Creating and giving birth to a large (amateur) telescope.

 Alerted by a supernova patrol, scientists have used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to capture a rare glimpse of X-radiation from the early phases of a supernova.

(This is the story of James Patrick Tracey, father of an Irish family of 15 children who lived near Cork and who had a passion for building telescopes and watching the stars. Told by two of his sons Jerry and Terence and a daughter Eileen, to Wolf Lange).

James Patrick Tracey working at the University of Cork as an electrician started building the first of 4 telescopes (three reflectors of 18", 12" and 8" respectively and one 4" refractor) way back in 1945/6. The largest of these was build between 1954 and 1960. Living in the country where light and air pollution was still relative minimal, a large garage next to the main house was converted into the workshop and the launch pad for many nights of absorbing viewing. In the words of three of the children:

"To say the forty gallon drum had a place of prominence in the garage would indeed be an understatement, it was held in almost shrine-like reverence. It’s top was covered by a series of wooden slabs with three reversed wood wedges screwed in place, equidistant in an eighteen inch circle, holding a ships porthole – the primary slab of glass that was going to become the heart of the telescope. I remember it was at least 2,5" thick and another slab of same diameter but half a thick was worked on top of this mirror-to-be.

How often I remember running from the house through the drizzling cold rain to the garage, reached up to the cold wet metal latch of the small door to scamper inside out of the rainy cold weather. The gritty rind sounds penetrated my skull as dad worked the glass monotonously across the base in forever "W" formations. Occasionally sliding the glass apart to add some more grit and squirt some water from a plastic bottle with a bent straw dispenser. ’Twas a fine day that I would be allowed to help in this very important project, like fetching another bottle of water or bring dad a cup of strong tea with three sugars and a slash of cream.

At an advanced stage of "W" sliding, regular measurements of the depth of the curve were executed. A long brass bar was placed across and the curvature accurately measured until after many months of grind the perfect shape was obtained. The process of aluminising the surface involved transporting it by means of Steve McCarthy’s milk truck at an unholy hour of 5 o’clock to some or other physics laboratory or workshop at the University and finally get the "gem’ silvered by a mysterious process to all of us but dad.

At some stage in the proceedings the frame of dad’s largest telescope was put together. The weight of the 18" mirror was so heavy, that re-enforcement had to be added to the two-inch thick plank that formed the skeleton of the Juggernaut. I recall there being a trap door in the plywood shell near the mirror, but I can’t for the life of me remember why. With a focal length around 3 yards two ladders had to be build for nocturnal stargazing. Added to the square holding tube was a 12" electric motor driven with a governor to allow for long exposure photos being taken of the moon and planets.

 Most of my brothers and sisters qualified over the next years as telescope drivers (leaving few gaps for anyone else, as we spent many a cold night stargazing or more precisely cloud gap watching! Eyepieces of varying types were used – green glass from old navy night glasses and lenses of various diameters had to be made from whatever was available at the time (no fancy shops with high quality Plossl around Cork at that time!).

Nostalgic memories of endless moon watching in many different stages of aging. Orion’s nebula visible in winter in the south of Ireland and the Pleiades. Saturn’s ring the size of an Irish farmer’s thumbnail, Jupiter with many faint cloud-bands and four of the planets. A comet (could have been Bennett’s?) being reported on in the local newspaper – it was pure magic!

Dad spend almost every cloudless free night observing - rolling the scope out of the garage on a special launch pad. Watching into the small hours of the morning, with the odd bleary eyed youngster accompanying him on his star hopping exercise, until the eyes became droopy and every question on whether we had seen a particular cluster or nebula was answered" "Sure dad I’ve seen it well".

What has become of all those lovingly built telescopes? It’s another story for another occasion……..

Wolf Lange