A long time ago, in a public library far, far away, there was once a naturally curious fellow who happened to be thumbing through some issues of Popular Astronomy. While doing so he encountered an article, in the November 1921 issue, entitled ‘The Poor Man’s Telescope’ – which described the process of making a mirror – and a second article, published in March 1923, relating how a group of Vermont villagers had made their own telescopes. The author was Russell W. Porter, and the reader was Albert G. Ingalls, an editor of Scientific American.