Material Culture and the Dobsonian Telescope

Authors

  • Jessica Ellen Sewell Boston University
  • Andrew Johnston Wentworth Institute of Technology

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4245/sponge.v4i1.11947

Abstract

This article examines the Dobsonian Telescope as an object of material culture, showing how starting with the materiality of a scientific instrument opens up new perspectives that are lost by focusing purely on its instrumentality. It argues that the simple design and homely materials of the Dobsonian telescope, as well as the gestures that it requires from its users, are at the core of its significance to the popularization of amateur astronomy and amateur telescope making.

Author Biographies

Jessica Ellen Sewell, Boston University

Assistant Professor, specializing in material culture, in American and New England Studies Program and Department of Art History. She is author of Women and the Everyday City: Public Space in San Francisco, 1890-1915 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010)

Andrew Johnston, Wentworth Institute of Technology

Associate Professor or Architecture. He is working on a book entitled Quicksilver Landscapes: Race, Space, and Power in the Mercury Mining Industry in California and has made two Dobsonian telescopes.

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Published

2010-08-09

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 1 (2010): Scientific Instruments: Knowledge, Practice, and Culture

Section

Focused Discussion

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