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Founding of the
Cincinnati Observatory (quoted below)
The Cincinnati Observatory
was founded by Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel, who, as a Professor at Cincinnati
College in 1842, generated public enthusiasm for astronomy through a series
of public lectures. At that time, there were a few small telescopes in
the country, but no organized observatory with a powerful instrument existed
anywhere. Mitchel was able to interest a number of people in the possibility
of erecting the first such observatory in the US. At the end of one of
his lectures, Mitchel presented his plan to the audience of 2000. The plan
was to organize the Cincinnati Astronomical Society, who would be shareholders
in the observatory. Their shares would go for the purchase of a first-class
instrument, and would entitle them to the use of the telescope. In three
weeks, 300 subscribers had been obtained, and Mitchel set out to purchase
the needed instrument.
In 1842, Mitchel inspected
a 12 inch objective lens of the highest quality in Munich, at the optical
institute formerly run by Fraunhofer, and ordered it for the observatory.
Upon his return to the US, Mitchel undertook the supervision of the construction
of the observatory.
The site of the future observatory
was a 4 acre lot at the top of Mt. Ida, some 400 feet above the city of
Cincinnati, which was given to the Astronomical Society by its owner, Nicholas
Longworth. On the 9th of November, 1843, the cornerstone was laid by John
Quincy Adams, former President of the United States. Adams had a deep interest
in astronomical science, and had tried unsuccessfully in 1825 to persuade
Congress to found a National Observatory. Although 77 years old, and not
in the best of health, Adams travelled to Cincinnati for the occasion because
he felt that the founding of the Cincinnati Observatory was such an important
step to be taken if the US were to become internationally recognized for
its intellectual and scientific endeavors. It was at the dedication that
Adams gave his last public speech. Mt Ida was renamed Mt. Adams following
this event.
By the time the observatory
building foundation had been laid, the country was in an economic depression,
and with nearly all of the money raised having gone to the purchase of
the telescope (which cost about $9000, a considerable sum in those days),
the project was without any money for its completion. Mitchel raised some
additional money (and paid for much of it out of his own funds), while
the majority of workmen gave their time and labor in exchange for shares
in the Society. The telescope arrived in January 1845, and went into operation
on April 14, 1845.
Because there were no funds
remaining for an endowment for the new Cincinnati Observatory, Mitchel
agreed to serve as its first director, without salary, relying on his income
from the Cincinnati College. Soon after the completion of the Observatory,
and before the telescope became operational, the college burned down, and
he was left without any monetary support.
In spite of this setback,
however, Mitchel still served as director of the Observatory, and began
serious scientific investigations with the telescope. It was at this time
that he discovered the stellar companion to the bright star Antares. It
was also during this period that he founded The Sidereal Messenger, the
first astronomical publication in the US (it was discontinued a few years
later due to lack of funds). In 1848 he also developed what was probably
the first working chronograph for automatically recording the beats of
a clock, a necessity for accurate timing observations. This was part of
a larger program to automatically transmit time and observational information
in "real time" over telegraph wires. It was developed, in part, because
of an experiment using telegraphy of time signals to determine the longitude
of Cincinnati with respect to Philadelphia. It had been suggested by Sir
George Airy, the Astronomer Royal in England, that Cincinnati be the zero-point
for land surveys in the US, as Greenwich was in England.
Eventually, however, Mitchel
had to temporarily leave Cincinnati to find some source of income. Because
his talks in Cincinnati had been so well received, he spent much of his
time during the next few years lecturing around the country on the wonders
of astronomy to large public audiences.
Mitchel's enthusiasm and
clarity impressed his audiences. As one person who heard him has said:
"In New York the music Hall is thronged night after night to hear his impassioned
eloquence poured in an unbroken flow of 'thoughts that breathe and words
that burn' on the excited thousands. A sublimer spectacle in lecturing
was never seen. The theme, the orator, the intellectual audiences, the
rapt attention, the almost painful intensity of feeling, all crown him
the prince of lecturers." The great expansion of interest in astronomy,
and the proliferation of observatories during the next few years owes a
great deal to the efforts of Mitchel, who has sometimes been called "The
Father of American Astronomy."
In 1852, Mitchel provided
the plans for another observatory, the Dudley Observatory in Albany, New
York. And in 1859, he accepted the directorship of Dudley, which paid him
a regular salary.
After the Civil War broke
out, the observatory ceased operation, and remained dormant until 1868,
with the appointment of Cleveland Abbe as its new director. Abbe strongly
urged that the Observatory be moved, since the Mt. Adams site had been
rendered unsuitable due to the heated air, smoke, and dust of the rapidly-growing
city. At this time he also established a system of daily weather reports
and storm predictions, earning him the nickname "Old Probabilities". His
work impressed the US government so much that he was summoned to Washington
to establish the United States Weather Bureau, and the Observatory was
once again shut down.
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