John M. Pierce

Who was John M. Pierce?

John M. Pierce was an American teacher and amateur astronomer.

Pierce worked with Russell W. Porter to organize Stellafane, the observatory near Springfield, Vermont where amateur telescope makers still meet annually for the Stellafane convention. He was one of the earliest members of the Springfield Telescope Makers and served as its vice president.

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". 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".

Robert E. Cox, in an obituary for Sky and Telescope magazine in 1958, considered John M. Pierce on a par with Ingalls and Porter, describing him as one of "the big three behind the amateur telescope making movement in America."