We’ve already looked at the remarkable stories of E. E. Barnard and Henrietta Leavitt.

Today, a snapshot of Milton Humason, a former mule driver and janitor who rose to work with Edwin Hubble to establish the distance scale of the universe and become one of the best-known American astronomers of the 20th century.

Milton Humason was born in Dodge Center, Minnesota in 1891.  When he was 14 years old, his parents sent him to a summer camp on Mount Wilson, near Los Angeles.  The mountain’s forests and soaring views of southern California stole the heart of the prairie boy.  He convinced his parents to let him take a year off school to stay on the mountain and find work.

He never returned to school.

Instead, Humason took up work as a mule driver, hauling lumber up a trail from the Sierra Madre to Mount Wilson to build the new astronomical observatory… an enormous project organized by the astronomy pioneer George Ellery Hale.

In 1911, Humason’s heart was stolen once more: he became engaged to Helen Dowd, the daughter of the chief engineer of the observatory on Mount Wilson.  They married shortly after.  He left to work as a foreman on a ranch in nearby LaVerne.  But he missed the mountain.  In 1917, Humason saw his chance to return and to impress his father-in-law:  he took a position as observatory janitor.  This was a big step up from mule driver and ranch hand.

Soon after, the new observatory posted a position for “night assistant”, which is essentially a helper for astronomers who need to operate the telescope and observatory dome. Humason took up the role.  His patience and skill and diligence brought him to the attention of Hale himself.  In 1919, in the face of stern protests, Hale appointed Humason… a high-school dropout… to the scientific staff of the observatory.  Humason remained in the role until 1954.

Humason worked with Hubble, and later Hubble’s protege, Allan Sandage, to study the spectral redshift of hundreds of galaxies to determine how fast they were receding… their so-called “radial velocity”.   Hubble (correctly) believed the radial velocity of a galaxy was related to its distance, a relationship now known as “Hubble’s Law”.

But these far-away galaxies had low surface brightness, and were notoriously hard to measure.  So Humason developed techniques to optimize the photographic exposures and plate measurements. He determined the radial velocities of 620 galaxies, and helped set the distance scale and age of the universe.   Much of Hubble’s success was attributed to Humason’s painstaking measurements.

Milton Humason

For his achievements, Humason was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Lund in Sweden.  He retired in 1957, and died in Mendocino, California, in 1972 at the age of 80.

In 2005, Humason’s life was the subject of the musical “The Expanding Sky” by the writer Stan Peal.

*** Highly Recommended ***

Discover how to take great astro-photos with your digital camera.  Capture images of Orion rising over the trees above the eastern horizon, or Taurus and the Pleiades high in the dark winter sky.  No special experience required.  Click here to learn more…

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Lowell came from an old, wealthy Boston family that first settled the Cape Ann peninsula of Massachusetts in 1639.  His brother Abbot was president of Harvard University for 24 years.  And Percival himself was a Harvard grad, majoring in mathematics.  He developed an interest in astronomy as a student and delivered a graduation address on the “nebular hypothesis” of solar system formation.

But that was it for astronomy for young Percy… or so it seemed.  After Harvard, Lowell tended to the family business and traveled occasionally to Korea and Japan for 17 years.  He served as a counselor for a Korean diplomatic mission to the U.S.  and wrote four academic books about Japan and its culture, including “The Soul of the Far East” in 1888.

Then, without apparent reason, he caught the Mars bug.  Inspired by the writings of Camille Flammarion and the observations by Schiaparelli of Martian canali (which translates from Italian as channels, not canals), Lowell became convinced Mars was inhabited by an intelligent civilization.

In 1894, Lowell used his fortune to quickly build an observatory near Flagstaff in the clear, dry Arizona sky.  He set up two borrowed refracting telescopes and set to work sketching the surface features of Mars, and he continued sketching and making measurements of Mars for more than 15 years.  His observatory eventually housed an impressive 24-inch refractor made by Alvan Clark.  The telescope remains in use at Lowell observatory to this day.

Not long after his first observations in 1894, Lowell loudly announced his discovery of canals and oases on Mars, which he believed were created by the inhabitants of the Red Planet.  The public was captivated.  Lowell became world famous.  And the idea of life on Mars remained in the public consciousness for decades.

One of Lowell’s sketches of Mars, circa 1895

Professional astronomers had a different reaction to Lowell.  Many were disgusted at Lowell’s thirst for publicity.  Some believed he jumped the gun to announce life on Mars without more careful study and analysis.  No other astronomers could see canals on Mars, including the eagle-eyed E. E. Barnard with the 36-inch telescope at Lick Observatory.

Many began to believe (correctly) that the canals were an optical illusion.  Skepticism about the canals increased amongst astronomers over the 20th century.  Though it was not until Mariner 4′s flyby was the existence of canals was disproved completely.

If Lowell was troubled by the scorn and derision of the astronomical establishment, he didn’t let it show.  He remained at his telescope for the rest of his life, making drawings of Mars, as well patiently sketching an early map of Venus.  Though again, what he saw on Venus was uncertain since we know now Venus reveals no surface features in visible light.

Lowell also predicted a ninth planet– which he called Planet X– based on oddities in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune.  He searched for Planet X himself until his death in 1916.  The observatory’s staff continued the search until 1930, when Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto at Lowell Observatory.  Though it turns out Pluto was too small to be Planet X, and the whole issue disappeared when, much later, accurate determination of the mass of Neptune showed the outer planets moved as expected.

So Lowell was wrong on Mars.  He was wrong on Venus.  He was wrong on Planet X.

Was he a failure?

We think not.  Though he made few original scientific discoveries, Lowell left a legacy of a world-class observatory which still contributes to the advancement of human knowledge.  And he stimulated public imagination for planetary exploration more than anyone in his time.

We wonder how many astronomers of the past century owe their careers to Lowell’s imagination and dedication.

Today, Lowell’s Observatory is a U.S. National Historic Landmark.  His mausoleum stands on Mars Hill near the observatory.

*** Highly Recommended ***

Discover how to take great astro-photos with your digital camera.  Capture images of Orion rising over the trees above the eastern horizon, or Taurus and the Pleiades high in the dark winter sky.  No special experience required.  Click here to learn more…

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One of our favorites is the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille.  You’ve see his name mentioned many times in the pages of One-Minute Astronomer as the discoverer of several deep-sky objects, especially in the southern hemisphere.  In the mid-18th century, in a time before Messier and the Herschels, the humble and diligent Lacaille cataloged more stars than all other astronomers of his era combined, and assigned names and places for southern constellations still in use today.

Born in 1713, the young Lacaille’s was left destitute by the death of his father.  He turned to theological studies, sponsored by a nobleman, and completed his religious work with the title of Abbe.  But his interest was consumed by science, so he obtained work as a geographer and cartographer.  He surveyed the French coast and made precise measurements of longitude.  His diligence earned him admission to the French Academy, and he secured a position as mathematics professor at Mazarin College, with a small observatory at his disposal.

Though he made many celestial measurements from northern France, the other half of the sky beckoned.  In 1750, he implored the Academy to let him travel to South Africa to catalog the southern stars.  They granted his wish.  Lacaille set sail for Cape Town, before it was called Cape Town, and set up shop near the slopes of Table Mountain.  In just one year, using an absurdly small 1/2-inch refractor, he measured the positions of 9,766 stars and logged 42 deep sky objects including 47 Tucanae, omega Centauri, and the eta Carinae nebula.

He also named 14 obscure southern constellations that have left many stargazers scratching their heads.  Unlike the northern sky, there are no grand mythological names here; Lacaille lived in a time that admired the tools of science and reason.  Hence the names of constellations such as..

• Antlia Pneumatica, the Air Pump
• Caelum, the Engraving Tool
• Circinus, the Geometer’s Compasses
• Fornax Chemica, the Chemist’s Furnace
• Horologium Oscillatorium, the Pendulum Clock
• Mons Mensae, Table Mountain
• Microscopium, the Microscope
• Norma et Regula, the Level and Square
• Octans, the Octant
• Pictor, the Painter’s Easel
• Pyxis Nautica, the Ship’s Compass
• Reticulum Rhomboidalis, the eyepiece reticle, and
• Sculptor, the Sculptor’s workshops;

You can see why, when an astronomer from Lick Observatory first saw the far-southern sky, he said it looked like somebody’s attic!

Alas, Lacaille did not live to see his southern catalog published.  Upon returning to France, the modest astronomer was shocked to learn he had become relatively famous for his work in South Africa.  (Scientists were like rock stars in those days).  He returned to his professorship and continued to grind away at his measurements.  He died in 1762, at the age of 49, from rigors associated with overwork.

According to his biographer David Evans, Lacaille “lived for science and nothing else”.  He had few friends and displayed fewer emotions, and left no record of a private life or ambition or the search for recognition.  He lived and died for the stars.  And he let his work stand as his memorial.

In honor of his work, a 60-cm telescope at Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean will be named the La-Caille telescope.

There were just 66 years between the first flight of the Wright brother’s wood-and-cloth glider with a strapped-on 30 horsepower engine to the 3,300 ton Saturn V rocket that carried Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins to the moon.  The event still staggers the imagination.

And in the last 40 years… what?  Not much in terms of manned spaceflight.  Perhaps that’s what amazes me most of all about the moon landings: that we lost interest in such achievements so quickly.  Not sure if it’s true, but I’ve read the moon landings are one of the few historical technological achievements that we cannot repeat, even if we wanted too.  The full complement of know-how and infrastructure to put humans on the moon no longer exists.

But take heart.  Though it will be a long time until astronauts walk on the Moon or Mars, there were (and are) dozens of unmanned spacecraft exploring the solar system.  Every planet has been explored to some extent.  Even Pluto will get a visit by the New Horizons spacecraft in 2015.  And the Pioneer 10, 11 and the Voyager 1 spacecraft are venturing beyond the solar system into interstellar space.  Voyager 1 will have enough power to continue radio transmission to Earth until 2025, 48 years after it was launched.  Darned impressive.

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On July 22, the moon passed between the Earth and the sun, causing a total solar eclipse.  Visible in a narrow band from China and India and into the Pacific Ocean, the eclipse passed right over the city of Shanghai.  Millions looked up to see one of the most magnificent sights in nature.  Here’s a video of the event from an Indian news agency.

Solar eclipses occur when the moon is “new”.  The eclipse happened more than 2 days ago, which means the moon is now a waxing crescent and perfectly positioned for summer viewing with a telescope or binoculars.  You can discover more about the moon’s movements and surface features with Lunar Phase Pro.

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And an unexpected even this week… something big crashed into Jupiter.  Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley discovered the impact site with his 14.5-inch telescope and imaging system.  He almost missed the discovery when he went back inside to watch the British Open golf tournament.  But his work ethic prevailed.  Here’s a link to Wesley’s image of the impact.  It was likely a small comet or asteroid that hit Jupiter, dredging up material from the planet’s lower atmosphere.

You can see Jupiter for yourself in the southeastern sky after 11 p.m. or so.  It’s the brightest thing in that part of the sky.  You’ll likely not see the impact site, however, at least not visually.  But as Wesley’s discovery proves, there are many unexpected and beautiful things for amateur stargazers to discover.

Next week… the “Mars Hoax”; and we’ll start a series of short articles on how to safely observe the Sun.

The Basics
• Caroline Herschel was born in 1750 in Hanover, Germany, the eighth of ten children. After contracting a virulent strain of smallpox as a child, she was disfigured and had few prospects for marriage. Her family’s limited means restricted her prospects for higher education or advancement.

• At the age of 22, Caroline went to live with her brother William, who had moved to England to teach music. At first, she was essentially a housekeeper. But William taught her mathematics and she learned to help him make larger and larger telescopes. She slowly gained expertise and self-confidence as a technician and telescope maker.

• After William discovered Uranus, King George III paid him a salary of 200 pounds a year. And he paid Caroline 50 pounds a year as her brother’s assistant. So Caroline became the world’s first female professional astronomer.

Caroline Herschel in her later years.

A Deeper Look
• While William set about measuring double stars, Caroline began sweeping the skies with a small refractor, searching for faint deep sky objects not cataloged by Messier. Her first discovery was the open cluster, now called NGC 2360, made on February 26, 1783. This was the first of 14 deep sky objects that she discovered.

• Her deep-sky discoveries inspired William. He gave up his double star observations and began to map the heavens once he understood the riches to be discovered there. His diligence led to the mapping of hundreds of additional deep sky objects, which led to the New General Catalog (NGC) used by astronomers to this day.

• Caroline helped her brother with his catalog and continued to observe. In her free time, she swept the sky with her four-inch refractor and discovered eight comets between 1786 in 1797. Comet seeking was her favorite activity, and her discoveries cemented her reputation as a first-class astronomer.

• After William died in 1822, when Caroline was 75, she returned to Hanover to complete William’s catalog of deep sky objects. She lived until she was 97 years old, clear-minded and active until the end. She received honors from the Royal Astronomical Society, the Royal Irish Academy, and was awarded the gold medal for science by the King of Prussia.

Good To Know
From Caroline’s epitaph: “The gaze of her who has passed to glory was, while below, turned to the starry Heaven: her comet discoveries, and her share in the undying work of her Brother, William Herschel, shall tell of this to all time.”

Personal View
Favorite quote for female stargazers:
“A woman’s place is in the dome!” – Marylou West

The Basics

• Born in 1546 to a wealthy family, Tycho was educated at the finest European universities. He took to astronomy after watching a solar eclipse in 1560.

• At the age of 20 and after a night of heavy drinking, the colorful Tycho challenged a fellow student to a duel with rapiers. Tycho lost part of his nose in the duel. For the rest of his life, he wore a silver insert over the remains of his nose.

• Tycho persuaded the Danish King Fredrick II to fund two observatories named Uraniborg and Stjerneborg. Tycho constructed his own precise instruments and made thousand of accurate measurements of the stars and planets. He was the last important astronomer to work without a telescope.

Tycho Brahe (1546-1601)

A Deeper Look

• Tycho knew the stars by memory at an early age. During an after-dinner stroll in 1572, he was astonished to see a “new” star in Cassiopeia. This star was a supernova, and its appearance helped dispel the ancient view that the heavens are fixed and unchanging.

• Known as a charismatic host, Tycho held court and worked at Uraniborg for many years until a falling out with the Danish king sent Tycho to Prague in 1599.

• In 1601, at a festive banquet at which there was much drinking, Tycho compelled himself to remain in his seat out of stubbornness and good manners despite an urgent need to relieve himself. Legend has it Tycho suffered a burst bladder that evening. He died 11 days later.

A Bit More History

Another theory on Tycho’s death: he was murdered. Some historians believe his assistant, Johannes Kepler, poisoned Tycho to gain access to his data. Kepler stole Tycho’s data after his death and used it to formulate the three laws of planetary motion. Newton later used Kepler’s Laws to validate his theory of gravitation.

Personal View

As an astronomy graduate student, I was a member of a “drinking society” named after Tycho Brahe. Despite many pints of ale, my bladder remained intact. Who says astronomers don’t have fun?

The Basics

• Reber was a ham radio operator, studied radio engineering, and worked for several radio manufacturers in Chicago from 1933 to 1947.

• Reber learned of Jansky’s discovery of “cosmic radio waves” in the newspapers. He applied to work with Jansky at Bell Labs in Holdmel, New Jersey. But the Great Depression prevented Bell from hiring new staff.

• He was completely captivated by Jansky’s cosmic radio waves, so Reber built what became the world’s first radio telescope at his own expense while working full time as a radio engineer.

• He made the reflector from sheet metal 30 feet in diameter. Just like an optical telescope, Reber’s construction used a parabolic mirror to focus all wavelengths to a single point. There, 20 feet above the dish, he mounted his radio receiver to amplify the faint cosmic signals by million of times, making them strong enough to record on a strip chart.

Grote Reber’s Backyard Radio Telescope… And The World’s First!

A Deeper Look

• From his backyard radio telescope, Reber confirmed Jansky’s discovery of radio waves from the Milky Way, and found radio emission from the sun, and mysterious radio sources in Cassiopeia and Cygnus.

• From 1938 to 1943, Reber made the first surveys of radio waves from the sky and published his results widely. His work ensured radio astronomy became a major field of research following World War II.

• When other researchers began covering more and more of the spectrum, Reber turned to longer-wavelength radio waves in the 1950′s. Such signals penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere in only a few places, one of which is Tasmania. Reber spent his last years there, and died in 2002 at the age of 90.

Good To Know

The radio waves Jansky and Reber detected from the disk of the Milky Way came from electrically charged particles blasted into interstellar space by supernova explosions.

Personal View

Reber’s work was the end of golden age of astronomy, when an accomplished amateur could make groundbreaking discoveries. This often happens in a new and young science, where professionals, by definition, don’t yet exist.

The Basics

• To search for static that might interfere with radio transmission, Jansky built an antenna to detect radio waves at a frequency of 20.5 MHz (a wavelength of 14.5 meters). He mounted the antenna on four Ford Model-T tires to determine the direction of any radio signal he might find. The antenna was jokingly called “Jansky’s merry-go-round”.

• After recording signals for several months, Jansky found static from nearby and distant thunderstorms.

• But he also found a faint steady radio hiss of unknown origin. The intensity of the hiss rose and fell once a day. At first, he thought the unknown static might be radio waves from the Sun.

A Deeper Look

• After a few months of following the signal, the brightest point moved away from the Sun. The signal repeated not every 24 hours, but every 23 hours and 56 minutes, the same period in which the stars rise and set.

• Jansky eventually figured out the radiation was strongest in the direction of the center of our Milky Way galaxy, in the constellation of Sagittarius. The discovery of radio waves from the center of the galaxy was widely publicized, appearing in the New York Times on May 5, 1933.

• Though he wanted to learn more about the radio waves, Jansky was assigned to another project and did not pursue the subject further.

• Many scientists were fascinated by Jansky’s discovery. But no one followed up on it for several years until a modest radio engineer from Chicago became the world’s first true radio astronomer. (To Be Continued…)

Good To Know

In honor of Karl Jansky, the unit used by radio astronomers for the strength (or flux density) of radio sources is the Jansky.

Personal View

The unexpected, unexplained measurement … sometimes it’s caused by dust in the electronics, sometimes it’s a Nobel-Prize-winning breakthrough. That’s what makes life as a working scientist (or as an amateur astronomer) interesting… each day, you’re never sure what you’ll find, or what will happen. But you have to be alert the nature’s unexpected revelations.

The Basics

• Born in Nashville in 1857, Barnard endured grinding poverty as a child. His father died before Barnard’s birth, and his mother took to selling wax flowers to earn a meager living.

• To “soften the sadness” of his life, Barnard often lay on a wagon bed at night and gazed up alone at the night sky. But he had no way to learn about what he saw.

• At the age of nine, Barnard was put to work at a photography studio, where he turned a set of wheels all day to keep a camera aimed at the sun to make photographic prints. He remained at the studio for 17 years, gaining knowledge of optics and photography. He even assembled a small spyglass out of spare parts.

• By chance, he got hold of a book about astronomy and finally learned the names of the stars and planet he had seen since childhood.

• In time, Barnard acquired a 5-inch telescope. He made a name for himself in Nashville by discovering nearly a dozen comets. A group of wealthy citizens raised money to send Barnard to Vanderbilt University, where he obtained a degree at the age of 30 and earned a teaching post at the observatory.

A Deeper Look

• In 1888, Barnard quit his teaching post and traveled to Lick Observatory in California. Amid the physical and psychological hardships on Mount Hamilton, Barnard applied his unique expertise to systematically photograph the Milky Way. Astronomical photography was a new art in those days, and Barnard’s time exposures revealed details in the Milky Way never seen before.

• His photos of our galaxy revealed many dark clouds, which some thought were deep holes in space where no stars were found. In time, these clouds were revealed to be dark clouds of gas and dust that blocked out background stars and nebulae.

• Barnard also discovered-visually- a fifth moon of Jupiter, Almathea. And he discovered the second closest star to Earth, now called Barnard’s star.

• After seven years at Lick, Barnard moved to the newly built Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin and remained there until he died in 1923.

Barnard posing with the 36″ refractor at Lick Observatory

Good To Know

As an amateur, Barnard heard of a contest that awarded $200 to anyone who discovered a new comet. Barnard discovered eight, and used the money to build a house for himself and his wife. Residents of Nashville called it the “Comet House”.

Personal View

Is it possible to get everything you want in life? I don’t know. But Barnard’s story shows how skill, good fortune, hard work, and a deep love of what you do can take you much farther than you ever imagined.

The Basics

• Born into a musical family in Hanover, Germany, Herschel mastered the oboe and made his living as a professional musician. He played in the Hanoverian Guard during the Seven Year War, but abandoned his military career and fled to England.

• Herschel was blessed with a winning personality. He made many friends in England and secured a lifetime appointment as an organist in Bath. Yet he was bored, and turned for challenge to astronomy, starting with the popular works of James Ferguson.

• Herschel was captivated by the mysterious “nebulae”, the distant “cloudy stars”. But he was frustrated by the aberration-ridden refractors of the day and learned to build large aperture Newtonian reflectors to see deeper into space.

• He built more than 400 telescopes. In his most ambitious attempt, he tried to make a 36” metal mirror using a cast of hardened horse dung. The cast leaked molten metal onto the floor of his workshop, causing flagstones to explode and ricochet off the ceiling. This episode aside, Herschel made some of the finest large-aperture telescopes in the world at that time.

William Herschel: composer, astronomer

A Deeper Look

• He became a supremely patient and skilled observer. His detailed knowledge of the stars enabled him to discover an unexpected celestial wanderer: the planet Uranus. This discovery, made with a 6” reflector, gained him fame and freedom: he was granted fellowship in the Royal Society and a rich stipend from King George III.

• He was the first to discover that many nebulae were made of stars (these were the globular and tight open clusters). But he also concluded some nebulae (planetary nebulae, for example) were made of a “shining fluid” of unknown constitution, which remained unknown until the 19th century.

• Herschel assumed we lived in a vast cluster of stars and set out to map it by counting stars in different directions. He correctly concluded we lived in a flat disk of stars… a galaxy.

Good To Know

Herschel made many conjectures of astonishing accuracy. He believed the Orion Nebula was “the chaotic material of future suns”. And he believed the Andromeda “nebula” was an island of millions of stars. He had no way of proving these conjectures, yet he was correct.

Personal View

Despite his wealth, fame, and accomplishments, Herschel never lost his love “for this magnificent collection of stars” in which we live. In the summer of 1819, at the age of 80, he wrote his sister to come dine with him and help him see a great long-tailed comet. May we all find a calling we enjoy as much.