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Books: PROXIMA - the Nearest Star (other than the Sun!) (2008). History of Alpha and Proxima Cen discoveries. Please click on link to get to description page. Revolutionaries of the Cosmos, the Astro-Physicists (2006). Biographies of Galileo, Newton, Wm. Herschel, Huggins, Hale, Eddington, Shapley and Hubble. Please click on link to get to description page. Victorian Telescope Makers - the Lives and letters of Thomas and Howard Grubb (1997). Please click on link to get to description page. From 1830 to about 1918, Thomas and Howard Grubb operated one of the world's leading telescope manufacturing businesses in the Dublin suburb of Rathmines. The Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope; History and Heritage (2015). Please click on link for more information. |
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Sundry: Visiting the SARAO site at Carnarvon (pdf, 4pp, 1.1MB) |
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History The Story of the Radcliffe Telescope, QJRAS, 30, 33-58, 1989 (Available from the NASA ADS service). The Radcliffe 74-inch in Pretoria, South Africa, used for the first time in 1948, was for several years the largest telescope in the Southern hemisphere and one of the largest in the world - after the 200-inch Palomar (also 1948), the 100-inch Hooker (1918), the 82-inch McDonald (1939) and the 74-inch David Dunlap instrument in Toronto (1935). The history of its construction is traced through correspondence files preserved at SAAO. Beginnings of Astronomical Photography at the Cape, MNASSA, 48, 117-122, 1989 (pdf, 8pp, 141kB). On October 4, 1882, an amateur photographer named William Simpson, of Aberdeen in the Cape, sent a photograph he had taken of the great comet of that year to David Gill. This stimulated the latter to a series of steps leading up to the Cape Photographic Durchmusterung. MNASSA, 48, 29-34, 1989 (pdf, 6pp, 160kB). Concerns the first photographic refractor constructed for Gill by Grubb. This was made by Grubb and financed by James Nasmyth. It incorporated a plateholder designed by Gill, the design of which was used for the later 'Astrographic' refractors made by Grubb. Early Days at the SAAO (MNASSA, 60, 13, 2001. 7pp pdf file). Some somewhat irreverent reminiscences about the early days of SAAO when Sir Richard Woolley was in charge. The Discovery of the Nearest Star, MNASSA, 66, 244-262, 2007 In the 1830s, the double star Alpha Centauri was the subject of the first successful stellar parallax measurement. For almost 80 years it remained the nearest star known. However, in 1915, at the Union Observatory in Johannesburg, R.T.A. Innes found a faint object near Alpha Cen with a similar proper motion. Its parallax was measured over the following two years by J.G.E.G. Voute at the Cape and by Innes himself. The latter, on the basis of inadequate data, declared it to be closer than Alpha and named it 'Proxima Centaurus'. The first statistically significant data that indicated it truly is the nearest star were published in 1928 by H.L. Alden, based on observations obtained at the Yale Southern Station in Johannesburg. Discordant results continued however to appear until 1966. The measurements made by the Hipparcos astrometric satellite appear to have established its proximity beyond question. Andrew David Thackeray and the Radcliffe Observatory, Pretoria, Trans. Roy. Soc. South Africa, 64, 2009 (pdf, 149kB) An invited article on the late Andrew David Thackeray and the Radcliffe Observatory, Pretoria, on the occasion of the International Year of Astronomy 2009. The Grubb Contribution to Telescope Technology (Venice 2009) (.pdf file, 12pp, 3.4MB). Presentation at "Astronomy and its Instruments before and after Galileo", Venice, 2009. Eds. Pigatto, L \& Zanini, V., Joint Symposium IAU and INAF Astronomical Observatory of Padova. CLEUP, Padova, 2010. For almost 100 years the Grubbs of Dublin, Ireland, were famous for the telescopes they supplied to observatories worldwide. Two generations of the family dominated this unusual enterprise. Their success can be attributed to innovative engineering, often introduced at the urging of their most demanding customers. The Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope, a Valuable Cultural Property, published in "Cultural Heritage of Astronomical Observatories, from Classical Astronomy to Modern Astrophysics", Proceedings of the International Icomos Symposium in Hamburg, October 14-17, 2008. Monuments and Sites XVIII, Icomos, 2010 (pdf, 220kB). A presentation about the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope, in cultural-historical terms. In the footspeps of La Caille, Everest and Maclear on the Kapokberg MNASSA, 70, 144, 2011. pdf file, 6pp. A visit to the top of the Kapokberg on 11 July 2011 to examine the present condition of the beacons used by La Caille in the 18th century and Maclear in the 19th is described. Astrographic Telescope at the Royal Observatory, Cape (MNASSA, 71, 113, 2012. pdf file, 8pp). The Astrographic was one of several produced by the Grubb Company for the Carte du Ciel project. The Cape Zone was from declination -40 to -52 degrees. Among other things, it was used by McClean for the discovery of Oxygen in certain stars, by Voute for work on the parallax of Proxima Cen, and by Cousins for Fabry phototometry and for early photoelectric photometry. J.K.E. Halm (1865-1944) (MNASSA, 73, 2014. 10pp pdf file, 8pp). Halm was Chief Assistant at the Royal Observatory, Cape. He was a pioneer of stellar dynamics and the first person to suggest the mass-luminosity releation in stars. He also studied reciprocity failure in photographic plates and was the first to study the colour dependence of interstellar absorption. Not mentioned in this paper was the fact that he was the first to understand the cause of what are now called P-Cygni line profiles (while an Assistant at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh). The Franklin-Adams Telescope (MNASSA, 74, 127, 2015. 9pp pdf file). The Franklin-Adams telescope was a wide-angle instrument used in both hemispheres to make a the first photographic atlas of the whole sky. It was used by Innes for the discovery of Proxima Cen. It still exists at Toppieshoek. The Magnetic Observatory Buildings at the Royal Observatory, Cape (MNASSA, 74, 204-212, 2015. pdf file). A separate magnetic observatory existed on the ROCoGH grounds during the 1st half of the 19th C. It was part of the "Magnetic Crusade". The Wind Tower at the Royal Observatory, C0GH (MNASSA, 77, 151, 2018. pdf file). The many uses of this building included the photography for the Cape Photographic Durchmusterung The Royal Observatory Rainfall Records (MNASSA, 77, 77, 2018. pdf file). The Royal Observatory / SAAO has the longest series of rainfall observations in South Africa The South African Astronomical Observatory 1972-2011 (MNASSA, 78, 162-171, 2019. pdf file). An outline of the history of SAAO up to the end of Phil Charles's directorship. The Archives Project at the SAAO (with A. Slotegraaf) (MNASSA, 78, 25, 2019. pdf file). Account of our efforts to save the Royal Observatory and SAAO's neglected archives. Radio Astronomy in South Africa (MNASSA 79, 162, 2020. pdf file). A short history of radio astronomy in South Africa. Photographic Plate Measuring Machines at the SAAO (MNASSA, 80, 203, 2021. pdf file). Outline of the SAAO Museum's collection of plate measuring machines. The Herschel "20-feet" mirror at the SAAO (MNASSA, 80, 132, 2021. pdf file). About a mirror used in Sir John Herschel's famous survey of the Southern sky. History of MNASSA (MNASSA, 81, 106-111, 2022. pdf file). The history of the publication MNASSA - Monthly Notes of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa. The first photographs made at the Cape of Good Hope (JAHH, 26, 731-752, 2023. pdf file, 1.4MB). The first photographs taken at the Cape of Good Hope, and therefore South Africa, date from 1843 and were due to Charles Piazzi Smyth, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory. They include the Royal Observatory, buildings in Cape Town and two portraits. Early Cape Photometry ( S. Gullberg & P Robertson (eds), Wayne Orchiston Festschrift. Essays on Astronomical History and Heritage, 2023, Springer Nature Switzerland AG, Chapter 26. pdf file, 12.6MB). Before photoelectric devices were sensitive enough, photography had been the method of choice for measuring the brightness of stars, offering especially a permanent and impersonal record. But the response of photographic emulsions is not strictly proportional to incident light intensity and the photometric accuracy attainable is very limited. During the 1940s, Fabry photometry as developed at the Cape showed great promise in alleviating the problem. Work mainly by Cousins brought the technique to a high degree of perfection. Nevertheless, by the early 1950s photoelectric photometry using photomutipliers was taking over. The Cape astronomers soon adopted the new technique and developed a series of photoelectric photometers. |
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Astronomical History Symposium 2005 Organized under the auspices of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa, this symposium brought together people interested in the history and pre-history of astronomy as it relates to Africa. Proceedings published in African Skies, No. 11, July 2007. |
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Mini-posters of Royal Observatory telescopes: Gill Reversible Transit Circle (pdf, 2.2MB) Photoheliograph and dome (pdf, 380kB). The 19th-Century photoheliograph occupies the dome built ca 1848 for the the Merz 7-in telescope that is now the guider of the 18-inch. Airy Transit Circle (pdf, 930kB). Was located in Main Building. Astrographic Telescope (pdf, 580kB). McClean Telescope (pdf, 180kB). 18-inch/heliometer/Merz (jpg 41KB) 6-inch (jpg 63KB) |
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Pamphlets Royal Observatory (General) (pdf. 2.9MB) Astronomical Museum of Royal Observatory (pdf. 3.1MB) |
See also the Thomas and Howard Grubb Telescope
List and the Grubb Parsons Telescope List
