At 7:00 PM, 2021 December 10, online on Zoom, the Sunshine Coast Centre of the RASC presents Randall Rosenfeld, who will be doing a presentation on the RASC’s Dorner Telescope Museum.
The Dorner Telescope Museum’s purpose is to tell the story of the telescope in Canada, through telling the stories of Canadian telescope makers, users, and their instruments. Many fine instruments have been produced here, and innovations developed, yet the makers are frequently less well-known than they deserve to be. The museum aims to change that. To reach that end, the museum is engaged in artifact identification, acquisition, preservation & conservation, research into the production and use of astronomical telescopes in Canada, gallery design, and crafting an approach to education and outreach emphasising real engagement with the instruments, and the styles of observation for which they were produced.
Contours of the Collection: The temporal range will run from the 17th century to the present. Widely disseminated and popular types of instruments will be included, as well as rare and unusual instruments. The collection will embrace equipment by Canadian makers of international, national, and local reputation, as well as those by quietly competent makers. The work of amateurs and professionals will be featured. Commercial telescopes or accessories made in Canada or made elsewhere but incorporating Canadian innovations will be accessioned. Telescopes and equipment with which Canadians have made significant discoveries, or contributed scientific data, or pushed the boundaries of observation or astrophotography will be sought, as well as instruments associated with culturally significant Canadians. Binoculars, astronomical eyepieces, astronomical cameras, spectrographs and spectrometers, photometers, and like equipment of Canadian design, manufacture, or inspiration will be included. The tools used by Canadian telescopes makers will be added. Publications and other media on astronomical optics with Canadian connections will be collected to support the museum’s work, and the museum will undertake its own documentation of Canadian telescope makers and their work.
Videos of the announcement of the museum, and the generous support making it possible, and presenting plans for its goals and development are available here.
You can help the mission of the Dorner Telescope Museum by:
- Contacting us if you have a telescope or other relevant artifacts you believe might have a place in the collection, or if you know of someone else who might have artifacts of potential interest
- Contacting us if you have information on, documents about, or recollections of past Canadian telescope makers
- Reaching out to us If you wish to receive updates on the museum’s work, or wish to volunteer.
- Randall can be reached at:
- rosenfel <at> chass.utoronto.ca, or
- corpdiv <at> sympatico.ca
Telescopes and binoculars are magic, bringing distant astronomical objects close or showing things invisible to the naked eye. That magic has never worn off.
—Rudolph Dorner
https://rasc.ca/dorner-telescope-museum
You can join us on Zoom on December 10 here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82545334963?pwd=bjZxWFVTZllqSit3WG9HZ0ZBb3pLQT09
Sunshine Coast Centre RASC 