Sky and Telescope - May 2017 - 27

S&T ARCHIVES

IMPORTER In America, English Mechanic contributor John
Mellish built telescopes and told Americans how it was done in
a seminal Popular Mechanics article in 1907. Here he looks into
Yerkes Observatory's 12-inch refractor in 1915.

A number of these mirror grinders went on to form companies
to make and sell serious astronomical telescopes in quantity, at
reasonable prices. All these efforts enabled amateur astronomy
to expand and become an important fount of science enthusiasm in America by the beginning of the Space Age.
To feed the interest, magazines continued to publish
ATM articles, letters, and advertisements for supplies. New

magazines appeared too - Amateur Astronomy in 1929, The
Telescope in 1931, and The Sky in 1935. An indicator of the
strength of reader interest was the addition of regular ATM
columns to existing publications: "The Backyard Astronomer" section in Scientific American started in 1928, followed
by "Gleanings for ATMs" in The Telescope in 1933.
The Great Depression forced some consolidation. Amateur
Astronomy was absorbed into The Sky, and in 1941 The Sky
and The Telescope merged to form the magazine you're holding. That tale is told in last November's 75th-anniversary
cover story.
Although the birth of ATMing in America was clearly a
second-generation birth, I would suggest that 1918 to 1926
was indeed the most crucial time, with perhaps 1920 as the key
moment - with the publication of Ellison's book and Porter's
evening class in telescope making. What is also evident, in
my view, is the difference between the quite reserved English
ATM scene where it all began, and the enthusiastic take-up of
ATMing in the United States, which set the pace forever after.
¢ KEITH VENABLES, FRAS, lives in the U.K. near London. He
uses his skills as an engineer to make ultra-portable telescopes
and is looking forward to his 18th trip to the Texas Star Party.

K EI T H V EN A B L ES (2)

that suggest he was regularly figuring and
refiguring mirrors for Calver telescopes.
Ellison's skill as a mirror maker is
undoubted, but his mirror cells and tubes
were less advanced. His reflectors usually had not a solid tube like my example,
but a partially open arrangement of
parallel wooden battens for ventilation.
He thought that solid tubes could never
produce satisfactory results due to thermal air currents. He may well have based
that opinion on his use of this very scope.
My own use of the telescope has led me
to conclude that it isn't the solid tube but
the thick, solid mirror cell in the back that
was the problem.
How one of Ellison's telescopes ended
up as junk in a backyard in East London
we will probably never know. Fortunately,
it led to a fascinating insight into a key
period in the development of amateur
telescope making.
u RESCUE The author discovered a 6¼-inch
reflector made by William Ellison, and pictured
in Ellison's 1920 book, as an apparent piece of
beat-up trash in a London yard. He restored it
to working order. Left: Scratched on the back
of its mirror are William F. A. Ellison's signature,
"1912," and Irish shamrocks.
s k y a n d t e l e s c o p e .c o m

* MAY 2017

27


http://www.skyandtelescope.com

Sky and Telescope - May 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky and Telescope - May 2017

Contents
Sky and Telescope - May 2017 - Cover1
Sky and Telescope - May 2017 - Cover2
Sky and Telescope - May 2017 - 1
Sky and Telescope - May 2017 - Contents
Sky and Telescope - May 2017 - 3
Sky and Telescope - May 2017 - 4
Sky and Telescope - May 2017 - 5
Sky and Telescope - May 2017 - 6
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Sky and Telescope - May 2017 - Cover3
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