My Dad Discovered Pluto
A farmboy's dream
In 1928, when my grandfather Muron
took this picture, my father was a 22-year-old would-be astronomer
living on the family farm near Burdett, Kansas. My dad had just
finished making the homemade 9" telescope seen here. He had built it
from pieces of old farm machinery, the axle from a 1910 Buick, and
other spare parts. That year, my father used his optically superb
telescope to create detailed drawings of the known planets. He then
sent these drawings to Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona,
hoping for a critique. Instead he got a job offer.