J. Brit. Astron. Assoc., 107, 3, 1997, p. 147
Willmann-Bell, Inc., 1996. 3 vols. ISBN 0-943396-48-4, 0-943396-49-2, 0-943396-50-6. Pp. xxiv + 568, xii + 578, xii + 618, £24.50 per vol. (hbk.)
reviewed by R. A. Marriott
A long time ago, in a public library far, far away, there was once a naturally curious fellow who happened to be thumbing through some issues of Popular Astronomy. While doing so he encountered an article, in the November 1921 issue, entitled 'The Poor Man's Telescope' - which described the process of making a mirror - and a second article, published in March 1923, relating how a group of Vermont villagers had made their own telescopes. The author was Russell W. Porter, and the reader was Albert G. Ingalls, an editor of Scientific American.
This fortuitous incident led to Ingalls' decision to make his own mirror, but the only book on the subject that he could find was The Amateur's Telescope by the Revd W. F. A. Ellison, a copy of which he had to order from a London bookseller. (Telescope-making had by then been an active pursuit in Britain for more than six decades, and both Ellison and his son were long-standing members of the BAA.) At the same time Ingalls also tracked down Porter, who helped him to complete his mirror. There then followed the idea of popularising telescope-making, and in the November 1925 issue of Scientific American Ingalls published an article entitled 'How a Group of Enthusiasts Learned to Make Telescopes and Became Amateur Astronomers', which described a night spent with a group of amateurs at Stellafane, their clubhouse-observatory near Springfield, Vermont. In response, several hundred readers asked for practical instructions for telescope-making, and two articles were published in Scientific American in January and February 1926. Subsequently, these articles, together with much of the information in Ellison's book, were published as a 102-page volume - the first edition of the present work, which has since been enlarged and reprinted several times. Further articles led to a rapid growth of interest, and soon amateurs throughout the world 'found themselves engaged in rubbing one piece of glass on another...'
In 1932 Ingalls likened Amateur Telescope Making to the British Empire: 'a fortuitous, unsystematized agglomeration of ill-assorted entities acquired at different times by opportunism and otherwise', a multi-author work which by its nature could not be conveniently altered. 'Or so Ingalls thought', note the current editors, as it has now been logically rearranged, corrections have been made, notes have been added, and the index has been expanded, although the text remains fundamentally the same. The three volumes consist of 1800 pages in sixteen sections: Newtonian Telescope Mirror Making, Optical Testing, Workshop Wisdom, Observatory Buildings, Refractor Telescopes, Telescope Mechanics, Telescope Adjustments, Binoculars, Schmidt Cameras, Optical Flats, Optical Production Methods and Machinery, Eyepieces and Small Lenses, Optical Coatings and Coating Equipment, The Eye and Atmosphere, Other Optical Instruments, and Instrumentation for Solar Observations, forming an invaluable vade mecum for the practical astronomer, including those who have no intention of making anything but who wish to become thoroughly familiar with their equipment.
With its continuous expansion this work now contains such an enormous wealth of information that no part of it can be fairly singled out for appraisal, although there is a familiarity with Horace Dall's 'Null Test for Paraboloids' (reprinted from the Journal) and a photograph of the prototype Dall-Kirkham (BAA Instrument No.131), and a curiously modern touch in the advice that 'workers who attempt to combine sitting-up exercises or fat reduction with grinding will get exercise and fat reduction, but will discover a stubborn mirror disk, which will either become concave very slowly or not at all.'
This is a welcome and timely reprint of a classic work, which hopefully will contribute to a revival of interest in an occupation which in recent years seems to have suffered the onslaught of push-button technology, but with which it is entirely compatible. If only one word could be used to describe this set of books, it would be 'inspiring'.
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