Stellafane Marks 100 Years of Hand-Built Telescopes in Vermont as Attendance and Membership Age
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Oct 24
Stellafane Marks 100 Years of Hand-Built Telescopes in Vermont as Attendance and Membership Age
1 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Oct 24
Summary
Springfield, Vermont, hosted Stellafane’s 100th anniversary, a three-day gathering where telescope makers and stargazers celebrated a century of building instruments by hand on Breezy Hill.
The convention, run by the Springfield Telescope Makers club, has long served as more than a hobby meetup—members say it helped seed the optics industry, support cosmic discovery and influence space exploration and national defense.
That legacy now faces pressure because commercial telescopes are often cheaper than building one from scratch, while light pollution has steadily reduced dark skies for amateur observers.
Attendance has waned and the club’s membership is graying, yet participants say the craft and community remain important enough to preserve into a second century.