as prime movers. John Dobson, who passed away this past January 15th, made one of the great contributions to amateur astronomy by taking the technology back to its foundations, synthesizing a number of great ideas in the amateur building community, throwing in some of his own ingenious ideas, and laying the groundwork for the scope we know today as the Dobsonian.

The “Dob” made it possible for anyone to do large aperture, deep space observing by allowing builders to use very large mirrors in very (well, relatively) portable, reasonably light-weight designs. It is also a much simpler scope for a person to build compared to the many other varieties that used to dominate star parties. As the quality of the scope is limited by the quality of the builder and parts, this also means an expert builder can put together a world-class scope in their own garage that will absolutely compete with the best high-end company-built scopes (a fact that many of us Dob owners are thankful for!).

Better still, John was the world’s leading exponent for sidewalk astronomy, having effectively started the trend as the co-founder of the San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers. In his honor, CNYO members are joining other astronomy organizations and sidewalk astronomers around the world in the seventh International Sidewalk Astronomy Night (ISAN 7) on March 8th. In our case, we’re fortunate to have a prime piece of the Onondaga Creekwalk just at the edge of Armory Square and will be setting up, as always, next to Walt.

You know, Walt (twitter). Image from syracusepublicart.wordpress.com

While not the best place in the world to observe, there is plenty to see in the Night Sky even from well-lit Syracuse. Attendees will be treated to views of a first quarter Moon (and if you’ve never looked at the Moon with any kind of magnification, you are in for a real treat), Jupiter (worth the trip out itself!), the Pleiades, the Orion Nebula, possibly the Andromeda Galaxy (at least a small sampling), and a medley of assorted star clusters (which means we’ll find out what we can see when we’re set up). On top of all that, it’ll be a great chance (weather permitting), to hang out with local amateur astronomers and space enthusiasts in an easy-to-get-to location.

For more information about John Dobson, check out his wikipedia page. For more information about ISAN 7, check out one of several sidewalk astronomy sites, including sidewalkastronomers.us and sfsidewalkastronomers.org. And, of course, join our Facebook Group, add our twitter feed, or keep track of cnyo.org for more information as March 8th approaches.