The annual Stellafane Convention in Springfield, Vermont, will mark its 80th year this summer. This well-attended gathering is a celebration of amateur telescope makers throughout the country. The following photographs are a small sampling of some of the handmade telescopes that graced Breezy Hill for a few days late last July. For more information on […]
By Yankee Magazine|Jun 16 2015|
Coffee By Design | Portland, Maine
Photo Credit : Katherine Keenan
The annual Stellafane Convention in Springfield, Vermont, will mark its 80th year this summer. This well-attended gathering is a celebration of amateur telescope makers throughout the country. The following photographs are a small sampling of some of the handmade telescopes that graced Breezy Hill for a few days late last July.
For more information on this year’s event, please visit the Stellafane website.
Photographs from the 2014 convention were captured by Bob O’Connor.
Constructed by Steven Benson of Walpole, New Hampshire. Benson is a long-time attendee and in 2014 he had some fun bringing an art scope made out of parts of a tree that came down near his home. This is an open tube scope, which means it can only work at a dark site. Photo Credit : Bob O'ConnorRefurbished by Peter Talmage of Northfield, Massachusetts. This renovated telescope earned Talmage the event’s “antique restoration” award in 2014. Restoration involves cleaning and resenting the optics, cleaning and polishing that gorgeous brass tube, and, cleaning, oiling and adjusting the mechanical parts like the focuser and mount. Photo Credit : Bob O'ConnorConstructed by John LaShell of Mertztown, Pennsylvania. “It looks like a commercial tripod,” says Slater, “but it’s homemade. John has done a good job of using wood in the mount. The only major pieces of metal are the counterweight shaft and tube saddle [attachment of the tube to the mount].” Photo Credit : Bob O'ConnorConstructed by Ivano Dal Prete of New Haven, Connecticut and Verona, Italy. Prete has his doctorate in history and was first introduced to the Stellafane crowd while he was a lecturer at Yale University. His telescopes are “beautiful and functional,” says Slater. Photo Credit : Bob O'ConnorConstructed by Mark Daley of New Ipswich, New Hampshire. In building his telescope, Mark used rib and skin construction, similar to that used for model airplanes, to achieve a rigid and lightweight tube. “You might think this is very portable scope,” says Ken Slater, Stellafane’s Vice President and Webmaster, “until you look at the chunk of concrete for the base!” Photo Credit : Bob O'ConnorConstructed by Paul Courtemanche of Groton, Massachusetts. Another way to increase aperture is to double the sensor area, says Slater, by using two eyes instead of one. The excellent binocular telescope does just that. “But to work well,” he says, “there is a lot of critical adjustment to get the two tubes optically aligned and to deal with the widely varying inter-ocular distances of the human body.” Photo Credit : Bob O'ConnorConstructed by Normand Fullum of Hudson, Quebec, Canada. Normand has been bringing very functional but artistically stunning telescopes to Stellafane for about a decade. He won several awards for craftsmanship in the early years, but then he started selling his creations, which disbarred him from entering the competition. More of his work can be found at: http://www.normandfullumtelescope.com/en/ Photo Credit : Bob O'ConnorConstructed by Tom Nolasco and Jim Taylor of Huntington Valley, Pennsylvania. This scope is similar to the high-magnification scopes often used by planetary observers to tease out the most detail when looking at solar system objects. Photo Credit : Bob O'Connor
![Constructed by John LaShell of Mertztown, Pennsylvania. “It looks like a commercial tripod,” says Slater, “but it’s homemade. John has done a good job of using wood in the mount. The only major pieces of metal are the counterweight shaft and tube saddle [attachment of the tube to the mount].”](https://newengland.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/140725_Stellafane_468.jpg)
