[meteorite-list] The telescope "Nininger" (superb news article)

From: MexicoDoug <MexicoDoug_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Oct 16 13:37:49 2006
Message-ID: <005101c6f14a$4d2b38f0$571b88ac_at_thedawning>

Hello Listees,

After the brief list discussion on telescopes, I thought the parallels
between amateur astronomy's quest for greater apertures and amateur
meteorite collectors contributions were with the same enthusiasm. Well,
from San Diego, USA ........... here's ....... a timely article that
expresses that better than I ever could! Meet the Nininger of Amateur
Telescope Collecting (building), Mr. Russell Williams Porter... and enjoy
this superb example of the press at its finest! After the newspaper article
you can research more ... start here to see examples of the fantastic pencil
drawing discussed: http://www.weertman.com/bruce/porter/
==================================

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/20061015-9999-2m15palomar.htm
l

Telescope Maker's Drawings a Look into the Past

By Bruce Lieberman
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
October 15, 2006

When Palomar Observatory's Hale telescope was being built in the 1930s, the
nation was in the grip of the Great Depression and on its knees.
But when you look at drawings of the giant instrument by Russell W. Porter,
the sentiment that swells from his clean pencil lines and soft shadows is
optimism - a jubilant belief in the greatness of science and industry.
The white dome that houses the Hale telescope, with its 200-inch mirror that
gathers starlight from the far reaches of the universe, is 135 feet high and
137 feet in diameter. It rivals the Roman Pantheon in size. Some astronomers
have compared the observatory to a cathedral.
The drawings by Porter, who helped design the telescope, document one of the
nation's biggest and most ambitious science projects.
It's impossible to separate his name from the history of Palomar
Observatory, which opened 70 years ago. But Porter, who died in 1949, was
neither a professional astronomer nor a working architect.
He was a self-taught Renaissance man. A dropout from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., he became an Arctic explorer,
artist, writer, surveyor, machine designer, amateur astronomer and telescope
maker.
"I think he was a giant," said W. Scott Kardel, a spokesman for Palomar
Observatory, which is run by Caltech in Pasadena. "His drawings are
enormously detailed, and they have become classics."
Master draftsman
To many amateur astronomers, Porter is a towering yet humble figure who
ignited their passions for the nighttime sky. While working as a machine
designer in Vermont during the 1920s, Porter founded the Springfield
Telescope Makers. He named the group's clubhouse "Stellafane" - a
contraction of the Latin words for "star" and "shrine." The club, which
hosts annual telescope-making conventions in Springfield, Vt., remains
active today.
Bob Thickston, superintendent for the Palomar Observatory and an amateur
astronomer who built his own telescopes as a child, remembers consulting
Porter's writings for guidance.

"I read his articles religiously," Thickston said. "He was the father of
amateur telescope making." Porter regularly wrote about telescope making for
the magazine Scientific American, and in 1927 his articles attracted the
attention of astronomer George Ellery Hale. Hale was spearheading the
200-inch telescope project at Palomar, and in 1928 he hired Porter as a
designer for the observatory.
Porter was a master of cutaway pencil drawing, a skill he first learned as
an engineering and architecture student at MIT. He completed more than 1,000
renderings of the Hale telescope over 12 years in the 1930s and '40s,
faithfully showing its architecture and engineering at various design
stages.
The drawings, completed on white paper with hard and soft pencil lead,
reveal the telescope's 14.5-ton mirror and support structures, interior
drive gears, bearings, motors, electrical cables and other components.
One drawing evokes the long-gone days of professional astronomy. It depicts
a man dressed in a suit and tie, sitting in the telescope's prime focus
capsule - a small, cylindrical observing station perched at the top of the
gargantuan telescope.
Astronomers no longer have to spend cold nights in the capsule. Computers
connected to the telescope collect all the images and data they need, and
all-night observations are spent in a heated control room.
In his 1976 book, "Russell W. Porter: Arctic Explorer, Artist, Telescope
Maker," biographer Berton C. Willard wrote: "If the Hale telescope was
dedicated as an enduring monument and tribute to one of the greatest
American astronomers, so the cutaway drawings of the great telescope by
Porter live after him as his monument."
The American artist Maxfield Parrish, a contemporary of Porter's who was a
meticulous craftsman, called the collection "a work of art, exact and
lifelike. . . . I doubt if there are drawings anywhere which can in any way
compare with these for perfection in showing what a stupendous piece of
machinery is going to look like when finished."
Today, poster prints of Porter's drawings hang in the observatory's hallways
below the Hale telescope. Caltech houses many of the originals.
Although visitors can buy posters of two Porter drawings in the
observatory's gift shop, they aren't allowed to traverse the hallways to
view the prints.
Kardel, the Palomar spokesman, plans to create an exhibit that showcases
Porter's contributions to the observatory. It would feature a model of the
Hale telescope that Porter built - it's being restored now - and several
prints.
Arctic adventurer
Porter followed an unlikely path toward his role in helping to design one of
the world's largest telescopes.
In the early 1900s, he abandoned his civil engineering and architectural
studies at MIT to join several Arctic expeditions as a surveyor and
illustrator. Repeated exposure to the cold left Porter partially deaf.
After his polar adventures, he settled as a machine designer in Springfield,
Vt., nurturing his hobby in amateur astronomy and establishing Stellafane.
During World War II, while much of the work at Palomar was halted, Porter
put his drawing skills to work rendering weaponry for the U.S. military.
After the war, work was finished on the observatory. Three nights before
Christmas in 1947, the Hale telescope's 200-inch mirror captured its first
starlight.
Today, the telescope is in high demand by astronomers tracking asteroids,
searching for planets around other stars and examining the evolution of
galaxies. Modern digital cameras and instruments that cancel out much of the
blurring effect of the atmosphere have enhanced the telescope's abilities
and kept it up to date.
Planned improvements to technology will soon allow astronomers using the
telescope to more effectively track asteroids and map their surfaces, study
volcanic eruptions on Jupiter's moon, Io, and search for planets outside our
solar system.

 Bruce Lieberman: (619) 293-2836; bruce.lieberman_at_uniontrib.com
Received on Mon 16 Oct 2006 01:41:21 PM PDT