Last year, I had the great honour of being the keynote speaker at the 2025 Stellafane1https://stellafane.org/ Convention of the Springfield Telescope Makers Association. I had such a good time at the convention, which is held over 2 days in the hills of Vermont, that I vowed this would become and annual pilgrimage for me. Today, I found myself on the road to Stellafane again, and I am elated.
The Springfield Telescope Makers Association hosts one of the oldest amateur astronomy events in North America: Stellafane. Roughly meaning “Shrine to the Stars”, Stellafane dates back to 1926 and attracts hundreds of astronomers and makers – amateur and otherwise – each year. To be fair, “amateur” is a bit of a frustrating term here. I have seen hand-crafted telescopes built by passionate “amateurs” that would make the skills of most professional astronomers look inadequate. Stellafane attracts a lot of these folks to a beautiful, high dark site above Springfield, VT, USA.
Last year, I was privileged to be selected as the keynote speaker for the event. On the last night, the Saturday, of the convention, a person gives an outdoor lecture to hundreds of of people – young and old – under the stars. It is a transformative event, and last year I was also tranformed: into a person who wants to come to Stellafane every year.
This year, I am going merely as another participant. I don’t have the pressure of a talk (I actually gave two talks last year, one at the Hartness House Workshop2https://www.stellafanevt.org/2026/hartnesshouseworkshop just preceding Stellafane and the second at the end of the convention). I can just attend workshops on grinding lenses and constructing telescope, talks about other astronomy clubs and observatories, and stroll the grounds of Breezy Hill to see the scientific art on display by telescope makers.
Today we were on the road from Sudbury to Stellafane. We only went about 6 hours before we stopped for the evening, and we’ll finish the trip tomorrow. It was a lovely day to hit the road for the convention.
