An evening with John Dobson

[Exfso]

I have just returned from the monthly meeting of ASSA, the guest speaker was the man himself. Not what I expected, this bloke is a re-incarnated Prof Julius Sumner Miller(now there's a blast from the past). He is an amazing character, who I believe is in his 80's, amazing charisma, and spoke 100,000ft above the heads of most of us who were there I am sure. Very intelligent and great sense of humor, very little spoken about his invention, generally all about the physics of the universe and his ideas on the "big bang" theory.(basically he reckons it is crap), reading through the technicalities.
I am not sure how many people could be seated at the lecture theatre, but there was not a spare seat and quite a few were standing.
Very entertaining, but miles above my head, plenty of laughs and a lot of head scratching. He did give a very interesting account of a person he knows who he believes is re-incarnated, it was a fascinating story how this person became someone totally different when they slept and talked in their sleep. I could go on for a while about this, but it was very very eerie what he described.

:eyepop: :astron:

[ballaratdragons]

I can't wait to meet the man. Only a week to go. Yahoo, sounds like fun. Thanks for that Exsfo.

P.S. I used to enjoy watching Prof Julius Sumner Miller. This will be interesting!!

[ving]

wish he was turning up to MAS... oh well :)
sounds great!

[rumples riot]

Sounds like I should have gone anyway Peter, the skies were crap and so was the wind. At least we could have had a laugh or two together. Next time don't take no for an answer.

[Exfso]

Yeah Paul, it was blowing the crabs out of the trees when I got home. You would have had a laugh I reckon

:cool:

[atalas]

Hi guy's

Yeah John Dobson was cool to listen to,he dosen't believe in the Big Bang and has selective hearing ! nice old man ,If you try an bignote your self he'll shoot you down!

Louie:evil:

[Striker]

Well that means I'm out.

[ballaratdragons]

With a Dobsonian mounted 12" Cannon! :D

[westsky]

Ok it's time to clear something up.
written with all respect to John Dobson.
John Dobson brought telescopes to the common man, he showed people away to make there own cheap scopes, he used cardboard tubes and ground his own mirrors, the Dob mount he copied from old designs that had been used since the 18th century, he did not invent the DOB mount, I don't mean to take anything away from his achivements he and the San Francisco sidewalk astronomers brought astronomy to the world by spending there time on street corners showing people the planets and how they could build there own scopes without spending a fortune.
They did extremely well, they where dedicated and resoucefull and my hat goes off to them all, why the Dob mount was named after one man I have no idea.
I guess without people like him astronomy would still be back in the dark ages.

David.

[ballaratdragons]

He deserves to have it named after him. He brought it to the people!

Galileo was only a copy-cat too yet we associate him with invention. But Galileo shared what he knew. Same as John Dobson. Great people share their knowledge and I'm glad of that.

[westsky]

I think there are a few other people who should be mentioned as well these are the friends of his that helped in the "design"
And stood on street cornors showing the sky to anybody and everybody he didn't do it alone.
I read an artical some years back written by members of the SFSA who gave the true story of the mount named after John Dobson, it wasn't written with any sour grapes it just told the true story and named the others involved, but I guess you can't have a mount named Dobson, smith & Jones can you?
I will see if I can find the artical.

David

[ballaratdragons]

Maybe it could've been the 'California Mount' or named after the suburb they were in? Too late now though.

[westsky]

Proberbly good that they didn't name it the California Mount, back than anything associated with California was considered by other states and countries to be Hippy or Drug related :-))

David.

[atalas]

As John Dobson would say ,ah what was that!no there was no big bang ,just alot of hydrogen ! that was always there and always will be!

Louie:einstein:

[atalas]

Tony I don't mean sing a big note !

Louie:violin:

[atalas]

Dave If we keep building scopes like him ,we will be back in the dark ages !

Louie:rofl: