Astronomy - 1965 - 2024    (Science)

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Astronomy - 1965 - 2024    (Science)

Although I have been an amateur astronomer, since 1965 I have been an amateur astronomer ever since 1965, when my brother Alan showed me Venus and Jupiter through the two-inch refracting telescope that he won for his work as a paper-boy for the Argus, the newspaper in Rock Island Illinois the night before we moved from there to Nebraska.

In our basement at "A" I tried and failed to grind a 6-inch mirror for a telescope, after which I purchased a 4-inch mirror from Edmund Scientific, with which I built a reflecting telescope out of HVAC duct piping and a focuser and eyepiece, also from Edmund Scientific, and then a wood & pipe mount for it in Shop Class. I used it to view planets and a smattering of other deep sky objects, but mainly to map sunspots in the late 1960s. I entered my observations in the Science Fair in Hastings, but got nothing for my efforts. 

From 1991 on I pursued this avocation with renewed vigor; it might help to understand that, in my mind, calendars are perhaps the oldest astronomical instrument. In the late '80s and much of the '90s I held volunteer positions at Hyde Observatory.

→ Boswell Observatory and Creighton University Observatory

Also during that time, I spoke with the President of Doane College, in Crete, where my wife was an alumna. She had told me of an old observatory on the campus grounds, Boswell Observatory, built in 1883, which I visited, then convinced the President to authorize me to assemble a group of experts to assess the feasibility of restoring it to functionality.

He agreed, and my group reviewed the health of the building; we found that the walls were in danger of crumbling if the dome were to be rotated. The classic Alvin Clarke 8-inch objective lens was missing from the telescope, and no one knew where it was; the dome itself needed repair, as did some of the clocks. I knew the professor who had removed the lens (because bird droppings were etching into its surface) and so I knew where he had initially stored it. When the lens was missing we put out the word, and a custodian “saw in a dream on Good Friday” its location, and so found it!

I met with astronomers, past directors, historians, optical experts, and experts in antique scientific optical and mechanical equipment, such as drives, transits, and clocks (clocks were an essential astronomical instrument in the 1880s, used in conjunction with transits to determine a star's right ascension). We had an expert from UNL assess the condition of the objective lens. We included, Mark Plano-Clark, the head of the Doane Physics Department in the process.

I reported to Doane's president, and never heard anything more about it, until years later when suddenly Boswell was being restored—with absolutely no acknowledgment or credit being given to our efforts. . . Sad; so many of the 15+ people who worked with me on it have since died, and so today could never appreciate the recognition if they were given it.

Just so it is not forgotten, participants in these meetings included:

1. Fred D. Brown, Doane College President (authorized our investigation and received the results)

2. John Chab, UNL student, Physics with Astronomy option (video d and suggestions)

3. Helen F. Cejka, (DECEASED)  Custodial staff at Doane College (found the lens)

4. Mark Fairchild, Prairie Astronomy Club & Hyde Observatory (organized and conducted meetings, wrote the report)

5. Don Gasparetti, (DECEASED) Prairie Astronomy Club & Hyde Observatory (video and suggestions)

6. Cedric Gibb, Prairie Astronomy Club & Hyde Observatory (assessed architecture)

7. David Hoffart, owner of Transit Works in Lincoln, NE (assessed clocks and transit equipment)

8. Duane Jaecks, PhD, (or Gene Rudd?), UNL Physics Department (assessed the lens)

9. Delbert King, PhD, (DECEASED) retired Professor at Doane University (information on equipment)

10. Carroll Moore, PhD, (DECEASED )(Hyde Observatory and Wesleyan University Physics Department  (history, former employee of observatory) 

11. Loyd C. Oleson, PhD, (DECEASED) Retired Professor of Math and Astronomy at Doane University (former director of the observatory) 

12. Mark Plano-Clark, PhD, Doane Physics Department (associate physics professor at Doane responsible for Boswell)

13. Ed Schmidt, PhD, (DECEASED) UNL Physics Department, Astronomer (assessed observatory and equipment) 

14. Gene Thompson, Deputy State Surveyor (history and assessed transit equipment)

15. Ron Veys, Prairie Astronomy Club & Hyde Observatory (general assessment, engineering, and equipment)

16. and others!
    

We also visually documented the dilapidated Creighton Observatory, with the help of faculty and staff there. We tried to document what we could of it and its fantastic instruments. We did not get any response from Creighton. Even then, in 1992, they were planning to tear it down to build a Jesuit Dormitory rather than try to preserve this historic observatory, the second observatory west of the Mississippi River and east of California; Boswell being the first. (This hints at my fears for St. Mark's.) I did at least manage to send our visual record of the observatory to Owen Gingerich, a famous astronomer who also acts as a historian of astronomy at Harvard University, so at least he was thankful for it, and that it still exists, if only at Harvard.

→ Other Astronomy Related Activities

In this period, in 1994, I had a nervous breakdown, during which my bipolar condition was finally, officially recognized and I was placed on disability, which has turned out to be permanent. As a result, no one would ever hire me again, not even in my areas of greatest expertise. I felt quite capable, just not employable.

For seven or more years running, I or my family became "Volunteer of The Year" at Hyde Memorial  Observatory. I also became a Supervisor, held other volunteer positions at the observatory: Volunteer Coordinator, and Webmaster. The Board of Supervisors act in place of a director. 

In the 1990s I also taught two or three non-credit courses on Astronomy at Southeast Community College. It was not a volunteer position, but offered only a stipend that one could not live on, and so was never considered “gainful employment."

I was the Second Vice-President  (Program Chair, a position I loved) of the Prairie Astronomy Club, which provides the volunteer staff and most of the funding for Hyde.

→ Astronomy Resources in Nebraska

I created, with the organizational help of Jeff King (who went on to pursue his career in aviation at Duncan Aviation) and Don Gasparetti (now deceased), Astronomy Resources in Nebraska (ARiN), at first a trifold pamphlet to distribute to observatories & planetariums around the state, then later a website on the Black Star Press  website. 

ARiN listed all astronomy observatories, planetariums, clubs, coursework, and events in Nebraska. -- which I am, slowly, attempting to revive. I created free of charge, websites for any such organization that could not afford a web presence through any other means. One such observatory was for Lime Creek Observatory, built and operated by Robert Linderholm (now deceased), near Cambridge, Nebraska.

This all fell apart when, on January 1, 2000, I checked the site to see if the so called "Y2K bug" had caused any problems, and found that nothing on the site was working. Of course it had nothing to do with the Y2K bug, but rather with an Internet Nebraska, glitch, which proved fatal to ARiN.

I had coded all the ARiN pages in PHTML 2, so I could calculate each user's Local Sidereal Time ("star time") and Local Mean Time (as opposed to Standard Time -- used in the Central & Mountain Time Zones) to display on all the club, observatory and planetarium website pages. 

Then on January 1, 2000, Internet Nebraska switched, WITHOUT WARNING, to PHTML 4. This had a totally different paradigm from PHTML 1, which would have required much time and money, that I did not have, in order to fix all the web pages. The learning curve alone, required to convert code from version 2 to version 4 was prohibitive. 

In all of this ARiN activity, I worked with, and enlisted where I could the help, of several professional astronomers in Lincoln, as well as the director of Mueller Planetarium, helping out in minor ways at the new Student Observatory on the parking garage at Memorial Stadium on the UNL campus, and at the UNL research observatory, Behlen Observatory at Meade; and, of course, amateurs and other professionals from around the state.

→ The End of My Astronomy Activities

After Sarah died, and I found myself loosing my vision and mobility, I contributed my car, optical & electronic equipment, and personal astronomy library to Branched Oak Observatory  north of Lincoln, where my books form the core of their library.

Next:  Sarah's Death & Aftermath - 2017 - 2024