John Dobson: A Sidewalk Astronomer FULL MOVIE
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- čas přidán 29. 08. 2024
- This is the complete 2005 documentary with absolutely no alterations or changes. I got the blessing of the filmmaker, Jeff Jacobs, to upload this so here we are. It's a great short film about a great man.
For additional info contact Jeff at jacobsfilm@gmail.com
I met John Dobson in 2000 when I came out of a Barnes & Noble in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of TEXAS. He was in the parking lot asking folk to come have a look at Mars. I knew of him from a science magazine article and I couldn't believe I was meeting him in person. I said, "You are one of my heroes!!" I signed up for a telescope-building workshop with him in 2001. The host of the workshop was Tim Black who owned 2 mini-Schnauzer dogs. He had them groomed before the event. They came outside to join us and had pink-painted toenails and pink bows in their top-knots. Mr. Dobson leaned over and whispered into my ear, "They used to be wolves and LOOK what we've DONE to them."
That is a charming anecdote. He has a wonderful sense of humour.
I have never been into astronomy and May never be but just to shake the man's hand would be.....
sooo bright and down to earth at the same time.
And they say he could have made sooo much money if he patented his invention.
He just gave it to humanity and I haven't seen more than 6 minutes of this yet but I think he said something like it would be wrong to not allow people the opportunity to make a good telescope for the small cost of 10 or 20 dollars. 💕
Still in aw of him as a great human being.
My knowledge of him is maybe 20 years old and can't wait to watch this movie on my tv.
and pretty much also for no real cost. 💕
This man just standing in the sidewalk inviting people to see the moon from his hand-made reflector always makes me teary. Screw your politics, personal biases or whatever. This is the kind of energy that brings the world together. This man was a genius and he stayed humble until the end of his life.
I try to continue his work as much as I can.
For all those who miss John....and sometimes we really miss him. Thank you so much for sharing.
We had John as a house guest for a week, back in 2002. Unforgettable man.
Rad! Proud to have a Dobsonian!
John has a fun balance of wisdom and a sense of humor. He will be missed. 😔
Thanks for all the telescopes John!
I've never met John Dobson, nor do I understand his cosmology, but I built a telescope based on his idea about 25 years ago. He achieved his aim, I think: he made looking at what's out there relatively easy and affordable. If you're a minimalist and want to take a look, this is the way to go. I can still use the beast I built; I was messing with it today. I've had to have the mirror recoated once and it's due for another if truth be told. Clear Skies!
He just made it very clear that everything we're told about space was fabricated inside another human mind just like our own. Yeah physics, but we only know the physics on earth everything else is an assumptions based off earth beliefs.
Thanks, Zane, for posting this. I never tire of John's dry wit. "The universe is made primarily of hydrogen and ignorance." Indeed!
Would love to have met John- his wittiness and caring intelligence is wonderful.
I'll never forget meeting John at Stellafane in VT over 20 years ago. I didn't have a clue who he was, or what he was about. I really knew nothing about Astronomy and Cosmology. He fascinated me, walking around giving advice and guidance on various telescopes that were there. I followed him around and the witty comments capture in this documentary are exactly how I remember John. John telling that viewer that his scope "runs on yogurt and eggs... I eat the yogurt and eggs" is exactly John. Sorry to learn of his passing some years ago, he will be missed. Thank you John for launching my interest in the field.
Damn his remarks are amazing! I gotta try them in the next outreach event😂😂
This video DESERVES to be subtitled.
Agreed! Amazing movie.
I love the look of Standard Definition CCD cameras. Such a charming look.
Thank you, Zane, for posting! I loved that man. During our Dobson telescope-making workshop in North Texas in 2001, I had the honor of having Mr. Dobson come to dinner with me and my 4 children. I made vegetarian chili for him and he graciously said it was delicious. I hoped he would impart some of his wisdom to my children. They asked what his favorite game was as a child. He grew up in China, the son of missionaries. He told of playing the "pee" game - where you run around and pee on each other!! We cracked up!! I said it must have been very interesting to have been born in China and that he should write a book. He said, "LOTS of people are born in China."
Now you belong to a minority...beautifully said. Most people aren't even interested in looking up let alone having any interest in the night sky. Thanks for your efforts John!
Got the link from CN - Thanks for uploading this Zane!
I spent months camping with him and doing star parties as a kid
A great inspirational figure who defies any description: astronomer, scientist, mechanic, science popularizer, monk, Vedantic philosopher. Wish I had the good fortune of seeing him in person. Also wish Sidewalk Astronomy movement spread all over the world.
He had a way of anecdotally explaining everything that anyone could wrap their head around. He definitely challenges quantum physics
54:00 I told my girlfriend the same thing 25 years ago in a pub in London; all matter has the innate property of sentience otherwise how does an electron know it's an electron? Even the table has a proto-sentience and I banged the table with my fist and stomped on the floor with my foot. I don't know why I thought stamping and banging helped prove my point, but it did.
Or didn't. My girlfriend said I was a fool and refused to buy me a drink. So much for my philosophy of mind.
John Dobson - hero!!!
Why do you think an electron knows it's an electron? A prime number doesn't know it's a prime number, for example. An electron is a perturbation in the electron field.
Awesome - Loved it all but that comment about the fish bones had me on the floor!
i like the S=sqrt x2 - t2..although technically speaking space/time is represented here as a classical closed system, which i recon is flawed..anyway back to the drawingboard.....Mr. Dobson was an intuitive and highly practical and clear human being..and much needed today
I will miss John Dobson 🥺
What an amazing man.
He truly was a very interesting man.
Im 20 years old and Im about to buy my first dobsonian, hoping to get a better view of the moon and to finally be able to see planets and deep space stuff. Im into space and science from when I was about 4 years old, watching space opera animes from 70s and 80s, also Star Wars and reading all kind of books about space. Most of my life I was more in the theory than anything else but now I really want the light of a nebula or a galaxy to come directly in my eyes, I'll edit this comment when it will happen
Edit: I just saw Andromeda galaxy, Saturn's rings, Jupiter and Mars conjonction. This was insane, Jupiter and Saturn are amazing when I first saw Saturn rings it's hard to explain there was a part of me that couldnt believe it was real at first
Thank you for posting this. I saw it referenced on Reddit.
This is awesome 👏
Nice! Saw on Reddit and Instagram and thought I better check it out!
Oh! Thank you, thank you, thank you for posting this! It brought back so many wonderful memories of time spent with the beloved John Dobson, during those weeks of making a telescope, after having attended his evening astronomy classes at Terra Linda high school back in the early 70s. I look back with deep gratitude for having had that entire experience!
It's hard to believe John Dobson is made out of hydrogen and exploded star stuff just like me. A man truly unique.
"I never went up to your because I thought you were a dirty old man (on the sidewalk), but now you are my favorite dirty old man."
The universe is mostly hydrogen and ignorance.
- John Dobson
Rest in Peace, you genius! 🥲
Thank you John
I just ordered an 8 inch dobsonian. He really had an impact.
Me too. Bought me here. Arrived yesterday and an hour and a half break in the clouds looking at the full moon in my back yard here in Western Australia. Tycho and the ejecta lines blew me away. OMG! Hope I can see some deep space ‘nebulae’ (in the old parlance). Virtual Moon Atlas is free. I just installed it with the extras. Amazing.
Good choice by the way. Seems to be the sweet spot deal cost / power. I’m stoked with mine.
I hope it arrived safe. Clear skies and good viewing.
@@gammondog thx!
Thanks for uploading! Seems like such an amazing person to know
Nice post Zane thanks
Thank you so much for making this available.
I wish I had the privilege to meet this man. Zane I see alot of the stuff you sell online and the telescopes you've built, they are pretty amazing, I hoping to build my own soon.
Thank you! I've looked for this for a while! Amazing. 😍😍😍
Awesome.
Great! Thanks for posting.
Thanks zane
36:43 "Once you've come to the conclusion that what you know already is all you need to know, then you have a degree in disinterest."
The steady state pseudoscience is somewhat infuriating... but you gotta love the guy's charm and his attitude towards showing people the universe as it is.
You have to empathize with the fact that he grew up in a time when we didn't know there was anything beyond the Milky Way. It would be shocking to anyone to hear in their lifetime that the universe as we knew it went from thousands to billions of light years. Besides that, it goes to show that even the best of us can fall into denial and delusion about some things. He still made enormous contributions to amateur astronomy and he will never be forgotten. He is the stuff of legends.
@@colesurf
Yes, I knew John Dobson personally and worked with him when he came to the Portland Oregon area here, he stayed in an astronomy store in Battleground Washington, that a husband and wife had a home attached to the store. Dobson conducted his telescope building classes there for 2 years in a row. Sadly the huge Astronomy Club in Portland, which has over several hundred members, very few went to visit him while he was staying at the astronomy store.
I chauffeured him to schools and a university to lecture to young students several times throughout the Portland area, and we provided Sidewalk Astronomy together in the evenings, and during the day with solar telescopes.
It was just amazing to talk to him in the car when we drove some days for hours as much as a hundred miles away or more from the Portland metro area.
I left an earlier message above describing how I first met Dobson at Star Parties here in the central Oregon high desert nearly a decade before.
I also attended his 95th birthday party at Griffith Park Observatory in Hollywood, and spoke there to the crowd as I took a large pastel sketch I'd made of him, and matted and framed it in my motel room before I attended the party that day with the director of The Observatory speaking that the steps ahead of me a bullhorn to speak to the crowd about the importance of producing artwork from observations through telescopes, for Dobson's birthday that day in 2010. I later attended his funeral in 2014 again in Los Angeles.
@@colesurf nah he’s just crazy. Lot of charming niche hobby people are. That’s why they get popular
@@kishascape He did invent a new iteration of the Newtonian telescope. A design that has revolutionized amateur astronomy. For that he deserves all the attention that he received in spite of his refusal to except modern cosmology. It's those charming niche hobby people that are funding the advanced research in the field of professional astronomy. They are part of the team effort. I can see how he can come across as a little hokey and I sometimes, like you, wince when he becomes philosophical.
Such a great portrait. Mister Dobson makes a great point about astronomical models. Stick to the observations.
I think he also ate wheat germ , I see the bottle in one of his vids, and he was using it to hold water for making the mirror.
thanks for that treasure!!!
21:06 I'm trying to find that lecture because the Kutztown University of Pennsylvania does not have it listed, nor provides it.
I am asking this because at 21:20 he said something very interesting, that most people don't know about him, and also he interacted in a very scientific way.
Ps: the wiki has two entries for his name, "John Dobson (priest)" (no pictures, still alive), and "John Dobson", the one in this video, easily confused; he died in 2014, may he rest in peace.
Super Fantastic 🙌 well liked 👓🎓🔭
I used to travel and camp in that that old school bus at glacier point and Grand Canyon with Urana and John as a 10 year old latchkey kid
Re watching bcus yes
I did not click like because I did not want to change it from 420
Interesting telescope movement he started. But his cosmology is way off. I’m so sorry he had to confuse so many with it. It was unnecessary.
Great music, anyone know the artist?
What a charming delightful gentleman. That dry sense of humour and gemstone quips. I find it fascinating that this journey came from his transition from atheist to a personal realisation that the universe is (and full of) evidence of a Devine construct. A flash of cosmic consciousness. Find Brian Cox - Life of a Universe for mind blowing explanation of ‘Physics’ now accomodating an endless (eternal) stream of multi-verses. On the ‘nano’ side of the science equation we’ve got Quantum Entanglement “spooky action at a distance”. Yes, this universe is indeed an interesting place.