Belief in Ruins, Truro, Cornwall. Photo courtesy: Urban Exploration Resource
And speaking of abandoned observatories…
Urban Exploration Resource has a description and gallery of what remains of the “Observatory for Cornwall” charitable project on Wheal Busy, Truro, Cornwall.
Jet Engine for blowing snow off the (former) 300 foot telescope at the NRAO Green Bank. Photo courtesy NRAO.
I found this photo, which shows an unnamed technician, Clifford Barkely, and Paul Devlin inspecting a jet engine, in NRAO’s facebook photo album. Back in the olden days (okay, before the 1988 collapse of the 300-Foot Telescope), engineers used to set up a jet engine next to the dish to blow it clean it of accumulated snow. I can only imagine the noise—I used to complain about the wind machines in the orchard next to my house when they ran during cold spring nights, and those were powered by car, not jet, engines (you can listen to one here, or you can just imagine a Chevy V-8 parked outside your bedroom window).
Since the 300-Foot Telescope is no more, the snow now accumulates in the dish of its replacement, the Green Bank Telescope (GBT). I’ve never seen it in action, but apparently controllers just tilt the dish past the angle of repose so the snow slides out. Maybe not as awesome as a jet engine blowing snow off the instrument, but I bet it’s still plenty interesting to watch an avalanche clearing a 100-meter dish.
Abandoned. Photo credit: Andre Joosse.
For some reason, I missed the fact that yesterday was Wednesday. I’ll make it up to you next week. In the meantime, enjoy these beautiful images of an abandoned residential observatory near Villa Nostra, somewhere in Belgium (thanks, Inge!).
Gus Grissom Monument, Mitchell, Indiana, January 2012. Photo credit: JR
One of the first places we visited after moving to Indiana in 1997 was the Gus Grissom Memorial at Spring Mill State Park, just east of Mitchell, Indiana. The memorial display was pretty minimalistic back then, consisting of the Gemini 3 space capsule “Molly Brown” and a case with Grissom’s space suit, helmet and gloves.
Gemini 3 Space Capsule at Gus Grissom Memorial, July 2001. Photo credit: Karen Ducey
Still, it was pretty awesome, because you could get up close and personal with the space capsule. In 2009, the memorial was renovated completely. And when I say “completely,” I mean COMPLETELY. We stopped to visit on our way into the park to do some winter hiking, and wow, were we surprised by what we found.
Gemini 3 Space Capsule, Gus Grissom Memorial, Spring Mill State Park, January 2012. Photo credit: JR
As you can see, the Molly Brown is now untouchable as well as unsinkable, behind glass. The little kid in me is a little sad that I can’t touch it anymore. The heritage professional in me knows it’s a good idea to protect it from the little kid in me.[1] Anyway, there’s a lot more to look at and play with in the new display rooms, so I’m telling myself that’s a good trade off.
Gus Grissom Memorial, Spring Mill State Park, January 2012. Photo credit: JR
The display was expanded to include information about the town of Mitchell, the principles of aviation, and the history of rocket development. It also has many more of Grissom’s personal and professional artifacts, including his report cards, war medals, and space glove molds. The park ranger told us that Betty Grissom, Gus’s widow, donated enough material that they can rotate the displays to keep the content “fresh.” I hope they never take Grissom’s report cards off display. It’s heartening to see all those Cs (not to mention the F in Latin). Once Grissom found something he really wanted to do—be a test pilot—he had a good reason to study. His handwritten essays for his aviation exams are on show to prove it.
The exhibit includes several interactive displays (I missed one T/F question at each screen) and a short movie about Grissom’s early life and NASA career. I spent some time working the pitch-roll-yaw controls of the model plane display. I didn’t tell the strangers studying the model of the Saturn V rocket about my multiple visits to the Saturn V Center at Kennedy Space Center in November.
There are two other Gus Grissom sites in Mitchell, Indiana. The first is the Gus Grissom Monument, a 44-foot tall limestone recreation of the Redstone rocket that carried Grissom’s first space capsule, the Mercury Liberty Bell 7, into suborbital flight. The monument marks the site of Riley School, where Grissom earned mostly average grades.
Gus Grissom Monument, Mitchell, Indiana, January 2012. Photo credit: JR
The second stop to make in Mitchell is the Gus Grissom Childhood Museum. It’s still in the process of being renovated, so we had to be happy with just peeking the windows (hey, we saw the couch from astronaut Charlie Walker’s childhood home). And I have to admit, it was kind of cool to lean against the tree in front of the house and think, “Gus Grissom probably touched this tree!”
Gus Grissom Boyhood Home, Mitchell, Indiana, January 2012. Photo credit: JR
I’ve uploaded more photos of all three sites to my flickr account.
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[1] If you want a hands-on experience with a Gemini capsule, you can go play in the Gemini trainer at the Louisville Science Center (I recommend this).
CSU-Stanislaus Observatory, January 6, 2012. Photo credit: JR
The Nora and Hashem Naraghi Hall of Science is a relatively new addition to the campus of Cal State Stanislaus. Designed by Perkins + Will (Hi, Ajla!) and completed in 2007 (see construction photos here), the building houses the departments of physics, biology, chemistry, and geology. As you can see from the photo above, it also houses the campus observatory. We made a quick stop at the building while in the area last week, but since it was the end of the day—and the middle of winter break—there wasn’t much more we could do than watch the late afternoon sun reflect off the dome [see my flickr page for a few more photos].
According to the CSUS observatory’s facebook page, the dome covers a 21-inch telescope that is occasionally made available for public viewings. The public events page hasn’t been updated recently but I imagine Prof. Christopher De Vries in the CSUS Physics Department has information about any outreach activities related to the observatory.
For those of you waiting to see the results of my Yosemite viewing experiment, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait just a little bit longer. The air quality in the Central Valley was not good last week. Although there were several places between Modesto and Turlock that should have provided prime mountain viewing opportunities, all we saw was smog. The haze stayed with us well above the 3000-foot elevation, as evidenced in the photos from our trip to Yosemite Valley last Friday.
Peace Corps Reunion at the Arecibo Observatory, 1987. Photo Courtesy: Juan E. Rosario
I can’t resist sharing this tourist photo of the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. The photo shows a group of former Peace Corps volunteers standing in front of the superstructure of the 305-meter radio telescope. The volunteers had reconvened on the island in July 1987 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the 4-S Brazil Peace Corps. Apparently, this particular group of volunteers received their physical and health training in Puerto Rico before being shipped off to work in Brazil. The reunion allowed them an opportunity to visit “the old familiar places” as well as sites like the Arecibo Observatory, which hadn’t yet opened when they were training in the nearby village.
Yosemite Valley as seen from Mount Hamilton. Photo courtesy of Special Collections, UC Santa Cruz
I’m on the road (again) next week. The last time I was in central California, I took a day to visit Lick Observatory. I can’t really count on that option this trip, since the road to Mount Hamilton closes during winter weather. While I was casting around on the Internet for other day trip options, I somehow managed to type both “Lick Observatory” and “Yosemite” in the Google search box. And look what that combination returned to me: a view from Mount Hamilton toward Yosemite Valley with Half Dome clearly visible. Looking the map, it doesn’t seem possible, but in fact, yes, it is. I found two other photographs in the UC Santa Cruz collection showing the same view.
This discovery prompted me to look at my own photos from Lick Observatory, but it’s obvious that I would’ve had to stand on top of Copernicus Peak to see Half Dome. That’s not an option for the average observatory visitor. I wonder: could I use my status as a university faculty member and a historian of astronomy to garner special hiking privileges? I’ll let you know next summer. I’m not sure how the poor air quality in the Central Valley would affect the view. Mount Hamilton rises above the smog pushing against it from the east and the west. Since Half Dome is about 400 feet higher than Copernicus Peak, it should rise above the haze as well, right?
Rumor has it that I can see Half Dome from Modesto. I would doubt it, except I’ve seen this photo taken in Patterson, between Modesto and the I-5 corridor, and this stunning photo taken in Turlock, south of Modesto. I’ll do some exploring and report back, even though it’s not directly connected to astronomical observatories.
Cover of ESO 2012 Calendar. Photo credit: ESO/José Francisco Salgado
Today’s image is a prompt to find a high quality color printer. The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has made available for download a 15-page 42 x 42 cm calendar featuring stunning images—astrophotography, ESO instruments and observatories, and landscapes such as Cerro Paranal, featured on the calendar’s cover. More information about the calendar and the cover image is available on ESO’s website. The link to download the .pdf for the calendar is on the right sidebar of the page. If that doesn’t work, try this direct link:
http://www.eso.org/public/archives/calendars/pdfsm/cal2012.pdf.
If the calendar linked above doesn’t do it for you, try the European Space Agency (ESA) calendar pages, available for free at the Hubble Space Telescope site.
Happy 2012!
Gemini-Titan II Rocket, Kennedy Space Center. Image credit: JR
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from everyone in the J-R household. May your 2012 consist of successful launches and smooth landings, with a lot of fun and exploration in between.
Cover, Guidebook for the Scientific Traveler.
It’s a little late for holiday shopping, but if that Powell’s gift card you received from your grandparents last week is burning a hole in your pocket, I’ve got a book suggestion: Dr. Duane S. Nickell’s Guidebook for the Scientific Traveler: Visiting Astronomy and Space Exploration Sites Across America.
No matter how much touring you’ve done around the U.S., chances are you’ll find something new in this book. For instance, while I wasn’t surprised by any of the sites listed in the chapters on optical or radio telescopes, I did flag a couple of entries in the chapter on space museums (specifically, the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Museum and the Virginia Air and Space Center). Ditto for the chapter on astronomers, astronauts and Einstein. It might have occurred to me to seek out buildings associated with Einstein, but I don’t think I would have sought out the Maria Mitchell House without a prompt.
I like the structure of this book. Although you can look up sites by location (there’s an index-by-state at the back of the volume), the chapters are arranged according to theme and chronology. This has allowed Dr. Nickell to discuss sites that are separated geographically yet relate to each other historically, such as the various centers used by NASA, or the multiple observatories that exchanged technology, ideas and personnel during the late 19th-early 20th century.
Some of the information is already dated (for instance, you can no longer watch a Space Shuttle launch), but the author has provided the URLs and other contact information for each site described in the book. It’s easy enough to get that off the Internet. What makes the book valuable is Nickell’s contextualization of each site. For example, I appreciated the discussion of the salvaging of Gus Grissom’s Liberty Bell 7 from the ocean floor. It’s an interesting question: who owns are space heritage? The Discovery Channel paid for the search, but the Kansas Cosmophere and Space Museum claims ownership. The Cosmosphere restored the spacecraft and now has it on display in its museum. Nickell suggests the recovery and restoration occurred against the wishes of Gus Grissom’s widow (and indeed an article in the L.A. Times bears out that assertion). I’m not sure I’d want to be the one to explain to Grissom’s family why national heritage trumps its wishes, even while I understand the utilitarian imperative behind national education and the value of communal memory.
The writing is engaging, the content is interesting. My best advice: buy a copy and after you read it, tuck it under the front seat of the car (next to your Roadside Guide to Geology) so it will be handy on the next road trip.
p.s. Nickell also has a guidebook for physics and chemistry sites in the U.S. Yay, Fermilab!
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