Sky & Telescope January 2004 [antikvár]

focal pointThe Glory Dayswhen was amateur astronomy at its zenith? Travis K. Kircher wonders.Recently I found myself sifting through filing cabinets at the public library here in Louisville, Kentucky, searching for records of long-forgotten people and events. I came across a manila folder marked "Astronomy." Intrigued, 1 pulled the file. Inside were dozens of old newspaper clippings from the '50s and '60s. Many were brown and faded, others wrinkled to the point of being unrecognizable shreds of tree pulp. But two of those articles really grabbed me.The first was a feature printed in our very own Courier-Journal on August 21, 1956. It concerned Walter Moore, a professor at the University of Louisville and founder of the Louisville Astronomical Society (LAS). It seems that on the previous Saturday, August I8th, Mars was at a particularly favorable opposition, and Moore widely regarded as the father of astronomy in the Louisville area decided to take advantage of the occasion by throwing a viewing party at his home.But what started out as an informal get-together for 50 or 75 guests ended up drawing a crowd of more than 1,000. The line must have stretched down the length of Moore's street as folks of all ages waited for hours to get a glimpse of the red planet through his 21-inch reflector. The police were called in for crowd control, and poor Dr. Moore didn't get any sleep until after 2;00 a.m.I marveled that an unannounced star party could draw such a crowd. But it was the second article, also from the Courier-Journal, that really made me wistful. It had appeared two years earlier, on August 29, 1954.The story focused on the starry-eyed youngsters of the Junior Astronomical Society. Apparently, the LAS members decided to create an independent astronomy group for teenagers. (I'm guessing that the adults the "seniors," as the kids called them tired of the irreverent questions asked by inquisitive children.) At the time the article was written, the Junior Astronomical Society consisted of 26 members, two of whom were girls.The reporter had accompanied the teenagers on an all-night observing session, and his write-up included a half dozen fading photographs of children crowded around all sorts of telescopes. One fledgling astrophotographer was setting up what must have been the 1950s version of a high-tech camera, complete with a massive flashbulb.It seems so surreal now: dozens of teenagers from that un-years but not before producing astronomical gurus like J. Richard Gott III, now a professor of astrophysics at Princeton, and Larry E. Goad, former head of adaptive-optics research at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Arizona. 1 was also pleasantly surprised to discover that my own astronomy professor, John F. Kielkopf, was among that ragtag team of young stargazers.As I sat in the library, I couldn't help but feel a longing for that bygone era what to me were the Glory Days of astronomy.But my perspective changed a few months ago, when Mars passed a mere 55,758,000 kilometers fi^om our Earth. I was eager to see the pinkish red marble that had inspired H. G. Weils, so I gave old Kielkopf a call to get the lowdown on local viewing parties. Soon I found myself pulling into the gravel driveway of a local park where LAS members would have their scopes set up.I half-expected to be feeling my way through the dark, stumbling upon the lone space geek who, like me, would be wondering why others couldn't peel themselves away from the TV long enough to gaze into the mysteries of the universe. Instead, I had to park behind a traffic jam of cars and make my way through a crowd of hundreds to reach the dozens of telescopes all focused on the same pinprick of light.It was cloudy, but the crowd was stoked. Our local meteorologist was on the phone barking out forecasts. Lightning flickered eerily off in the distance. I had to laugh at the crowd's sudden burst of excitement as Mars crept out from behind a nearby cloud and the mournftil groans that followed when it vanished again. I waited patiently for my own opportunity to catch a few seconds' glance at the red planet.Driving home after a satisfying evening, 1 couldn't help but smile. Perhaps a hundred years from now, some poor soul will be digging through the library's old CDs and chance upon awist-mistakably clean-cut era converging on an empty field to sip-photograph of what happened that night. Then he'U sighhot chocolate and make telescopic observations. The reporter fiilly and long for the Glory Days of astronomy noted that everyone seemed to have a role fliat evening, including _ . _____a kid who headed up the "Committee to Take Care of Meteors." I was saddened to learn that the group fizzled out after 2010 January 2004 I Sky & TelescopeTravis K. K.rcher (traviskkirchermol.com) is a freelance writer who often covers space-related topics.