Mail call!
This morning, I received this lovely card in my post office box. Postmarked July 2, 1946, the image shows the view looking west across town. (Click on images for high res.)
Lick Observatory, Mt. Hamilton, California.
The note on the back reads, “Expect to be transferred out this way so we are out to look the place over. Nothing settled as yet. Back to Chi. in a couple of weeks. Climate here doing us lots of good. Gladys.”
Back of postcard, Lick Observatory.
Observatory, Small Observatory, and Auditorium, University of Illinois. Photo credit: University of Illinois Archives.
If you’ve been looking for the online version of the excellent National Historic Landmark Theme Study on Astronomy and Astrophysics by the National Parks Service, you should know that most of the NPS links to the title page are broken. You can find the portal to the e-book at http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/butowsky5/astro.htm (not at /butowsky/index.htm as the failed links would have you believe). The book is rather dated (1989), and the information included in it is most comprehensive for the observatories and instruments that have been nominated for National Historic Landmark status, but even the briefer entries are useful for dates and locations. I was happy to read the nomination entry for the observatory of my alma mater, designed by architect Charles A. Gunn in 1896.
University of Illinois Observatory. Photo credit: University of Illinois Archives.
It took me a bit of effort to track down Mr. Gunn, but according to the 1914 Alumni Record of University of Illinois, he was born in Chicago in 1870. He appears to have been a very well-rounded individual: at university, he was in Adelphic, Sigma Chi, and Glee Club. He was Captain of his class baseball team, played varsity baseball, held the state and conference record for the ball throw, as well as the Hop, Step, and Jump, and broke the university record for the running broad jump in 1890.
Charles A. Gunn, Entry from 1913 Alumni Record, University of Illinois.
It would seem Gunn designed the observatory as one of his last projects in Illinois, as he was recorded as working in New York between 1897 and 1903 (first as Assistant Architect at Columbia University, second as a solo act).
Charles Gunn, Entry from Semi-Centennial Alumni Record of University of Illinois, 1918.
I’m not quite sure when Mr. Gunn got religion, but two of his children died young, in 1905 and 1907, so maybe he sought solace in the church after those events. At any rate, The Eighty-Second Annual Report of the Board of Foreign Missionaries of the Presbyterian Church of the USA (1919) notes that Mr. and Mrs. Gunn had returned to the Manila Station on the island of Luzon with the Philippine Mission after furlough.
Eighty-second Annual Report, Foreign Missions, Presbyterian Church USA.
Eighty-Second Annual Report, Presbyterian Church USA.
But when did the Gunn family returned to mainland U.S.? Mr. Gunn continued to work in the Philippines, South China and Hainan from 1916 to 1921, after which point he worked in Shanghai until 1939 (see, for instance, the Missions Building, 169 Yuanmingyuan Road). He made the national U.S. press when hostilities between China and Japan came to a head in 1937 (“Daughter Fears for Parents in Peiping Mission,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 31, 1937; “Charles A. Gunn.” New York Times, Oct. 20, 1945), but I haven’t been able find any trace of him after that year. It would seem, however, that the observatory was a one-off, and his true calling was in the architecture of religion, not science.
University of Illinois Observatory. Photo credit: University of Illinois Archives.
For more information on the observatory, including plans to restore the space, check out the Facebook group, Friends of the University of Illinois Observatory (thanks, Mike!).
Knightridge Observatory, Bloomington, Indiana. Photo credit: JR.
In my earlier post about (then upcoming) events at the New Jersey Astronomical Association, I mentioned that the telescope at the Paul H. Robinson Observatory used a frame and mount acquired from Indiana University in the mid-1960s. The images of the frame in its previous home on the NJAA website inspired me to make the ten-minute trip over to Knightridge to inspect the abandoned IU observatory.
As you can see from the photo above, the rather squat building is now surrounded by a small, young wood in suburban Bloomington. At the time of its construction in 1936-37, however, this was a relatively remote site. In fact, it’s far enough outside the (then) city limits that I was surprised to see the obvious signs of electrical connections on the outside of the building (below). My neighborhood, which is closer to town, didn’t get electricity until 1960, so I guess I’m envious that IU managed to run a line out into the fields of Knightridge.
Approach from West, Knightridge Observatory. Photo credit: JR.
The building is in remarkably good condition. The mortar between the bricks is holding up well, and although the roof is highly oxidized, it’s still keeping the rain water outside where it belongs—for the most part, that is. The southeast roof of the building, including one of the shutter doors in the dome, was hit by a falling tree, unfortunately. If this hadn’t happened, the interior would still be dry and tight. Now, as you can see, not only are daylight and water making their way inside, so are plant seeds.
Storm Damage, Knightridge Observatory. Photo credit: JR.
From the outside, the dome looks truly round, but the construction details inside tell a different story. Underneath the sheet metal is a dome constructed of jointed wood ribs in-filled with flat lumber that diminished in length as it approached the apex of the dome. It’s not quite a corbeled beehive vault, but it gives a good approximation of the effect, rendered in wood.
Dome Interior, Knightridge Observatory. Photo credit: JR.
The dome was raised on steel tracks that rested on wheels attached directly to the brick walls of the observatory.
Wheel, Knightridge Observatory. Photo credit: JR.
All of the wires and most of the mechanics that supported the rotating dome have been stripped from the observatory, leaving behind interesting but non-functional bits and pieces on the second story of the building.
Abandoned Knightridge Observatory. Photo credit: JR.
Because the dome is no longer water tight, this upper floor is starting to rot. The rectangular opening that once held the mount for the telescope frame is dangerous territory, and I can only hope the people who’ve been using the observatory for late night séances are being very, very careful.
Second Floor, Knightridge Observatory. Photo credit: JR.
Despite the weather damage, it’s clear that this is one sturdy little building. It’s also clear that Professor Cogshall wasn’t all that concerned about aesthetics. Reconsider the Lick Observatory: a dome painted to resemble the heavens, walls finished in California redwood, floor finished with a high-polish mahogany. This modest university observatory bears no trace of a finish plaster or floor varnish. Cogshall was here to get the job done, apparently, and saw no need for embellishments that probably wouldn’t look like much under a red light at night, anyway.
You can view a few more photos of the abandoned building on my flickr site.
A look at a few of the photos I picked up in California last week:
Great Lick 36" Refractor Telescope. Copyright: UC Regents.
Anna Nickel 40" Telescope. Copyright: UC Regents.
Shane 120" Telescope. Copyright: UC Regents.
36" Lick Refractor. Photo Credit: JR.
Life unexpectedly detoured me through central California last week, so I thought I would take advantage of its (relative) proximity to visit Lick Observatory. The observatory is draped across the uppermost peaks of Mt. Hamilton in the Diablo Range east of San Jose. It’s open to the public on most days of the year, but hours and days are restricted during the winter months, so check the opening schedule before making the drive.
The daytime public program is focused on the historic instruments of the observatory, especially the Great Refractor installed under the dome custom-built for it in 1887. This 36″ telescope, the lenses for which were ground by Alvan Clark & Son (the same workshop that ground the lenses for the refractors at the Yerkes and Cincinnati observatories), lives in the largest of two domes flanking the Main Building of the observatory. A 12″ reflector that had been purchased second-hand from Alvan Clark originally lived in the smaller dome at the opposite end of the building; it now houses the 40″ Nickel Reflector. One has to wonder what instrumental astronomy would have looked like in the U.S. at the end of the nineteenth century had Alvan Clark not been around to polish the needed lenses and mirrors.
Interior of Great Refractor Dome, Lick Observatory. Photo credit: JR.
As you can see from the photo above, the Great Refractor was protected by a dome that was designed with a concern for aesthetics as much as functionality. The underside of the dome was tinted with a color meant to evoke the heavens and the walls were finished with California redwood paneling. James Lick might’ve been an odd guy, but he knew his woodworking.
Observing floor and vertical gear, Lick Observatory. Photo credit: JR.
The floor of the observatory, which was finished with mahogany and ringed with brass railings, was designed to move up and down along a vertical system of spur gears. This cleverness allowed observers to stand on a solid surface while looking through the eyepiece of the telescope, rather than on top of a ladder as was customary with large instruments.
Looking East to Shane 3-meter Reflector, Lick Observatory. Photo credit: JR.
In addition to the guide-led program in the Main Building, there is also a small viewing gallery open to the public in the dome of the Shane 3-meter Reflector. I thought the gallery was under-used, in that the interpretive materials were limited, and public view of the instrument was partially blocked by unidentified objects. The most interesting part of the display was the absolutely ancient black-and-white publicity movie that talked about the early history of the instrument. The corners on Mt. Hamilton Road are so tight that they had to use a relay system to get the 120″ glass for the mirror to its destination, using a crane to transfer the glass from the bed of the truck approaching the corner to the truck waiting on the other side of the corner. You can see below that many of the corners are more than just simple switchbacks, they actually start to double-back on themselves.
Approach to Lick Observatory, Mt. Hamilton Road. Photo credit: JR.
As an architectural historian, I thought the public program was fascinating; I stood through it twice, in fact. As I was wandering around the larger complex, however, I couldn’t help but wish that public programs spent more time explicating current research and observing practices. I suppose it’s not very practical to demonstrate the Automated Planet Finder or the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope; most observational data is crunched with computers manned by tired postdocs. (Take a look at a panoramic view of the control room for the Shane 3-meter during an observing run, for instance. Not enough drama for tourists, I’m pretty sure.) But sometimes I wonder if programs focused on the historical leave the public with the feeling that little has changed in instrumental astronomy in the last century, or if it has, that those changes aren’t important or comprehensible. There are at least ten domes at Lick Observatory and new instruments are being added or adapted on a regular basis. I think if the University of California is depending on public dollars to fund the research at the observatory, it might be good to put more information about current research in visitors’ hands. I enjoyed the slide displays of recent discoveries and accomplishments that lined the halls of the Main Building, but I think it would be more effective to have some of those research goals articulated by the guide during public presentations.
Just a side note: if you’re driving up to Lick Observatory from San Jose, be careful. This is a very popular training route for cyclists (in fact, the Amgen Tour of California passed through the day before I went up), so don’t whip around those blind curves—it’s not nice to run over cyclists with your car.
If you’re anywhere near Voorhees State Park in Lebanon Township, New Jersey, make plans to visit the Paul H. Robinson Observatory at 8:30 p.m., May 28, to hear Robert Zimmerman give a talk, “Unknown Stories From Space: Tales of Space Adventure Few Know About.” The observatory is located about an hour west of NYC, an hour east of Allentown, and an hour north of Trenton—accessible to more people than I can probably count. I’m not sure of Mr. Zimmerman’s exact topic (because the stories are unknown, of course), but if I had to guess, I’d say he was going to be talking a bit about the Hubble Telescope.
The Paul H. Robinson Observatory houses a 16-inch Cassegrain reflector, currently the largest telescope open to the public in New Jersey. I first noticed this instrument when I was doing local history research and discovered the massive mount and frame now in the Paul Robinson observatory was originally installed here in Bloomington at the Knightridge Observatory. The NJAA website doesn’t mention it, but according to IU history sources, the frame never operated properly. Even so, the founders of the NJAA paid $100 for the frame and mount (I think we can assume that it would cost considerably more for the system today). If the weather is clear, the telescope will be open to the public after Mr. Zimmerman’s talk. If you do happen to attend, please report back on the state of the frame and mount!
Cincinnati Observatory (Herget) Building. Photo courtesy of Cincinnati Observatory Center.
My partner and I stopped by the Cincinnati Observatory Center the last time we were in town, even though overcast skies meant conditions weren’t ideal for viewing. Sometimes observatories cancel their public programs on cloudy nights, but the Cincinnati group tries to find something interesting to substitute for a viewing session. So, if you show up to find clouds, you won’t get to use the Merz und Mahler 11″ refractor, but you might hear a good presentation by one of the undergraduate students on her research, look at some of the new images from the observatory’s astrophotography program, or take a historical tour of the main building. The historical tour is also offered every other Sunday afternoon (or so). [Side note: there’s a 16″ refractor, built by the same company that built the 40-inch refractor at Yerkes Observatory, Alvan Clark and Sons, but public education programs usually use the Merz und Mahler telescope.]
Going on that tour is a good idea since Cincinnati is the oldest professional observatory in the U.S. and houses the oldest telescope still in use nightly by the public.
That brings me to my real interest in the site–the Herget building. If you walk around the outside of the main building (the Herget building), you may notice this cornerstone:
Original Cornerstone of Cincinnati Observatory. Photo courtesy of Cincinnati Observatory Center.
Cool, huh? Laid by John Quincy Adams in May, 1843 CE. The only problem is, this is the stone from the original observatory building that was constructed on Mt. Ida (renamed Mt. Adams). The observatory existed at that location until a few years after the end of the Civil War, when the University of Cincinnati took responsibility for the observatory and its existing instruments. Over a period of two years, beginning in 1871 CE, the observatory was moved to its present location on Mt. Lookout, where the old cornerstone was incorporated into a new structure.
Main (Herget) Building, Cincinnati Observatory. Photo courtesy of Cincinnati Observatory Center.
The new building was designed by Samuel Hannaford and Sons, a local but prominent architecture firm. If nothing else, the observatory’s Greek Revival design demonstrates the firm’s incredible versatility. Around the same time, Hannaford designed the Renaissance Revival (aka Italianate) Cuvier Press Club Building (1862), his own late Victorian house (1863), the Neo-Romanesque St. George Parish Church (1872), the Neo-Gothic Music Hall (1878), the Neo-Romanesque Nast Trinity Church (1881), the Second Empire Palace Hotel (1882), the god-knows-what-but-looks-vaguely-Pugin-esque Elsinore Arch (1883), and the Queen Anne style Balch House (1896). Sure some of his aesthetic adaptability came from his early training at the firm of Edwin Anderson and William Tinsley (compare Hannaford’s work with Anderson and Tinsley’s Romanesque Revival buildings) and some came from a temporary partnership with Edwin Proctor. Most of his creativity seems to stem from his work with his own sons, though.
Note the original solution for the rotating “dome.” The flat-sided/flat-roofed cupola rotated on bearings fashioned from cannon balls left over after the Civil War. The cupola was replaced with a dome in 1895 CE. Today it rotates electronically, although the viewing door is still operated by rope and pulley.
Cincinnati Observatory Mitchel Building. Photo courtesy of Cincinnati Observatory Center.
There’s a second building on the observatory campus, the O. M. Mitchel building. When the 16″ Clark telescope was installed in the main building, the 11″ Merz und Mahler was moved into the Mitchel building. The conical roof on the Mitchel building opened to allow for comet hunting. Nifty, especially in the snow.
Kokino Megalithic Observatory
Now for something different. Older. Cooler. Rockier.
In 2001 CE, archaeologist Jovica Stankovski discovered a site that dated to the Bronze Age (roughly 1800-1600 BCE for Central Europe) near the village of Kokino in the Republic of Macedonia.* Near the top of the site, terracotta objects dating to 1800 BCE were discovered in a naturally formed stone “room.” Even more interesting that those remnants, however,was the disposition of the volcanic rock around the site. As you can see from the wallpaper linked above, the site occupies multiple levels on a hilltop and consists of both natural and human-made rock formations. In 2002 CE, physicist Gjore Cenev began conducting an archaeo-astronomical analysis of the stones and turned up some interesting results.
In the right-center of the photo, you can see the roughly quadrilateral shapes of stone seats, or “thrones,” that have been crafted and positioned so that they face east. Not readily visible in the image are the stone sets that Cenev argues were used to mark particular days in the solar and lunar calendars. The survey team located three stone markers that indicated the location of the sunrise at the summer and winter solstice, as well as at the vernal and autumn equinoxes. They also located four stone markers that indicated the position of the rising moon on when it was at maximum and minimum declination. Two more stone markers were meant to measure the length of the lunar month in winter and summer.
Across several publications, Cenev has provided a great deal of information about his team’s approach to measurement and analysis (they basically extrapolated from Gerald Hawkins’ work at Stonehenge in the 1960s). That anyone is capable of looking at a pile of stone put together 3800 years ago and figure out what’s going in terms of astronomical observation is amazing enough; that they were able to postulate certain societal behavior from their study is even more so.
For example, Cenev notes that the position of the lunar markers suggests that the Macedonians were aware of the metonic (19-year) cycle of the moon. [Briefly, it takes 19 years before a full moon to appear in exactly the same place again.] However, to gather enough data to determine the metonic cycle conclusively, astronomers would have needed make lunar observations for some 38-57 years. Given a life expectancy of forty years for ancient Macedonians, that means the society assigned enough importance to the calendar to conduct observations for at least two, and probably three, generations.
There’s more to be read in Cenev’s work: a single stone seems to mark the location of the sunrise on a day not obviously associated with the calendar, giving rise to the speculation that the day was important for some ritual or another, probably associated with harvest. The geology of the site is interesting, as the inhabitants took advantage of the local andezite’s tendency to fracture along straight lines, providing them with natural building blocks. At least some of the observation points can be occupied only by a single person. So, while it’s interesting to read about the calendrical calculations and how they compared to those made at Stonehenge, it’s even more intriguing to use the (admittedly fragmented) evidence to try and build a picture of the people who built the observatory at Kokino.
*I used three papers by Gjore Cenev for this post:
Cenev, Gjore. “Archaeo-astronomical characteristicsof the Kokino archaeological site.” Bulgarian Astronomical Journal 9 (2007): 133-1.147
________. “Kokino Calendar.” Publications of the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade No. 85 (2008): 87 – 94
________. “Megalithic Observatory Kokino.” Publications of the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade No. 80 (2006): 313-317.
There are very few truly public observatories in the U.S. Most are owned by universities or research institutes (so, quasi-public), or are managed and operated by a complex public/state/private cooperative effort (take Mount Wilson, for instance: it’s run by the Mount Wilson Institute under an agreement with the Carnegie Institution in Washington, but the observatory sits on USDA Forest Service land, so it has to operate according to federal guidelines). A lot of these observatories have public programs so visitors can experience basic observational astronomy and learn about historical or current R&D, but for the most part, the observatories are reserved for institutional use.
So, we were excited when we learned that one of the few observatories in Washington state was designed from its outset as a “as public as we can get” space. The Goldendale Observatory State Park owes its existence to a group of four men, M.W. McConnell, John Marshall, Don Conner and O.W. VanderVelden, who built a 24.5 inch Cassegrain reflector telescope together. They donated the scope to the city of Goldendale, and the city obtained federal funds to build the observatory in 1973. From 1973 to 1980, the observatory was managed by a non-profit organization, and in 1981, the Washington State Parks Commission took over responsibility. (Don Hardin has written up a much more extensive history of the observatory.) So, now it’s a State Park, which is something neat and unusual.
At least, we found the whole thing exciting. We timed our visit to coincide with the August Perseid meteor shower and joined a group of enthusiastic viewers for some naked-eye skywatching for a large portion of the night. The evening public viewing program was fun, although someone did take a spill off the stairs leading up to the eyepiece of the 24.5 inch telescope. We saw all the usual suspects (globular cluster, binary star, etc.) and considered our evening well spent.
The BEST part of the Goldendale experience, however, is the daytime viewing. Not many public programs run during the day, which is a shame, because the sunspot viewing was fantastic. Then, too, looking through a telescope at Mercury on a sunny afternoon is its own kind of awesome.
24.5" Cassegrain at Goldendale Observatory. Photo courtesy of Bernt Rostad.
Albert Einstein and the observatory staff in front of the 40-inch Refractor, 1921. Photo courtesy Yerkes Observatory.
I like to check into Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, every once in awhile, just to make sure it’s still standing. The observatory, which houses multiple instruments (a 102 cm [40 inch] refracting telescope, a 102 cm reflecting telescope, and a 61 cm [24 inch] reflecting telescope, and several small telescopes), is one of several founded by the incredibly energetic astronomer, George Ellery Hale (dates). Although conditions at this observatory are not ideal for observing—they perhaps never were, as Hale eventually left Wisconsin for California in search of skies with less atmospheric turbulence—the observatory still functions as a research space for the University of Chicago.
The 40-inch refractor at Yerkes is still the largest of its kind in the world (the 49-inch refractor exhibited at the Great Paris Exhibition of 1900 was dismantled afterward). The mirror for the scope was ground by Alvan Clark & Sons from a 42-inch blank that Hale heard about “by chance.” Some chance! The scope’s tube, mounting, dome, and rising floor were designed by the firm of Warner & Swasey, out of Cleveland, Ohio. Hale had been working in his private observatory (Kenwood Observatory), but after some back-and-forth with the president of University of Chicago, secured an associate professorship and the promise of new observatory in which he could install the great refractor. The money to build the observatory came from the pockets of Chicagoan Charles Yerkes, who allegedly was enamored with the project simply because he wanted to build “the biggest” of some interesting thing. The scope was in place by 1897, and astronomers instantly put the refractor to good use. For instance, Burnham’s Catalogue of Double Stars was finished at Yerkes, as was Barnard’s Photographic Atlas of Selected Regions of the Milky Way. A great many of astrophotographic techniques were pioneered at Yerkes, as well.
One of the strengths of the Yerkes Observatory is the condition of its telescopes, despite their age. Because of the good state of preservation of the observatory and its continuing relationship with academic institutions, visitors not only have an opportunity to learn about the history of observational astronomy, they can see how observatory and its instruments contributed to the professionalization of astronomy. Yerkes runs programs for students of all ages (including the visually impaired!), putting young people in contact with both historical and contemporary approaches to research and development at the observatory.
The R&D program occasionally makes use of the historic instruments at the observatory. For instance, a project to measure stellar motion takes advantage of photographs taken in the early 1900s and the 1980s with the 40-inch refractor. Yerkes has over 170,000 photographic plates for use by researchers.
In truth, however, the observatory is mostly important because of its history, not because R&D relies on the original telescopes (University of Chicago does most of its observational astronomy at the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico). Because of this, the observatory is frequently under threat by plans to sell or develop the surrounding property. Most recently, the property was slated for development for a luxury residential complex, but in the end, an appointed study group felt the observatory had too much potential as an educational center to surrender the property to a private developer (the final report was made available to the public).
As a historian of observatories, I can only be pleased that University of Chicago has re-dedicated itself to the preservation of the property, not just because it played a large role in the development of astronomy in the United States, but because the architecture of and the landscape surrounding the building are unique in their aesthetic. Those of you who have done work at the Newberry Library in Chicago might recognize the design hand of Henry Ivy Cobb in the Yerkes Observatory buildings.
Yerkes Observatory, Williams Bay, Wisconsin
Detail of Pillar, Yerkes Observatory. Photo courtesy of Yerkes Observatory.
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