John Dobson approaching 95 years of age!

[iceman (Mike)]

Received this via email yesterday:

John Dobson is arguably one the most influential personalities in amateur astronomy in the last last couple of decades. He is most notable for being the promoter of a design for large, portable, low-cost Newtonian reflecting telescopes that bears his name, the Dobsonian telescope - a telescope that brought amateur astronomy to a whole new level. He has almost single-handedly revolutionized backyard astronomy by bringing it out to the street, making it possible for everyone to enjoy the beauty of the Universe!

On September 14 2010, John is turning 95 and here's your opportunity to send birthday wishes to him!

http://thilinaheenatigala.blogspot.c...-happy-95.html

Let's get together and wish John Dobson many more healthy orbits around the Sun!

I'll definitely add my birthday wishes to John (although still a few weeks early). My first telescope was a 10" dobsonian (newtonian reflector on a dobsonian base )

No doubt John's design revolutionised amateur astronomy and the availability of large aperture, low cost, easy to use telescopes. The availability of low-cost, good quality mirrors certainly helped that too

Happy Birthday John!

[erick (Eric)]

Agreed. I'm up to my third dobsonian-design scope. What a great service John did for amateur astronomy!

[multiweb (Marc)]

+1 . 95? Way to go! The guy's a legend.

[anthony.tony]

Hello time flies back in April 2005 John Gave our CWAS Group a visit and gave a Very Good Talk on his Experiences . at The Dish.at Parkes .I managed to get him to autograph 2 books of mine on Telescope making and got his signiture on my 10 inch Dob. For his age he is incredible.Reguard's Tony..

[renormalised (Carl)]

95...hard to believe, and he still gives his sidewalk astro-tours

[Vartigy]

Wow what an incredible opportunity that would have been.
Wonder if the kids in the photo will realise in later years how monumental that was.

[psyche101]

Thanks for the heads up guys, I sent my wishes, I cannot thank the man enough.

[Jen]

Arrhhhhh so this is the guy thats responsible for me wanting to spend more money on astro gear
He da man
I would love a dob one day

[M54 (Molly)]

I'll send my wishes.
He made a huge difference to my observing.

[Ric]

Affordable astronomy for the masses, a brilliant man.

Happy Birthday John with many more to come.

Cheers

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Originally Posted by anthony.tony

and got his signiture on my 10 inch Dob. For his age he is incredible.Reguard's Tony..

Yep me too Tony.
Somewhere I have pics of us together and he signed my 12" Dob

Thoroughly enjoyed my time with him (we mostly talked non-astro stuff coz he needed a break from it for a while )

He is a damn nice bloke.

Link to story and pic is further down: http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ead.php?t=1686

[glenc (Glen)]

Ask any long-time stargazer who has had the greatest impact on amateur astronomy, and two names will surely come up.

The first is Russel W. Porter, who (with help from Albert Ingalls of Scientific American) jump-started amateur telescope making in the 1920s. Every year more than 1,000 amateur astronomers still gather atop Breezy Hill in southern Vermont, where Porter and the Springfield Telescope Makers first gathered to test-drive their glass-and-metal creations.

The other is John Dobson, who turned telescope making on its head during the 1960s and '70s by using simple materials to produce low-cost, large-aperture reflectors. Today millions of stargazers worldwide use Dobsonian telescopes to sweep the sky, though (as Dobson himself will tell you) these are really just Newtonian reflectors affixed to the simple alt-azimuth wooden mounts that he popularized.

Dobson turns 95 on September 14th, and astronomy activist Thilina Heenatigala wants everyone to join him in sending birthday wishes. You can either send a message to wishdobson95@gmail.com or post a comment on Heenatigala's Dobson-turns-95 website.

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/102434024.html