Pluto's Discoverer's Backyard Telescope For Sale

Schart writes "My dad, an amateur astronomer/astrophotographer, sent me this link detailing the potential selling of Clyde Tombaugh (the man who discovered Pluto)'s backyard telescope. It features a 16 inch f/10 mirror which was hand-ground by the astronomer himself as well as a massive superstructure and 1-ton tube."

Comments

Not the pluto 'scope

[dtl]

This isn't the telescope used to discover pluto. Pluto was discovered in 1930, this telescope wasn't even finished until 1960.

Probably a nice telescope, but it doesn't come with discovery bragging rights.

Re:Not the pluto 'scope

[ReadParse]

And Pluto was discovered by Percival Lowell, thus the "PL" symbol for the planet Pluto.

No, it wasn't. Percival Lowell died in 1916, but he had started the search for "Planet X" before he died (and back when X was simply a variable instead of a marketing word directed at young people). Astronomers of the time knew that there was something affecting the orbits of Neptune and Uranus.

Lowell founded the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ, and that was where Tombaugh discovered Pluto, when he was a 24-year-old research assistant.

It appears that the symbol of PL was chosen as an homage to Lowell.

RP

More About Tombaugh and Pluto

[amigoro]

Here are some interesting links (and my attempt at KW)
Clyde W. Tombaugh 1906-1997
An Interview with Dr. Tombaugh
Status of Pluto
Image s of Pluto
The New Planet(oid)

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Re:Pluto and Sedna as planets

[Agent Orange]

This will NOT happen. The International Astronomical Union has Press Release in their FAQ section confirming pluto's status as a planet.

Re:Pluto and Sedna as planets

[yppiz]

No, they've just said no one has proposed it. From the IAU's FAQ:

No proposal to change the status of Pluto as the ninth planet in the solar system has been made by any Division, Commission or Working Group of the IAU responsible for solar system science. Accordingly, no such initiative has been considered by the Officers or Executive Committee, who set the policy of the IAU itself.

Reading the rest of the FAQ, their position seems to be that a) Pluto's status is a sensitive issue, b) it probably shouldn't be a planet, c) for the IAU to change its status requires that someone propose the change, d) no one within the IAU has proposed this, e) the Planetary Systems Sciences Small Bodies Naming Commission in particular does not want to push the issue.

--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu

There are better large amateur scopes available

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're interested in the historical significance of its previous owner, then this might be the telescope for you. For the rest of us, there are far better options.

First, this is a huge contraption. The f/10 focal ratio means the focal length is 160 inches so your actual field of view is going to be quite narrow; on the order of 1/2 degree or less. That makes this a good planetary scope but rules out alot of extended deep space objects. For example, though you can't see all of it with your naked eye, the Andromeda galaxy is actually more than 3 degrees (that's 6 full moons).

Second, portability. The steel truss tube alone for this scope weighs 2000 pounds. Not going to be able to take that to many dark locations in your trunk.

One can buy a quality 16-inch truss-type Dobsonian telescope for $4000. You can find 20-inch or larger Dobsonian telescopes for under $6000 (a gentleman 20 miles from me is currently selling his 22-inch Starmaster dob with a premium mirror for $8000). Equatorial platforms can be built/bought for these scopes to allow adequate tracking for long-exposure astrophotography. These are generally faster f-ratio scopes (usually between f/5 and f/4) so they offer much wider fields of views than an f/10 scope. And here's the kicker: they're portable. They can be broken down in minutes and transported in an SUV or minivan.

So, for collectors, this is an interesting telescope. For the rest of us, there are better options if you're looking for afforable large apertures.

No, Pluto was NOT discovered mathematically

[StupendousMan]

.... unlike Neptune.

Lowell thought that very small deviations of the motion of Uranus from its calculated orbit indicated that there must be another planet ("Planet X") perturbing its motion. He estimated where it might be, started a big search for it, and then died.

Many years later, Tombaugh stumbled across Pluto while making a survey of the entire ecliptic. Yes, the planet was very roughly in the region of the sky Lowell had predicted. But it was soon obvious that the mass of Pluto was way, way, way too small for it to be responsible for the residuals in the orbit of Uranus. It was simply coincidence that one object (Pluto) happened to be roughly in the same area that another (the hypothetical perturbing planet) was calculated to be.

An article by Standish in Astronomical Journal (1993) shows that the residuals Lowell was using were incorrectly computed, and that there is no evidence for a perturbing planet. Here's a section of the abstract:

It is shown that the alleged 'unexplained anomalies in the motion of Uranus' disappear when one properly accounts for the correct value of the mass of Neptune and properly adjusts the orbit of Uranus to the observational data. .... there remains no need to hypothesize the existence of a tenth planet in the solar system.

And yes, I am an astronomer.