Kind: captions
Language: en
the discovery of Pluto finally added an
American Clyde Tomba to this short but
esteemed list of Planet
Hunters so the folks in streer Illinois
told me that in New Mexico there's still
some Tomball there that's where Clyde
moved after discovering
Pluto Clyde's no longer with us but his
97-year-old widow and both his son and
daughters still live there so I decided
I had to check it out wa that's a lot
lot of Tomb hi how many of you are
there hello everyone Hi Anette Tom that
a pleasure Clyde's daughter and an honor
my gosh and this is my brother Neil Al
tomall I'm Clyde son out pleasure and
this is my mother Patricia Tomba this is
Clyde's wife it is an honor hello yes
I've been looking forward to this oh
well that could be I don't know what
that
means so tell me about Clyde as a as a
as a person he was the oldest of six
children so he was born to help on the
farm but he did not want to be a farmer
he had not had the opportunity to go to
college so what what you're saying is
that he discovered Pluto without ever
having yet gone to college no he was
straight off the farm L Observatory
wanted somebody they didn't have to pay
very much to do this job what do you
think they pay you for a f new
planet after discovering Pluto he got a
a college scholarship which we would not
have otherwise had and of course he was
supposed to be the big
hero but he didn't feel like the big
hero dad was a little embarrassed about
the fame he didn't like the Limelight
he's humble so absolutely so what was he
like just as a dad was he like a weird
dad or did you think all dads were like
that no I knew he was very different one
of the things we did have his grinding
Barrel to make telescopes in the kitchen
this is the barrel that grinds glass
into the shape of a mirror in the
kitchen how mother ever put up with that
I don't know we had grinding material in
our food and mother's trying to cook
around this situation well finally she
made daddy move out of the kitchen and
he got a
shop that that's
good you mean to tell me you have some
the Clyde's original telescopes
here wa these are original telescopes
original telescopes built by my dad very
handmade built out of old farm machinery
car parts and whatever he could find
we'll just push it out here help you
push right you
bet so how I don't recognize any
hardware on this at all the the tube
itself is probably part of an old grain
elevator and how about the base oh the
base is an old cream separator the axle
is of an early modeled Buick so there's
a Buick out there now without an axle
without an axle this counterweight was
probably a flywheel from an early piece
of farm equipment maybe even steam
powered we're not sure and I see a Coke
can I love this so we got the open end
of the telescope at the top right and
light comes down reflects off the curved
mirror and light reflects
back and comes to an eyepiece under that
cocaine and if we wiggle this coke can a
little bit like this there you go
there's the eyepiece ready to go there
it
is this isn't the only telescope I see
back here no there's a couple others let
me pull this one out for you
[Music]
okay this has got to be the most
homemade looking telescope I have ever
seen is this a lawn mower that is a
lawnmower base this is what the family
has called the graser gazer he looked at
this and said it's got wheels got a
handle
we need to put a telescope on that so I
can push it around how to make a
portable telescope absolutely he he
built it strictly on a utilitarian base
out of what he had which was thin
Plywood And miscellaneous pieces of wood
this is insane this just rotates exactly
what impresses me is that he didn't care
what this thing looked like as long as
the image of the universe came out sharp
right Aesthetics didn't mean a whole lot
on my way out of town I stopped at a
local church where there's a tribute to
Clyde
Tomba a stained glass window that
celebrates his
[Music]
life how many scientists have stained
glass Windows of
them it's more than just a celebration
of his Discovery celebration of his life
overcoming
obstacles that would keep most people
down to me that's the message here
[Music]