When was the last time you saw *me* at a star party? ;) Home-made scopes are all I use when actually "observing", even though I have collected quite a few commercial scopes over the years. They rarely see action because my home-made scopes have much better optics. ATMing is now a bit of an industry all it's own. Many of it's practitioners are professional engineers or scientists, and are using digital advances to aid in their work. Technology moves on, the tools of the ATM have changed, but they are still out there in large numbers. John Dobson wasn't really in the mainstream ATM tradition, but his ideas live-on today. He wasn't interested in making the design better because his interest was only in seeing. The scope was merely a means to an end, whereas most ATMs enjoy the activity of telescope design and construction as much or more than observing. The Salt Lake club started out heavy with ATM people, I remember the 70's. Today it has become more of a social event, an excuse for people to get together. The activity of astronomy is very much second these days. Back in the old days, we came up with events for members only, today it's largely focused on outreach. The more technically savvy ATMer of today is typically a lone wolf, not a socializer. Just a couple of weeks ago, I met a gentleman from Ogden who is older than I am (I'm 61) and has been interested in astronomy for decades. He owns a very large Dob and is currently building a large Newt for his weekend get-away home in a rural area. Yet he has never joined a club and has no interest in joining a club. I think there are a lot more "no club" types out there than there are regular club meeting types. It may be that the traditional astronomy club is actually the living fossil. On Wed, Oct 16, 2019 at 12:43 PM Joan Carman <jcarman6@q.com> wrote:
I'll bend to your knowledge Chuck, but I doubt John Dobson would have appreciated 3D printers :) or when was the last time you saw a home built telescope at a star party (Watson excepted) :)
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