Education
Pratt Institute.
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John Pierce
Edit ProfileCareer
Pierce worked with Russell West. Porter to organize Stellafane, the observatory near Springfield, Vermont where amateur telescope makers still meet annually for the Stellafane convention. Pierce contributed many articles to the telescope making column conducted by Albert G. Ingalls in Scientific American, and wrote several chapters in the Amateur Telescope Making series of books, including "Motor Drives", "Making Astronomical Flats", and "A Telescope Anyone Can Make" (the latter appeared only in the earliest printings). When the hobby was new and supplies were hard to come by, Pierce set up a small business to provide kits and parts for amateur astronomers.
In 1933 and 1934 he published a series of 14 articles on telescope making in Hugo Gernsback"s Everyday Science and Mechanics called "Hobbygrafs" (or sometimes "Hobbygraphs").
Robert East. Cox, in an obituary for Sky and Telescope magazine in 1958, considered Pierce on a par with Ingalls and Porter, describing him as one of "the big three behind the amateur telescope making movement in America." Pierce graduated in architectural engineering from Pratt Institute in 1910. He was also active in civic affairs and well known as a musician and amateur geologist.
Membership
He was one of the earliest members of the Springfield Telescope Makers and served as its vice president
Connections
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Born
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Died
March 4, 1958 (aged 72) -
Nationality
American