{"id":816,"date":"2012-11-28T20:31:24","date_gmt":"2012-11-29T01:31:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/?p=816"},"modified":"2012-11-28T20:31:24","modified_gmt":"2012-11-29T01:31:24","slug":"wallpaper-wednesday-sydney-observatory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/?p=816","title":{"rendered":"Wallpaper Wednesday (Sydney Observatory)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Sydney Observatory, Sydney, Australia. Photo credit: Andrew, HDR Cafe<\/p><\/div>\n

Today, I’m directing you toward a nice HDR image of the Sydney Observatory<\/a>. Actually, I’m directing you to something even better; the flashy, crowd-pleasing image is just a diversion. Last night, I stumbled across a small treasure trove. Scattered across the Sydney Observatory’s blog are several reproductions and transcriptions of letters written by past NSW Government Astronomers<\/a>:\u00a0G. R. Smalley (1864\u20131870);\u00a0H. C. Russell (1870\u20131907); and\u00a0H. A. Lenehan (1907\u20131908).\u00a0My favorite was the first one I found:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Letter by H. C. Russell, 4 June 1869. Image courtesy: Sydney Observatory<\/p><\/div>\n

June 4th [186]9<\/em><\/p>\n

Sir<\/em><\/p>\n

I am directed by the<\/em>
\nGovernment Astronomer to inform<\/em>
\nyou that he is put to very great<\/em>
\ninconvenience by the smoky<\/em>
\nstate of the chimney in his Computing<\/em>
\nRoom, the smoke from which<\/em>
\nsometimes drives him out of the<\/em>
\nRoom, while at others<\/em>
\neverything in the Room gets covered<\/em>
\nwith soot and ashes; I am further<\/em>
\ndirected to ask you to carry into<\/em>
\neffect with as little delay as<\/em>
\npossible the requisition dated May 18<\/em>
\nfor the performance of this work.<\/em><\/p>\n

I have the honor to be<\/em>
\n Sir<\/em>
\n Your obedient servant<\/em>
\n H C Russell<\/em>
\n for the<\/em>
\n Govt Astronomer<\/em><\/p>\n

The Colonial Architect<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow this link to read more letters<\/a>, click on photograph of the observatory to go to the image download page.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, I’m directing you toward a nice HDR image of the Sydney Observatory. Actually, I’m directing you to something even better; the flashy, crowd-pleasing image is just a diversion. Last night, I stumbled across a small treasure trove. Scattered across the Sydney Observatory’s blog are several reproductions and transcriptions of letters written by past NSW […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,8,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ephemera","category-observatories","category-wallpaper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astronomy.snjr.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}