A Conversation With Telescope Inventor John Dobson

When John Dobson invented the Dobsonian telescope he changed the face of amateur astronomy. The 96-year old pioneer talks with Mat Kaplan. Emily Lakdawalla loves Curiosity’s self-portraits.  Bill Nye the Science Guy is in London to host a youth webcast with International Space Station astronaut Sunita Williams. Bruce Betts keeps us from getting Lost in Space and helps Mat give away a cool Curiosity bumper sticker in What’s Up.

Related Links

• John Dobson's Biography
• The Dobsonian Telescope
• Hello, Beautiful! Curiosity's Self-Portrait
• YouTube SpaceLab With Bill Nye and Sunita Williams

Trivia Contest

This week's prize is an engraved Fisher Space Pen.

This week's question:
Who was Gale Crater named after and where was he from?

To submit your answer:
Send an email no later than Monday, September 17, at 2 pm Pacific time to [email protected] containing:

This week's question:
What was the first spacecraft to successfully fly by a planet, and what happened to its identical sister spacecraft?

Answer:
The answer will be revealed next week.

Question from the week before:
What was the first spacecraft to fly by Saturn?

Answer:
Pioneer 11