The Spark that Started Convention

1925 and 1926 were transformational years that would turn a sleepy local astronomy club into a world-wide ATM powerhouse.

From its informal start as Porter's Telescope Group in late 1919 at the Jones and Lamson machine tool company in Springfield, Vermont, to it's formal incorporation as the Springfield Telescope Makers in 1923, and for a couple years after that, the STMs were just a typical local organization which drew membership from Springfield and local towns. Because telescopes were an expensive luxury item for the wealthy, there were few, if any, astronomy clubs in the world - the average person could not afford a telescope which greatly limited interest. That was about to change very, very quickly!

Albert G. Ingalls was a young associate editor of Scientific American based in New York City. He read an article in a magazine in the New York Public Library by Russell Porter about making your own telescope. Apparently not many people had noticed this article or were inspired by it. Ingalls was intrigued, both for personal interest and as an editor. He arranged to visit Stellafane in June 12-14, 1925.

With Porter's subsequent help, Ingalls's wrote an article about his visit to Stellafane, and how the club members made and observed with their self-made telescopes. The article was featured on the cover of the November 1925 issue and was the lead story:

Several weeks after publication, letters starting pouring in to the Scientific American offices - readers wanted to know more - and they were coming from every country that the magazine published in! More articles were rapidly planned, the first two were written by Porter giving more profuse detail on mirror making and mount construction, which were published in February and March, 1926. After those successful articles, Porter was appointed a corresponding editor of the magazine. Ingalls initiated "The Backyard Astronomer" monthly column in 1928 with reader demand still strong which continued until his retirement in 1955.

We are not exactly certain who proposed that we hold a convention in the summer on 1926 - but we did. Clearly the club was being contacted by many individuals who wanted to visit and learn about telescope making in person, and given the volume of requests a convention at Stellafane was a good way to satisfy this.

In the course of about a year, from the summer of 1925 to the first convention in the summer of 1926, the Springfield Telescope Makers went from a quiet local club to an international phenomenon, leading the exploding hobby of amateur telescope making with expert advice, and holding annual conventions to share knowledge and camaraderie.

Click here to read the article by Albert Ingalls (PDF 5.1MB).

Scientific American November 1925 cover — Members of the Springfield Telescope Makers observe the sun in the attic of the Stellar Fane (*now Stellafane*) Clubhouse.