Blast from the Past: A Glimpse Into Rare Science Book Collection

My dad and I attended the general meeting of the Astronomical Society of Kansas City yesterday evening. We arrived earlier enough to also attend the Astro 101 class. The topic happened to be on binoculars, although I vaguely remembered it advertised as astrophotography. Next month, perhaps, provided the speaker doesn’t postpone for the third time this year. Nevertheless, we learned quite a bit about binoculars and the handout included a dozen or so winter observing targets.

With just five minutes to spare, Dad and I changed lecture halls in Royall Hall, walking across to the larger one where the general meetings are held. Jay Manifold and Rick Henderson made several announcements. Another club member, Bob Sandy, gave a brief ten to fifteen minutes demonstration of his equipment used to videotape the Transit of Venus, including the video from that event and also a separate one of the re-appearance of the asteroid Ceres from behind the Moon.

Jay introduced our guest speaker, Bruce Bradley Librarian for History of Science at the Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering and Technology, who spoke about the library’s rare books on astronomy. The Linda Hall Library, located just two hundred yards west of Royall Hall, is the world’s foremost independent research library devoted to science, engineering and technology.

Title Page of Starry Messenger by Gallileo

The collection Mr. Bradley oversees is kept in the Helen Foresman Spencer Rare Book Room in the History of Science Center at the library which is open to the public Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. An appointment is not necessary for individual readers and visitors, but groups are advised to make an appointment in advance of a proposed visit.

In February of 2004, several ASKC members visited and marveled at these well preserved treasures:

The oldest book in the place printed by Nicolas Jenson in Venice in 1472, Pliny the Elder’s (23-79 AD) Naturalis Historiae Liber open to a section entitled”CAII PLYNII SECVNDI NATURALIS HISTORIAE LIBER X,” subtitled”De Natura auium Cap. i.” Beginning with a beautifully illuminated capital S in blue, red, green and gold, the colors appeared to have barely faded in 532 years.
Tycho Brahe’s Astronomiae Instauratae Progymnasmata from 1602 open to a star map showing the location of the supernova
of 1572 in Cassiopeia.
Galileo’s Dialogo, printed in Florence,”Per Gio: Batista Landini,” 1632., displaying a Copernican diagram of the Solar System showing orbits of the planets, the Moon and the four large moons of Jupiter that Galileo discovered.
A handwritten observational journal of William Herschel open to a section containing observations of Saturn with drawings, formulas and figures.
A very large format book with a full-color, two-page drawing of Tycho’s observatory, labeled Stellaeburgum (also called Uraniborg) as it appeared in 1558.

On of Galileo’s illustrations/engravings of the Moon

At the October general meeting, Mr. Bradley started with a history of the founding of the library. He then showed us many images taken of the rare books in the collection. He also related interesting and intriguing stories about the men who wrote these early science books. We even got a crash course in the Gutenberg printing process, right down to the materials used for the bindings, the paper and the ink. Mr. Bradley spent quite a bit of time paging through a couple of Galileo‘s books (see excerpt at right) and explaining the challenges Galileo and his printer faced in publishing his ground-breaking astronomical observations and conclusions confirming Copernicus‘ theory of a sun-centered universe (solar system).

He concluded his talk with a question and answer session and an invitation to the Library to see these treasures first hand. I plan to make a trip during lunch to the Linda Hall library’s current exhibit, called ‘On Time: The Question for Precision‘ featuring revolutions in time keeping within the next week or so.

Adventures on My First Science Convention: Day Three

IMGP3138 — John Reed leads a workshop on widefield astrophotography with a DSLR at MSRAL (Sun 03 Jun 2012)

After a handulf of hours sleeping, I drug myself out of bed early Sundy morning. Rather than eating breakfast, I composed my blog post recapping Saturday at the MSRAL convention. I published at ten after eight o’clock, leaving me less than an hour to drive to UMKC from Lansing. The last day of the convention consisted of a morning dedicated to three workshops. Not knowing what I might need, I packed up my laptop and my DSLR camera and zipped down I-70, arriving with about ten minutes to spare.

I burdened myself with my laptop bag, camera backpack, purse and water bottle and trudged up the stairs to the Student Union. I opted not to take the additional four flights of stairs on the interior of the building, taking full advantage of the elevator to the top floor. I planted myself on the first row (as I’ve done each day of the convention) so I wouldn’t have any trouble hearing or seeing (or taking photographs like the one above).

First Workshop: Widefield Astrophotography with a DSLR by John Reed

Very interesting workshop on using consumer camera equipment (a Canon DSLR and a 200 mm telephoto with an AstroTrac mount) and some post-production work with Photoshop for stunning astrophotography.

Second Workshop: Variable Star Research with Modern Amateur Equipment by Jim Roe

The middle workshop presented by Jim Roe dealt with variable stars and doing some hands on scientific observation and research. I got to know his old friend Z Umi (a variable star in the Little Dipper).

Third Workshop: Successful Web Cam Astronomy by David Kolb

IMGP3144 — David Kolb answering questions after his Successful Web Cam Astronomy workshop at MSRAL (Sun 03 Jun 2012)

The final workshop of the day got really hands on, for those who wanted to participate in the step-by-step process of massaging web cam videos taken of Saturn to produce a nice crisp stacked image. The entire presentation will be uploaded to David’s website (Sunflower Astronomy) in the near future.

Final Musings on the Convention

I learned so much and met some great people. I have many fascinating ideas and concepts revolving through my brain and many new projects I’m inspired to pursue. I look forward to attending similar conferences when they pass through the area again.

Adventures on My First Science Convention: Day Two

Just can't get away from my work area — Beautiful, clear morning from atop the UMKC Student Union (looking northwest ~ June 2, 2012)

I survived the second day of the MSRAL convention. I think I overdosed on science, as my brain worked overtime while I slept to process the fascinating concepts, breakthroughs and forthcoming projects in astronomy and astrophysics I absorbed Saturday.

I arrived just in time to wait for the business meeting (scheduled for the eight o’clock hour) to run over into the first session. I strolled around the fourth floor of the UMKC Student Union, watching the venders setup their tables in the room adjacent to the main conference one. Several conference attendees also brought their solar telescopes and began setting them up on the rooftop deck of the building to facilitate solar observing throughout the entire day (and we had crystal clear skies for the duration).

Morning sessions:

History of U.S. Astronomy and funding forecast, presented by Dr. Dan McIntosh, who kindly provided a link to his entire presentation during his talk: U.S. Astronomy: Past, Present and Future. Some highlights from my notes:
- I need to watch The Journey to Palomar via PBS’s website.
- NSF founded/funded in 1950
- NASA founded/funded in 1958
- Public investment in science led to a boom in our economy.
- In the 20 year history of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), more than ten thousand (10,000) scientific papers have been published.
- Out of our huge $3.7 trillion federal budget, only 0.85 percent of it relates to science funding (NSF, NASA, DOE, etc.) or about $60 per year per family.
- Is Science a Good Investment? It inspires dreams, drives innovation, new technologies (just a few of NASA’s 6,000 patents and 2,000 spinoff ventures: water filters, cordless tools, shoe insoles, memory foam, scratch resistant lenses, UV sunglasses, cell phone cameras), which lead to economic growth and we, the public, come to rely on the new technology (GPS, weather, communication satellites).

Local amateur astronomer discovers comet (skipped most of this session because I saw it at a club meeting in March).

I returned to the stairs leading from the third floor to the top floor of the Student Union for the group photo just before we broke for lunch. I ended up standing in the second row directly behind Fred Bruenjes (see local comet discoverer mentioned above).

Solar observing

Afternoon sessions:

Location of the Kepler Mission FOV on the Sky

Helioseismology leads to Asteroseismology via the Kepler satellite aka Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star: The End of Wondering in the Era of Asteroseismology. presented by Dr. Bruce Twarog. This session really stretched my flabby scientific brain muscles. The professor presented his topic with great enthusiasm. I took copious notes, because I knew I needed to research and review most of what he talked about. The first portion of his talk dealt with some history, including a crash course in Fourier transforms. Once we were all on the same page, he could talk about helioseismology. Finally, we connect the dots of how the data gathered by the Keppler Mission can build upon our discoveries in our own sun and apply them to other stars in a leading edge branch of astronomical research called asteroseismology.

Webcam Imaging by David Kolb: Interesting, but it seems like an awful lot of post-production work involving a myriad variety of software packages. I will learn more this morning during a workshop with this presenter.

Another interesting topic, where paleontology was used to find our Nemesis (or not), presented by Dr. Adrian Melott and I even found the publication from 2010: Nemesis Reconsidered

NASA’s Night Sky Network – There actually is an app for that (stargazing that is). All these tools, kits, videos and services provided free by NASA to astronomy clubs around the country.

Evening Keynote: LSST by Dr. Barbara Anthony-Twarog. Wow, just wow. This telescope, when it becomes operational (currently proposed completion and operational in 2022), will survey the sky like never before. All the data (15 terabytes per night) will be freely available to everyone (not just the US public, but the entire world). By the time it finishes its ten year run, there may be nothing left for traditional observers (both professional and amateur astronomers alike) to discover. The future of astronomical research will no longer rely on observations, but will need computer scientists and data miners to sift through the avalanche of data produced by the LSST.

Observing the Moon via Warko atop Royall Hall

After Dark: Warko on the rooftop of Royall Hall

I moved my vehicle from the parking lot next to the Student Union to the parking garage next to Royall Hall, parking on the fourth level to take the sky bridge across to the building and then a couple of flights of stairs up to the rooftop observatory. The nearly full moon shone exceptionally bright on a clear, calm evening. We trained the 16 inch telescope on it, at least until the sky darkened enough to move on to other targets. I snapped a quick photo with my cell phone of the bright moon through the eyepiece:

We moved on to Saturn and stayed there until I had to leave (around 10:30) because I had a forty minute drive home and had been up since five.

I saw my first iridium flare last night. What is an iridium streak, you ask? Check out the Heavens Above web page to find out and to search for a streaker in your neighborhood (sky that is).

I enjoyed my second day at the convention. I learned more than I can possibly absorb on just five hours of sleep. In just a few minutes, I return for the final half-day of workshops. I’ll post my final thoughts later this afternoon, perhaps after I’ve had a nap.

Adventures on My First Science Convention: Day One

Since the late 80s, I have attended many conventions, all across the country. All of those conventions had one thing in common with the convention I’m attending this weekend in Kansas City: Science. Well, that’s not entirely true, those other conventions also included stars, but I’ll let that rest for a moment and wait for the shoe to drop.

Yep. I frequently attended science fiction conventions, mostly of the Star Trek flavor, but more recently of a more eclectic variety, culminating in a trip to Atlanta last fall to attend one of the largest in the country called Dragon*Con. I won’t be repeating the experience this fall. In fact, I could have attended the local science fiction convention, ConQuest, hosted annually over Memorial Day Weekend by the Kansas City Science Fiction and Fantasy Society. But none of the guests of honor intrigued me, so I decided to embark on a harder challenge.

I registered early to attend the Mid-States Region of the Astronomical Leage (MSRAL) Convention and get a fix of hard science. I am a member of the Astronomical Society of Kansas City (ASKC), which in turn is a member of the Astronomical League.

The convention started Friday evening at six o’clock with the Star-B-Que, catered by Jack Stack, at Union Station, followed by a program at the Gottlieb Planetarium.

Friday, of course, was a work day for me. Normally, I can make it home to Lansing by 5:25 p.m., after dropping off all my vanpool riders. Fortunately, one of my riders left early for a weekend trip, and it just happened to be the person whose home is fifteen minutes off my direct route home. So, I managed to make it back to Lansing by 5:10, giving me enough time to change clothes, put some gas in the car, and fly back to midtown Kansas City. I made it to I-670 and within sight of my goal by five ’til six. Then all traffic became a parking lot and I began to panic. I exited I-670 midway across the bottoms and took a slight detour around Kemper Arena, approaching Union Station from the west-southwest. I could not believe the amount of traffic! Something was going on, because streets were barricaded and people were flocking to the midtown and/or Crown Center area in droves. I wanted to scream! I finally wound myself through the mess, using an old shortcut I knew from my days of working next to Union Station (in the Two Pershing Square building) and arrived only ten minutes late.

I picked up my registration packet and got in line for the barbecue. I sat at a table and met some new astronomers and reacquainted myself with some ASKC club members. Seven o’clock arrived quicker than I thought it would, and we all migrated to the planetarium for several very interesting programs presented by Jack Dunn of the Mueller Planetarium in Lincoln, Nebraska. He awed us with parts of several shows, including a moon tour via the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Jupiter via Science on a Sphere projection and a beautiful one created by Kagaya (a Japanese artist) called A Starry Tale. He closed the evening with a teaser trailer on the seventh planet, by popular request.

Announcements and updates followed and the disappointing news that neither Powell nor the Warko observatories would be opened up this evening, thanks to the clouds (see photo of sunset from Union Station at the left). So, I found myself heading west towards the sunset and home much earlier than I anticipated.

Today will be full of sessions and workshops. I can’t decide whether to take my laptop with me or not, as suggested during the announcements last night. It’s heavy and bulky and I’d have to worry about it and lug it around with me all day. I think I’ll forgo the hassle and rely on pen and paper and my Nook Color tablet for notes and research.

My only disappointment today will be not entering in the astrophotagraphy contest. I did not review the MSRAL Convention website well enough in advance to obtain quality prints of a few of my best photos from the last few months. The photos I would have entered are shown below (click images for larger versions).

From my Mercury hunt in February 2012

Earthglow Moon and Venus in May 2012

Solar Eclipse in May 2012

Lunar Eclipse in December 2011

See the Last Lunar Eclipse of 2011 at Dawn

Quick reminder post via my Nook Color web browser (so pardon the typos, lack of photos or links) to rise bright and early tomorrow before the moon sets (or the sun rises) to catch the final lunar eclipse of the year.

I plan to take some photos, but not with the telescope; just a telephoto lens on the camera and a tripod. From where? Not sure yet. I will decide in the morning.

Sweet dreams everyone!

Saturday Eclipse Update:

See the next post for observation notes and photos for the lunar eclipse as seen from the Heart of America.

I Keep Looking Up

MySkyDirectlyOverhead1230am08Nov2011 — View from my backyard, directly overhead, facing west/northwest at 12:30 am Tue 08 Nov 2011

The first thing I do when I exit a building is look up. The only time I don’t do this is during inclement weather (usually defined as rain or snow or just overcast, but even clouds can be interesting). I try to locate the moon, if it’s supposed to be visible. If I can hear a flying vehicle (helicopter or prop plane or jet), I search the skies for them as well. I’ve given myself a crick in my neck and no few twisted ankles gazing skywards instead of watching where I was going. And my family just thought I was klutzy growing up. I decided to feature astronomy and telescopes for my eighth day of ‘Thirty Days of Thankfulness‘ series. The graphic to the left displays the skies above my house as they should appear the moment this post is published. If you’re reading this soon after it’s published, you’re either an insomniac or living down under. I will be sound asleep.

Asteroid Close-Up

Best seen from North America, the little asteroid 2005 YU55 will race far across the constellations in just 11 hours. Sky & Telescope illustration

The big news for today is an asteroid visitor flying close to the Earth, inside the perimeter of the Moon’s orbit. The Sky & Telescope web page article includes a chart and instructions for observing the asteroid (best seen from North America and the instructions even mention Kansas and Kansas City by name!). Look for it late in the day (near sunset).

Sun, Moon, Planets, Stars, Comets, Meteors

I am still blessed with good eyesight, at least of the far-seeing variety. My ability to read without assistance ended about five years ago thanks to my aging lenses in my aging eyeballs. Growing up with the space race in the 60s and 70s gave me not so much the astronaut bug but the astronomy one. I remember the first moon landing in 1969 and the first space shuttle launch in 1981. I still have the National Geographic magazines that featured the stunning photographs of Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Neptune and Uranus from the Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM). My grandfather, Daniel, worked for NASA‘s Ames Research Center as a glass blower and some of his work now rests on Mars from either the Mariner or the Viking missions.

Telescopes

I received my first telescope in the mid 70s as a Christmas gift from my dad. It was a three inch refractor that allowed me to view the moon, the planets and even a solar eclipse (by use of a clip-on white metal plate to project the image of the sun onto and avoid any eye damage). My parents stored the telescope while I was at college and while I started my family. Eventually, they brought it down to our home in Benton, where it sat neglected for the most part thanks to raising kids and working full-time. Sometime during the 90s, or during the move back to Leavenworth County, the telescope was either damaged or lost or both.

Last year, as a birthday present, my father purchased a very nice Meade ETX-90 with several accessories and eyepieces, including an SLR digital camera (Pentax K100D – sans lenses). After a few months of fiddling and fine-tuning, I decided I could benefit from the wisdom of others and became a member of the Astronomical Society of Kansas City in the spring of this year. I tend to participate virtually and silently (for the most part) by following the group discussions and reading the monthly Cosmic Messenger newsletter I made it to two meetings this year and have not visited the Powell Observatory or tried the dark sky site, mostly because the cost of gasoline remained high and the weather for most of the summer did not cooperate by providing clear skies for optimal viewing opportunities.

Astro-Vacations

Provided the world does not end next year, I plan to take a vacation involving astronomical observing and camping. We might attend something like the Texas Star Party or just spend a week near Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona. I even thought of finding a camp site in the Flint Hills, because when we drove back north through them in early October, the skies were crystal clear and very dark,, with few trees to obstruct the horizon.

Far-Out Transportation

Strange how craziness infests my best intentions. I started this blog entry Monday to recap an interesting weekend experience. Now, I find myself approaching noon on Thursday with no progress on the blog front.

Last Saturday morning, I attended the Annual Driver Training for all Advantage Vanpool Drivers in Kansas City, Missouri. We left our vans for their annual inspection by the KCATA mechanics at their garage and took a bus to the facility for breakfast and training. The Vanpool Coordinator handed out updated policies and procedures for reporting accidents, maintenance and safety. Two of the biggest changes included a complete moratorium on the use of any kind of personal electronic device (PED) while driving (violating this policy would result in the termination of the vanpool) and when returning a loaner van, we are too top off the gas tank and remove all personal items and trash.

Our instructor had trained hundreds if not thousands of people to drive, from high school teenagers to 86-year grandmothers. He also taught commercial drivers education and is a native of the Kansas City metro area (in fact, Noland Road in Independence is named for his great-great-grandfather). He recently retired from a long career as a teacher and coach and now consults to keep busy.

Four hours later, I survived the videos and enjoyed our instructor’s anecdotes without nodding off more than once. We returned to our vans via the bus and I drove back home to Lansing.

That evening, I took my father and my husband to the October 2011 meeting of ASKC at the Gottlieb Planetarium. The featured guest speaker, Jack Dunn of the Mueller Planetarium in Lincoln, Nebraska, spoke on the last Shuttle flight and the future of human space flight and exploration, mentioning SpaceX and Virgin Galactic by name (and showing us some prototypes via video on the planetarium’s dome. He claimed even Amazon’s Bezos is investing in private space exploration, but information on that venture is hard to come by (or not as it took me like ten seconds to find Blue Origin’s website … I just need some help deciphering their logo).

Prior to the Dunn’s presentation on far-out space tourism low Earth orbit vehicles, we learned about the Gottlieb Planetarium’s spherical projection system from it’s director.

As we were leaving, we admired an old fire truck, street car and noticed an Amtrak train with vintage Pullman cars waiting to leave the station. Fascinating mix of old and new transportation separated by mere minutes and/or light years.

I had hoped to report the status of star visibility from Union Station, but clouds obscured the night sky and reflected the abundance of light emanating not only from the Crown Center area but the Power & Light District to our north. I have two more opportunities to report from a location other than my backyard – tonight and tomorrow night, but with my son and his wife on the road from Texas to attend a wedding Friday evening, I probably won’t get the opportunity to make another entry in the Great World-Wide Star Count this year.

Almost Slipped My Mind to Approximate Pi Today

Today is Friday (always a reason to celebrate in and of itself), July 22nd, 2011. Better known as ‘Pi Approximation Day‘ in mathematical circles (har har).

Why approximately and not definitively?

Because if you divide twenty-two by seven, you get pretty darn close to the real deal.

Tau-Day (yesterday)

Tau-Da!

I completely missed the celebration of tau yesterday as well as being completely ignorant of a movement among mathematicians to replace my favorite constant, pi. I have spoken previously (once) here about pi and even use the first few digits of it as part of my username here at WordPress. At least once a year, on Pi Day, which corresponds to March 14th (or as close to 3.14 as you can get on our calendars), I celebrate the never-repeating, endlessly enlightening expression of the ratio between a circle’s circumference and it’s diameter … or wait, is that it’s radius.

I received a Tweet that intrigued me, entitled ‘Mathematicians Want to Say Goodbye to Pi‘ with an accompanying link. I read the article, but what really held my attention was an inserted YouTube video from someone named Kevin Houston (with a British, not Texan, accent). If you enjoy math, take a few minutes to watch his video.

So, since Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th, and 2π is roughly 6.28, it follows that celebrating tau should occur on June 28th. Or so the tau enthusiasts hope.

I’m still on the fence, preferring pi for the moment; although, I agree the use of tau has its merits in simplicity and beauty.

Book Review: A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets by Pasachoff/Menzel

A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets by Jay M. Pasachoff

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I checked this dense compact field guide out from my local library in the hopes of using it in the field with my telescope. Due to its size and weight, I found it nearly useless to use in the dark with my red flashlight at my telescope. The atlases were too small, requiring my reading glasses, and the binding too stiff and tight to allow the field guide to be laid flat and free up a hand to adjust the telescope.

The information provided in the guide appears current as of a dozen years ago (circa 1998). I’ll run through the table of contents with some observations below:

1. A First Look at the Sky – How to differentiate between a star and a planet. Includes a pair of sky maps showing the brightest stars with arrows showing the pathways that help observers find them.

2. A Tour of the Sky – Highlights of the seasonal skies for both hemispheres and a bit on solar observing.

3. The Monthly Sky Maps – Maps are drawn to minimize distortions in regions of the sky most studied, using 45 degrees altitude (halway up the sky to the zenith).

4. The Constellations – History and origins of the constellations and where they can be found in the night sky.

5. Stars, Nebulae and Galaxies – Descriptions of stars, star clusters, nebulae, galaxies (including our own) and quasars. Includes color photographs of the most familiar objects.

6. Double and Variable Stars – Includes graphs and charts.

7. Atlas of the Sky – Fifty-two charts, each accompanied by a half-page (three or four paragraphs) detailing the best tourist destinations for the observer (like a travelogue for your vacation to the stars). This was the main reason I checked out this field guide but, as I mentioned above, the binding prevented me from effectively using this guide while out on my star safari.

8. The Moon – I read this chapter several times and used the excellent maps of the moon during an extended observing period (over several days) in April 2011.

9. Finding the Planets – Tips and timetables for tracking the planets (mostly the easily observed planets like Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn).

10. Observing the Planets – A tour of all the planets (including the recently demoted Pluto), with lots of color photos.

11. Comets – Description, observing and photographing tips.

12. Asteroids – Only two pages long, includes a table of the brightest asteroids.

13. Meteors and Meteor Showers – Table of major meteor showers and how to observe them.

14. Observing the Sun – Concise breakdown of the sun’s composition, but the majority of the chapter deals with solar eclipses and how to observe them.

15. Coordinates, Time and Calendars – Definitions of right ascension and declination and an analemma graph and photograph.

After reading this field guide, and being disappointed in its field usefulness, I decided upon the Sky & Telescope’s Pocket Sky Atlas for use on my observing nights. While the Pocket Sky Atlas lacks the travelogue features of this Field Guide, it makes up for that in ease-of-use and weightlessness.

View all my reviews

Tag: science