Working for months with staff members in the Department of Physics, a group of students and faculty from Brown and RISD learned the art and science of high-precision optics to make their own powerful telescopes by hand.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] - Having recently earned his Ph.D. in astronomy and cosmology at Brown University, Alexis Ortega has cast his gaze through the eyepiece of a telescope hundreds, maybe thousands, of times. But on a recent evening at Brown's Ladd Observatory, Ortega had a viewing experience like none he has ever had.
It was the first time he had looked through a telescope that he made himself, from scratch. Astronomers and enthusiasts call it "first light."
"Absolutely stellar," Ortega said of the first view through his handmade scope. "Taking in the sight of Jupiter through my telescope was just breathtaking. It was worth all the hard work and made me feel extremely grateful for the people who introduced me to the telescope-making process."
Ortega is one of a half-dozen Brown and Rhode Island School of Design students and employees who made the effort to painstakingly grind and polish mirrors to within nanometers of perfection, assemble optical tubes and create custom mounting systems to create fully operational, handmade telescopes. They say the experience went beyond building a precision tool that can outperform anything someone could buy - in addition to that practical benefit, they were connecting themselves to a craft that is nearly as old as western science itself, and to a community that is eager to keep the practice alive.
"For me, it's incredible getting to be a part of this fantastically long tradition making telescope optics by hand," said Aster Winkler, an astrophysics concentrator who completed their telescope just before earning a bachelor's degree with Brown's Class of 2026 in May. "I know it was a fairly popular hobby [in the past], but it is less popular nowadays. I think that's not because of a lack of interest among our generation… but a lack of the good teachers who are willing to donate their time and materials to help people learn to do this."
But the Brown group was lucky enough to have two teachers with decades of telescope-making experience in Robert Horton, a lab manager in the Department of Physics, and Dick Parker, a local optical guru whose rural Connecticut home doubles as an optics workshop for telescope enthusiasts. For several months last winter and spring, the group traveled to Parker's house with Horton early on Saturday mornings to learn the precision technique behind precision glass grinding and polishing.
