Science Fair Project Encyclopedia - This article is about John
L. Dobson, the astronomer. For John Dobson, the British
architect, see John Dobson (architect). John L. Dobson (born
September 14, 1915) is a highly influential amateur astronomer
who has been dubbed the "pied piper of astronomy" and the "star
monk". He was the only amateur astronomer highlighted in the PBS
series The Astronomers. He was born in Beijing, China. His
maternal grandfather founded Peking University, his mother was a
musician, and his father taught zoology at the University. He
and his parents moved to San Francisco, California in 1927. His
father accepted a teaching position at Lowell High School and
taught there until the 1950s. John Dobson took a degree in
chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley in 1943 and
joined the Vedanta Monastery in San Francisco in 1944, becoming
a monk of the Ramakrishna Order. He left the order after his
extracurricular astronomical activities brought him into
conflict with his religious superio