Astronomy in St. James

THE PARISH OF ST. JAMES, JAMAICA: A PRIDE OF ASTRONOMICAL HISTORY

By Hedley Jones

Not many Jamaicans are aware of the historical association this country shares within the field of astronomy. I here share the little I know with readers.

At the age of ten (1927), I read a book on the subject of astronomy written by William Henry Pickering ---1858-1938. From that very moment, I pledged to be a star gazer. I’ve pursued a study of astronomy for eighty four years, and became a member of the Astronomical Society of Jamaica during the presidency of Dr Braham in 1955. Dr. Braham was an ophthalmologist with an extensive practice in Kingston. He was also a professional astronomer who built and operated a private astronomical observatory housing a ten inch Newtonian (mirror) telescope at Braemar Avenue in St Andrew. He introduced me to the art of astronomical mirror grinding. I have also been a member of the British Astronomical Association since 1967 and participated as a member of their moon watch division.

PICKERING

William Henry Pickering [1858-1938] was a physicist, mathematician, and professor of astronomy at the Harvard University in the USA. He retired in 1924 and came to live in Mandeville, Manchester, where he established an astronomical observatory. In the book of which I speak, he recorded how impressed he had been with the clear and transparent autumn and winter Jamaican night skies on a visit to Jamaica and why he had decided to retire here and write his final book on the subject of astronomy. [In 1919 he predicted the existence of a planet beyond Neptune based on anomalies in the positions of Uranus and Neptune. Pluto was later discovered in that region by Clyde Tombaugh (1930) with a confirmed mass too small to have then detectable orbital effects on Uranus and Neptune. Pluto has been reclassified as a dwarf planet, by the International Astronomical Union in 2006, after the detection of several similar sized bodies, some larger, in the outer Solar System's Kuiper Belt.] Professor Pickering died in Jamaica in 1938. He is reputed to have made a 21 inch Newtonian primary telescope mirror in Mandeville, but did not live to complete an observatory to house it.

OFF TO THE REPUBLIC

Venus caught in close conjucntion with the moon by Hedley Jones' 6 inch refractor

After a sojourn of thirty years (with the exception of my three-year war service) in the capital city of Kingston where I did considerable work on the practice of telescope building, I left the capital city to reside in St. James in 1965. Continuing with my telescope building, I came in contact with the Hall family of Kemshot. They owned and operated a home appliance business in Montego Bay---not then yet a city; and I operated an electronic repair business where I had one of my home built telescopes on display. Incidentally, that was a 6 inch refractor telescope, mounted on a locally devised and built motor driven equatorial stand--my best and most successful effort at telescope making. I used the instrument in November of 1985 to find Halley’s Comet on its latest return to the solar system in that year. I did my observation from a relatively dark Montego Hills location. The story was published in the Sunday Gleaner on the first Sunday of the following December. Due to a family tragedy in the early 90s I had perforce to change my area of residence. My very expensive telescope equatorial mount equipped with imported graduated right ascension and declination circles--used for the accurate location of celestial objects—weighing over a hundred weight—was left behind to be collected. Three days after, I returned to collect it and my amateur radio transmission antenna pole on which was mounted a quarter wave dipole antenna--both the gadget and antenna installation were missing! Presumably they had disappeared into the scrap-iron [“industry”?] God forbid.

Hedley Jones and daughter Hedy observing comet Halley with his hand built 6 inch refractor

A VISIT TO KEMSHOT IN 1971

My obvious interest in telescopes led to an invitation to visit a residence, built by lawyer Maxwell Hall circa 1880, at a two thousand foot elevation in the Kemshot mountain range overlooking the Cockpit country. The building is very impressive. A portion of the roof is designed as a slotted astronomical observatory dome, and is covered with copper sheeting with a permanently installed lightning arresting rod. I was informed that it once housed a four inch refractor telescope mounted on a motor-driven equatorial mount. That means that the telescope could be set to automatically track celestial objects such as the sun, the moon, the planets, stars and comets. The high point of my visit was an introduction to a library where I was surprised to be shown a log book that contained a record of astronomical sightings at that location. One such important entry described a transit of the sun (and replica drawing of the event) by the planet Mercury that took place in 1886--if I correctly recall. There was also a graphic description of a three day journey Mr Hall undertook by road from Kingston to Montego Bay. The first part of the journey was by train to Bog Walk, where he stopped for refreshment at Miss Millie’s Tavern. (I knew Miss Millie’s Tavern quite well. It existed into the 1940s.) A part of the journey was undertaken on horseback! He recorded. In my humble opinion, that log book and diary ought to have been preserved for posterity in the Jamaica Archives.

Before continuing my story, I introduce a passage from the writings of Jonathon Swift (1726) in his book--Gulliver’s Travels: “Certain astrologers have likewise discovered two lesser stars or satellites which revolve about Mars, whereof the innermost is distant from the centre of the primary planet exactly three of its diameters and the outermost five; the former revolves in the space of ten hours, the latter in twenty one and a half hours, which evidently shows them to be governed by the same laws of gravitation that influences the other heavenly bodies”.

The astrologers of old – forerunners of astronomy – were particularly concerned with solar planetary movements because of portents in the sky that led to earth-shattering cataclysms so well and accurately recorded in the historical old testament of the bible, in well disguised prophetic language format, e.g. David’s: “Jehovah reigneth; let the people tremble; let the earth be moved!”

There a law of celestial mechanics, which designates the critical distance a satellite or moon must maintain from the centre of its primary in order to retain a permanent orbit. It is called The Roche Limit. I return to my story.

BACK TO KEMSHOT

On a subsequent visit to the old Hall observatory in Kemshot, I was caught in a thunder storm. The experience was like that of the sirocco the children of Israel experienced in the wilderness at Hebron when they were bitten by what was eschatologically designated God’s fiery serpents – intense static electricity! God’s instructive remedy was a lightning arrester made of brass and hoisted on a pole. I then realised why Mr Hall covered his astronomy dome with copper and the existence of a permanent lightning arrester.

St. James is famous for its national hero – Sam Sharpe; there’s another greatly unsung – Maxwell Hall.

*This article was updated [02 May 2017] to clarify that William H. Pickering did not discover Pluto despite his predictions based on anomalous orbital positions of the planets Uranus and Neptune,and to clarify the owner of the Kemshot facility as lawyer Maxwell Hall, with no known connections to Asaph Hall (1829-1907) an American mathematician/astronomer. In the previous version of the article Mr Hedley jones relayed that Asaph Hall was at the top of his career employed as director to the American Naval Observatory. The two satellites [moons] of Mars were discovered by Asaph Hall in 1877. The inner moon, Phobos [Terror], is about ten miles in diameter and its month [period of revolution] is only 7hrs 39mins long; the other, Deimos [Rout], is only five miles in diameter and its month is 30hrs 18mins.

The AAJ would like to thank the author, Mr Hedley Jones for allowing the group to share his knowledge through this site. To contact the author, please go through our contact pages, or download the article in pdf (contacts at the end of the article).