The Man of the Moon : Sherman Oaks: A self-educated astronomer shares a love of unearthly delights as passersby peer through his sidewalk telescope.

Philo Jewett wants to give you the moon.

And the stars. And maybe even Jupiter, depending on the night.

“The whole object to me coming out here is meeting people and getting them interested in looking above their heads,” said the star buff, setting up his self-assembled refractor telescope on a Sherman Oaks sidewalk.

Jewett, 45, of Studio City is following the example of sidewalk astronomers popular 50 to 100 years ago, who shared their passion for the stars by taking it to the streets. He said he has positioned his telescope, which cost about $4,000, on a sidewalk near a movie theater on Van Nuys Boulevard two or three times a week for the past five months. There, he eagerly displays to passersby a close-up view of the universe, starring the various planets in season as they make their clockwork rounds of the heavens.

On a recent night, he showed the shadowy craters of the moon, the twinkling lights of Sirius and the major moons of Jupiter. People scurrying to the movies and heading to a nearby grocery store stopped to look, drawn by plywood signs reading “Cosmic Wonders” and “Seeing Is Believing.”

“Wow, man. This is for real, huh?” asked Danny Cohen, 32, of West Los Angeles as he peered intently into the 6 1/2-foot-long telescope atop a 5 1/2-foot-tall wooden tripod. “I’ve never seen the moon so close to my eyes.”

Awed by the detailed views, some people have accused Jewett of pulling a hoax by outfitting the telescope with slides of the planets. Other participants have searched in vain for words that accurately describe the close-up view of the moon.

“It’s like a bowl of crystal,” said one woman. “It looks like clay,” remarked a slightly more prosaic viewer.

Patrick Reichenberger, 27, said he has become a regular viewer, visiting Jewett’s stretch of sidewalk near Milbank Street eight times in the past month and a half. Reichenberger, who attends Pepperdine University in Malibu, said that, when he dines with friends in the area, he makes sure to include a peek at the stars in the evening’s plans.

“If I’m eating anywhere near Ventura Boulevard, I will come here,” Reichenberger said. “It’s a great thrill for a cheap date.”

Jewett said providing such thrills more than makes up for the five or so hours that he stands on the sidewalk each night, monitoring the dipping temperatures with a thermometer attached to the zipper of his jacket. Money from an optional $1 tip pays for transporting and cleaning the telescope and helps offset Jewett’s flagging free-lance photography business, he said.

Jewett said attendance at his roadside attraction varies each night from as few as 12 people to as many as 200. Less than half tip him, he said.

“I don’t make hardly any money,” Jewett said. “I make friends.”

Jewett said he takes the trouble because he enjoys introducing people to the skies. “They can watch ‘Star Trek’ and play computer games, but a really good telescope is enthralling,” he said. “It can change your life.”

Jewett, who taught himself about astronomy, said he was inspired to take the telescope to the public after seeing a documentary on John Dobson, who revolutionized astronomy with his high-powered homemade telescopes. Dobson wheeled his telescopes into the street so passersby could look and started a club in San Francisco that attracts crowds to its nighttime stargazing parties in city streets.

Other astronomy clubs throughout the country also hold such events and sometimes set up telescopes for schools and organizations, said Stephen O’Meara, associate editor of Sky & Telescope, a magazine for amateur astronomers.

Sidewalk astronomers have appeared periodically through history, O’Meara said.

They were popular in the late 1800s through the turn of the century when the public became intrigued by Mars, which was a subject of several science fiction works. The “mysterious Coney Island Telescope Lady” was a memorable sight in the 1950s in New York, where she dressed as a wizard, waved her arms with dramatic flair and charged 25 cents for a look through her telescope, O’Meara said.

Jewett’s approach is more low-key. He engages all viewers in conversation, eagerly fielding questions that range from “How far away is the moon?” to “Is there life on other planets?” He patiently explains the heavens to people who are seeing them through a telescope for the first time.

Nancy Sosna of Sherman Oaks said she was enthralled by her first telescopic view of the moon. She had never before used one to look upward.

“I looked in a very small telescope 20 years ago in someone’s apartment building in Detroit,” Sosna said. “We were looking at the front door of the Playboy Club to see who was going in there.”