January 2015 HAD Meeting Abstracts

All sessions and meetings in the Washington State Convention & Trade Center.

HAD I Special: The Impact of the Great War on Astronomy and Other Sciences

Session #90: Sunday, 4 Jan 2015, 1:30–3:30 p.m. Room 610
Session Chair: Virginia Trimble, University of California, Irvine and Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network.
Description: World War II (1939-45) has been called the physicists' war, for radar, rockets, and nuclear bombs, and WWI (1914-18) the chemists' war, for achievements in nitrogen fixation, poison gases, synthetic rubber and fuels, and much else. But in fact both wars and the years between caused and witnessed enormous changes in all the sciences, including astronomy. The session (currently consisting of seven talks of varying length) will glance at chemistry and physics, and something about WWII (whose centenary we may not all be here to observe), but will focus on the signficance of WWI for astronomy, its practitioners, institutions, infrastructure, and available tools and resources. A logical starting point is the imprisonment of a German solar eclipse expedition that had gone to the Crimea under Erwin Freundlich to observe the 21 August 1914 event. The eclipse occurred on schedule, but Freundlich and his colleagues did not observe it. Since they had hoped to measure gravitational bending of light by the sun (in accordance with Einstein's pre-GR prediction) you might choose the 1919 British expeditions that did measure this as your end point. An alternative is the founding of the International Astronomical Union also in 1919, spearheaded by George Ellery Hale, whose International Solar Union had been dissolved just as its members were planning to expand the organization to cover all of astronomy, a suggestion made by Karl Schwarzschild, who died in 1916, but not coming from an "Allied Nation" would not have been allowed to be a founding member of the IAU in any case.

Virginia Trimble, Session Organizer

1:30 1. Physics in WWI: Fighting the Acoustic War:
Daniel Kevles, Yale University.
World War I was the first high-technology war, and when the United States began to prepare for it in 1915 the federal government turned to the storied inventor Thomas Edison. Edison formed a board that included industrial executives and engineers but only one physicist, its members holding that they wanted people who would do things and not just talk about them. However, in 1916, the nation's scientists managed to create a place for themselves in the preparedness effort by organizing the National Research Council under the National Academy of Sciences. Once the United States went to war, in April 1917, the NRC brought academic and industrial physicists together in efforts to detect incoming aircraft, submerged submarines, and the location of long-range artillery. The efforts employed devices that relied in the main on the detection and identification of sound waves from these weapons. The devices were passive responders, but they were marked by increasing sophistication and enabled the United States and its allies to prosecute an acoustic war. That branch of the war was militarily effective, overshadowed the work of Edison's group, and gained physicists high standing among leaders in both the military and industry.

1:56 2. Two Eclipses, a Theory, and a World War
Alan H. Batten, Victoria, British Columbia.
Both the beginning and ending of World War I were signaled by total solar eclipses at which attempts were made to measure the deflection, predicted by Albert Einstein, of starlight passing close to the Sun. An American team led by W.W. Campbell and a German team led by E.F. Freundlich traveled to Russia to observe the eclipse of 1914 August 21. The Americans were foiled by the weather, and the Germans were interned as enemy aliens, so no successful measurements were made. British astronomers, led by A.S. Eddington, mounted two expeditions to observe the eclipse of 1919 May 29, one to Brazil and the other, with Eddington personally in charge, to an island off the west coast of Africa. The results, presented with much fanfare, appeared to constitute a spectacular confirmation of general relativity, although much debate surrounded the observations and their interpretation in later decades. The stories of Freundlich and Eddington intertwine not only with controversial questions about how best to make and to reduce the observations, but also with attitudes toward the war, notably the extreme anti-German sentiment that pervaded the countries of the western alliance, contrasted with the Quaker pacifism of Eddington himself; and also with differing attitudes to relativity among European and American astronomers. Eddington later played a role in bringing Freundlich to the United Kingdom after the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. Ironically, in later life, Freundlich became increasingly sceptical of general relativity and proposed a theory of photon-photon interaction to account for the cosmological red-shifts.

2:22 3. G.W. Ritchey's Optical Work for the Army during WWI
Peter Abrahams, Historical Astronomy Division, AAS.
During the first World War, the Mount Wilson optical shop was remodeled into a production facility, making lenses and prisms for military optics. G.W. Ritchey, H.S. Kinney, and J.S. Dalton managed the project, joined by Ritchey's son Willis and a large team of workers. Tens of thousands of lenses and prisms were produced, notably the exacting roof prisms needed for altimeters. This sizeable project is documented in correspondence and a "Report on Technical Details of Optical Work," authored by G.W. Ritchey and reproduced in typewriter carbon copy with tipped-in photographs. The retrofitting of the MWO optical shop, and the complicated production methods, are detailed in the report.

2:39 4. The War's Positive Impact on the Canadian Astronomical Community
R. Peter Broughton, Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.
At the beginning of WWI, the Canadian astronomical community was tiny and astrophysical research was just beginning. By the end of the war, the country had established the forerunner of its National Research Council and had the world's largest fully operational telescope, thanks to the late entry of the USA into the conflict. By 1918, Canada was on the verge of making significant contributions to science.
   In spite of the immense loss of life in this pointless war, I am aware of only one casualty affecting Canadian professional astronomers, and that was the indirect death of James Chant, son of University of Toronto's only professor of astronomy. Other Canadians, including Tom Parker, Bert Topham, and Harry Plaskett were on active service; each of their stories is unique.
   Among those engaged in scientific work during the war were two Canadians temporarily in England: John McLennan whose helium research for dirigibles led him to establish a cryogenic lab in Toronto where the green line in the spectrum of the aurora was identified in 1925, and Allie Douglas who worked as a statistician in the War Office. Later work with Eddington led her to become his biographer and to her distinction as the first person in Canada to earn a PhD in astronomy (in 1926).

2:56 5. Impact of World War I on Chemistry
Virginia Trimble, University of California, Irvine and Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network..
Mention chemistry and the Great "War to End all Wars" in the same sentence, and nearly everybody who ever had a history class will nod sorrowfully and say, "Yes, poison gases." True enough, and Fritz Haber, who led the development of them for the Central Powers, was the one German scientist whom Rutherford never forgave or spoke to again. Such substances (not all really gaseous, and something like 50 have been tried) were used by both sides from 1915 onward, killed about 90,000 people (about 1% of the total), maimed many more, and arguably loosened constraints on future uses of chemical weapons in other wars, prison camps, and terrorist actions. But the war was not determined by them and could have been fought without them. On the other hand, the sudden blockading of ports and termination of most international trade forced Germany (etc) to expand very quickly processes for fixing nitrogen for explosives and for fertilizers in lieu of Chilean guano (yes, there is also a Haber process for that). They needed in addition to find domestic replacements for rubber (for tires, hoses, and gas masks) and liquid fuels for tanks and aircraft. The Allies, for their part, had been heavily dependent on German dyestuffs, optical-quality glass for binoculars, and phosphates (fertilizer again). Production facilities for derivatives of coal tars, cottonseed oil, etc. were of necessity scaled up rapidly. And once people have learned to do these things, there is no way to have them be forgotten. The same is, of course, true of the nuclear weapons of World War II and of whatever biological and/or cybernetic entities prove to be essential in the next war.

3:13 6. The Impacts of Military, Industrial, and Private Support on Modern Astronomy
Martin Harwit, Cornell University.
In contrast to the period following WWI, governmental support for astronomy grew enormously after WWII and during the Cold War. In spite of reservations expressed by leading astronomers like Harlow Shapley at Harvard and Otto Struve at Yerkes, tools provided by the military took astronomy into directions neither Shapley nor Struve could possibly have imagined — radio, X-ray, gamma-ray and infrared astronomy. It was a great ride that lasted half a century. Had it been up to Shapley and Struve, they would have opted for a return to where pre-war optical astronomy had left off — themes over which they could exert personal control.
   The problem today, however, as I will show, is that the directions the military supported, while still fruitful, may be keeping us from vigorously pursuing new problems astrophysics needs to consider, the nature of dark energy and dark matter, or the pursuit of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, none of which appear of interest to the military or industry. Topics of this kind could be supported by the very rich, like Yerkes and Hooker in the past, the Keck Foundation and Paul Allen more recently, or by less affluent but highly skilled volunteers. Support by the wealthy has occasionally been questioned, as in a front page article by William Broad in the International New York Times on March 17, 2014, in which he worried that the ultrarich would likely be idiosyncratic and know too little. Whether this fear is justified can be debated. However, failing this kind of philanthropic support, astronomy might opt for aid through the recently developed "economy of the commons," pioneered by Elinor Ostrom, which tends to succeed by world-wide support on smaller scales coordinated largely through the internet. This movement is sometimes referred to as crowd sourcing. It tends to attract thoughtful, like-minded individuals from across the globe who wish to contribute their skills and have the required talents..
   I will review both the great strengths and developing weaknesses of governmental post WWII support for astronomy, and will end by talking about the potential need but also the difficulties of obtaining support from private sources.

3:30 End of session.

HAD II Special: Ideas of Evolution Inside and Outside of Astronomy during the Long 19th Century

Session #91: Sunday, 4 January 2015, 4:00–6:00 pm Room 610
Session Chair: Woodruff T. Sullivan, III, University of Washington.

4:00 Description: This session will examine ideas of evolution and long-term change as they developed over the period ~1780-1910, especially as they originated and were cross-fertilized between the fields of astronomy, biology, geology, and physics. In astronomy, starting with the ideas of William Herschel on "maturation" of nebulae into stars and changes over time of the entire Milky Way (1780s), as well as the "Nebula Hypothesis" of Laplace for the formation of the solar system (1796), our systems of stars and planets increasingly were looked upon as having a natural formation, a long "middle age." and an eventual end. In physics the new thermodynamics produced the notion of a Universe inevitably running towards a "Heat Death" (1850s). In geology James Hutton (1780s) compared present rates of sedimentation and erosion with strata from the past and concluded that the Earth was far older than the Biblical 6000 years,"with no vestige of a beginning and no prospect of an end." These ideas were further developed by Charles Lyell (1830s), who greatly influenced many non-geologists, including John Herschel and Charles Darwin.
   The goal of the session will be to examine the interactions and mutual influences over the long 19th c. of astronomy, biology, geology, and physics on the concept of change over time, its time scales and varying rates, and the inferred origins and eventual outcomes of the Earth and Cosmos.

Woodruff T. Sullivan, III, Session Organizer

4:00 1. William Herschel during the 1780-1810 Era: A Natural Historian Studies "Maturation" of Stars over Immeasurable Time
Woodruff T. Sullivan, III, University of Washington.
(A) William Herschel (1738-1822) considered himself a natural historian, different only from the usual natural historians in that his focus was on stars and nebulae rather than plants, animals, and minerals. In this regard, he developed ideas concerning changes over very long times, inferred from his catalogues of 2500 star clusters and nebulae. By assuming that all the observed types of star clusters and morphologies of nebulae represented different stages in the formation of stars and clusters under the action of gravity, Herschel argued for a sequence of "maturation," or evolution as we would call it. He could put no definite time scale on these dynamic processes, but inspired by contemporary geologists such as James Hutton and John Michell (yes, he was a geologist, too!), he felt that the time scales must be very long. In further support, he photometrically estimated that the very faintest stars that he could see in his giant 40-ft telescope were about two million light-years distant. Herschel's findings on the structure and age of the Milky Way system, his "construction of the heavens," were also influenced by geological notions of the formation and subsequent warping of strata over long times, and the geologists' attempts to uncover the interior and distant past of the Earth.
   (B) Herschel was a very successful professional musician for two decades, primarily in the fashionable resort city of Bath, England. And then he discovered Uranus in 1781 at age 43, an event that catapulted him into celebrity and allowed him immediately to transform himself into a full-time astronomer. He composed over twenty symphonies, many concertos, and a large number of organ and choral works. During this session, a chorus of University of Washington students will present a short concert featuring Herschel's most popular composition, a novelty number called "The Eccho Catch," as well as contemporary pieces with astronomical themes by other composers.

4:45 2. John Herschel, Charles Lyell, and the planet Earth
Gregory A. Good, Center for History of Physics, American Institute of Physics.
John Herschel and Charles Lyell are not usually seen as scientists who had much in common. One was an astronomer, the other a geologist. They shared, however, an active interest in the age of the Earth and in the history of the physical processes that produced the planet before us. Herschel brought to this discussion a well-polished mastery of celestial mechanics and the chemistry and optics of crystals, and Lyell brought with him a familiarity with fossils, strata, and rock types. This talk focuses on Herschel and Lyell's discussions about the Earth through time and space, and about what qualified (to them) as acceptable geo-theory. Along the way, more attention is paid to Herschel's interests in terrestrial topics, since this is less well known.

5:15 3. Thermodynamics, Life, the Universe and Everything
Elizabeth Neswald, Brock University.
The laws of thermodynamics were developed in the first half of the nineteenth century to describe processes governing the working of steam engines. The mechanical equivalent of heat, which quantified the relationship between heat and motion, enabled the quantification and comparison of all energy transformation processes. The energy laws and the mechanical equivalent of heat quickly moved out of the narrower field of physics to form the basis of a cosmic narrative that began with stellar evolution and continued to universal heat death. Newer physiological theories turned to the energy laws to explain life processes, energy and entropy were integrated into theories of biological evolution and degeneration, and economists and cultural theorists turned to thermodynamics to explore both the limits of natural resources and economic expansion and the contradictions of industrial modernity. This paper discusses the career of thermodynamics as an explanatory model and cultural commonplace in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the different scientific, religious, and social perspectives that could be expressed through this model. Connected through the entropy law intimately with irreversible processes and time, thermodynamics provided an arena to debate which way the world was going.

5:45 4. The William Ellery Hale Lectures at the National Academy of Sciences, 1914–18
David DeVorkin, Smithsonian Institution.
In 1913 George Ellery Hale, together with his brother William and sister Martha pledged $1000 per year for five years to inaugurate an annual series of lectures in memory of their father. The series would explore "the general subject of Evolution, which is designed to give a clear and comprehensive outline of the broad features of inorganic and organic evolution in the light of recent research." (NAS Annual Report 1914, p. 24). Here we look briefly at how evolution entered into astronomical thinking in the late 19th Century, and specifically into George Ellery Hale's universe as an organizing principle for research and institutional development, as illustrated by this lecture series, which brought the likes of Ernest Rutherford, W. W. Campbell and T. C. Chamberlin to speak before scientific Washington.

6:00 End of session.

HAD III History Poster Papers

Session #145: Monday, 5 Jan 2015, 9:00 am–6:30 pm Exhibit Hall
1. Urania in the Marketplace: Observatories as Holiday Destinations
Kenneth Rumstay, Valdosta State University.
During the twentieth century astronomical imagery was frequently incorporated, by manufacturers of industrial and consumer goods, into advertisements which appeared in popular magazines in America. The domes and telescopes of major observatories were often featured. In some cases, particularly within the Golden State of California, major astronomical facilities (notably the Lick and Mt. Wilson Observatories) were touted as tourist attractions and were publicized as such by tourist bureaus, railroads, and hotels. A particularly interesting example is provided by the Hotel Vendome in San Jose. With completion of the Lick Observatory (and the 36-inch Great Refractor) in 1887, the local business community felt that the city needed a first-class resort hotel. The architectural firm of Jacob Lenzen & Son was hired to design a grand hotel, comparable to those found in locales such as Monterey and Pasadena. The resulting four-story, 150-room structure cost $250,000, a phenomenal sum in those days. Yet, within just fourteen years, tourist demand led to the construction of a 36-room annex. Of course, a great resort hotel would not be complete without the opportunity for excursion, and the Mt. Hamilton Stage Company offered daily trips to the famous Lick Observatory. Farther south, the Mt. Wilson Observatory began construction of its own hotel in 1905. The original structure was destroyed by fire in 1913, and replaced by a second which was used by visitors until 1966. Early examples of advertisements for these observatories, recalling the heyday of astronomical tourism, are presented. A few more recent ones for Arecibo and Palomar are included for comparison.

2. A study of meta-analysis in astronomy: from transits to astrophysics
Susana Deustua, Space Telescope Science Institute.
At heart meta-analysis is the statistical analysis of results from different, or disparate studies. The general approach is to calculate a weighted average (or suitable statistic) of a common measure, with the goal of obtaining more precise and accurate statistical results than that from the individual studies. While we commonly associate meta analysis with clinical trials, its utility is applicable to the astronomical sciences. I provide a brief review of meta analytical results, from the transits of Venus to more modern studies.

HAD IV Special: Preserving the Material Legacy of the American Observatory Movement

Session #114: Monday, 5 Jan 2015, 10:00–11:30 am Room 615
Session Chair: David DeVorkin, Smithsonian Institution.

Description: The "American Observatory Movement" was a term coined by historian David Musto who identified the motives of private individuals, colleges, and communities who succeeded in building the first wave of astronomical observatories in the United States in the first half of the 19th Century. The Federal government joined in building the USNO in what was the second wave, fueled by the spectacular growth of American philanthropy in the second half of the century, when the movement produced some of the largest and most powerful telescopes in the world, and continued to do so in the first half of the 20th as corporate philanthropy was added to the recipe. While the major institutions that grew out of this movement still thrive, their founding observatories have closed, are closing, or are threatened with closure. This special session examines the state of preservation of the original structures and facilities of four observatories that helped to establish the world-wide dominance of the United States in observational astronomy and astrophysics, and explores the strategies their descendant institutions have chosen to preserve them as national assets. The four observatories to be represented are: Lick Observatory (Sandra Faber); Yerkes (Doyal Harper); Mount Wilson (Hal McAlister), and Lowell (Jeff Hall). Each speaker will describe present and planned efforts to preserve the material legacy of their observatories (instruments, buildings, libraries, archives, plate vaults, infrastructure) through programmatic fund raising schemes (public and private), endowments, educational and public programming, and specific business models that have been applied, including collaborations, consortia, educational services. After they speak, there will be open discussion between the speakers and the audience that will be directed to searching for viable schemes that might be helpful to other important American observatories now in distress.

David DeVorkin, Session Organizer

10:00 Panel Discussion
Harold A. McAlister, Georgia State University
Doyal "Al" Harper, University of Chicago
Jeffrey C. Hall, Lowell Observatory
Sandra M. Faber, University of California, Santa Cruz>

11:30 End of session.

HAD Business Meeting

Session #118: Monday, 5 Jan 2015, 12:45–1:45 pm Room 615
Session Chair: Jay M. Pasachoff, Williams College.

HAD V History of Astronomy, including Osterbrock Book Prize Lecture

Session #132: Monday, 5 Jan 2015, 2:00–3:30 pm Room 615
Session Chair: Marc Rothenberg, National Science Foundation

2:00 1. The pre-history of the University of Washington Astronomy Department: 1891-1965
Woodruff T. Sullivan, III, University of Washington.
The University of Washington (UW) created its first Professor of Astronomy (within the Mathematics Department) in 1891, only two years after Washington itself became a state. Joseph Taylor bought a Warner & Swasey refractor with a 6-inch John Brashear lens, and installed it in a dome in 1895 when the university moved to a new campus outside of downtown Seattle. The small observatory became only the second building on the present campus, and is listed on the State Register of Historical Buildings. Over succeeding decades, Taylor was followed, amongst others, by Samuel Boothroyd (who after nine years left for Cornell in 1921) and for two years by Herman Zanstra (of "Zanstra method" fame). In 1928 Theodor Jacobsen joined the faculty after having obtained his PhD at the University of California (Berkeley) and spending two years as a staff member at Lick Observatory. Jacobsen's research over the years focused on the spectra and motions of variable stars, especially of the Cepheid type. In the 1970s Jacobsen published a paper about secular changes in one particular Cepheid variable still using his own data extending as far back as the 1920s. For 42 years until his retirement, Jacobsen taught courses in astronomy (although there never was an astronomy major and only two graduate degrees were ever awarded), navigation, and a variety of mathematical topics. In the decade following Sputnik and the birth of NASA, UW astronomy ceased to be a one-man effort with the creation of a modern department, founding of a graduate program, and hiring of two new faculty members: George Wallerstein and Paul Hodge came from Berkeley in 1965 and are both still engaged in research 50 years later.

2:15 2. The History of the University of Washington Astronomy Department: 1965-1995
Julie Lutz, University of Washington
The Department of Astronomy of the University of Washington (UW) is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, starting in 1965 when George Wallerstein and Paul Hodge joined Theodor Jacobsen to significantly expand research and initiate a graduate program. Three additional faculty members in astrophysical theory were added before the end of the decade: James Bardeen, Karl-Heinz Böhm and Erika Böhm-Vitense. In addition, plans were started to establish a research telescope in the State of Washington, primarily for training graduate students. The site survey for what eventually became Manastash Ridge Observatory (MRO) started in 1965. The 30-inch telescope at MRO in the eastern Cascades was dedicated in 1972. Four more faculty with a broad range of expertise were added in the 1970s and the number of graduate students expanded to about 15. Wallerstein was Chair of the department from 1965-1980. Part of his vision for the department was for UW astronomers to have access to a large, well-equipped telescope at a good observing site. He realized that such a goal would have to be accomplished in collaboration with other institutions and he spent years seeking partners. Newly-arrived faculty member Bruce Margon served as Chair from 1981-87 and from 1990-1995. In 1983 the Astrophysical Research Consortium (ARC) was formed with UW as a partner. UW played a major role in the construction of the ARC 3.5-m telescope in New Mexico, which was dedicated in 1994 and continues to function robustly. The department hired several more faculty with a variety of interests, both in multi-wavelength studies and astrophysical theory. An undergraduate astronomy major was added in the mid-1980s. In the mid-1980s ARC started to think about a sky survey which would encompass both imaging and spectroscopy. This became the original Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), which took place between 1990 and 1995, again with the UW as a major partner. At this time, UW Astronomy experienced growth in faculty, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, research scientists and undergraduate majors.

2:30 3. Why Spectroscopy Went South
Nora Mills Boyd, University of Pittsburgh.
All but forgotten, the first observatory established for astrophysical research in Chile sits atop Cerro San Cristóbal overlooking downtown Santiago. Now called the Manuel Foster Observatory and cared for by the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, the equipment was originally brought to the country by staff of the Lick Observatory in California at the outset of the 20th century under the auspices of the D. O. Mills Expedition. The present paper explores the initial motivation for the expedition. Partial insight can be gained by situating the establishment of the observatory in the context of the so-called "sidereal problem" — mapping the structure of the stellar system. However, the motivation for this expedition can be further elucidated by understanding the possibilities afforded by the instruments of the "new astronomy." Astronomical spectroscopy opened up new observational prospects that turn of the century astronomers simply exploited opportunistically. Understanding the motivation for the observatory will not only be important background for any comprehensive history of the observatory, but also serves to illuminate the exploratory approach characteristic of American astronomers in the early days of astrophysics.

2:45 4. Presentation of 3rd Donald E. Osterbrock Book Prize
Jarita C. Holbrook, University of the Western Cape.

2:50 5. Osterbrock Prize Lecture: Unravelling Starlight: William and Margaret Huggins and the Rise of the New Astronomy
Barbara J. Becker, University of California, Irvine
In November 1862, William Huggins (1824-1910), a retired silk merchant and self-taught amateur astronomer, presented a paper on celestial spectroscopy to the Royal Astronomical Society. The event marked a watershed moment in the history of science. Astronomers would never look at-or understand-the denizens of the celestial realm in the same way again. Who was this man? What moved him to adapt the spectroscope, then a staple of chemical and physical laboratories, to new astronomical purposes? More importantly, what prompted others to follow his lead?
   This paper goes beyond published accounts of Huggins's work to offer a fresh, three-dimensional picture of his contributions to the development of what came to be called "astrophysics." New evidence gleaned from his unpublished notebooks and correspondence places his pioneering efforts more realistically within the context of the fertile theoretical and methodological flux in late-nineteenth century Britain's astronomical community and sheds new light on the collaborative contributions of his wife, the former Margaret Lindsay Murray.

3:30 End of session.

HAD VI History of Astronomy

Session #215: Tuesday, 6 Jan 2015, 10:00–11:30 am Room 615
Session Chair: Thomas Hockey, University of Northern Iowa.

10:00 1. Hawaii and the Real-Time Evolution of Cultural Astronomy
Stephanie Slater, University of Wyoming; `Āhia Dye, University of Wyoming & University of Hawai`i; Timothy F. Slater, R. Johnson, J. Mahelona, C. Ruggles, University of Wyoming; C. Ha`o & K.C. Baybayan, University of Hawai`i
While the field of historical astronomy is often interested in the ways that astronomical conceptions change over time, the majority of that work involves discussions of cultural evolution in the distant past. Hawaii provides an interesting case study, in that it involves near-time and real-time examples of the de-evolution of a culture's astronomy knowledge (via colonization), and a renaissance of that knowledge through research, sociocultural exchange, practical application, and a willingness to embrace cultural fusion and a modern era. This paper presents a brief summary of the forces that have shaped, and are currently shaping, an ancient and very modern model of the known sky, from primary documents, field notes and observations.

10:15 2. Kilohoku - Ho‘okele Wa‘a: Hawaiian Navigational Astronomy
‘Āhia Dye, University of Hawai‘i & University of Wyoming; C. Ha‘o, University of Hawai‘i; Timothy F. Slater & Stephanie Slater, University of Wyoming.
Over thousands of years of Pacific Basin settlement, Polynesians developed a complex, scientific understanding of the cosmos, including a generative view of the celestial sphere. Memorizing the location and spatial relationships of hundreds of stars, across changing latitudes, this astronomy was one of the four scientific knowledge bases Polynesians used to navigate thousands of miles, across open water, without instrumentation. After Western colonization, this large body of knowledge was nearly lost to Hawaiians. Since the Hawaiian Renaissance, much of this knowledge has been reconstructed, and is again in use in open oceanic navigation. While some of this knowledge has been shared with the broader public, much of what we know has been unavailable to those beyond the family of navigators. This paper represents an attempt to begin sharing this catalog of knowledge with the outside world, with the hopes that the larger community will appreciate the complexity of astronomical knowledge possessed by navigators, and that the international body of astronomy historians will help insure that this knowledge will not be lost again. This paper will present, Na _Ohanah_k_, the Hawaiian star families that divide the celestial sphere into four wedges, running from the circumpolar north, beyond the horizon to the south. Na Hoku Huihui, or Hawaiian constellations will be discussed, in addition to a brief introduction to the setting and rising pairs that are used to determine direction and latitude.

10:30 3. Tracking the Origins of an Ancient Star Scene on a Nova Scotian Chancel Ceiling
David Turner, Saint Mary's University.
The recent reconstruction of St. John's Church in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, a World Heritage Site, following a disastrous 2001 fire, led to the 2004 discovery that the chancel ceiling star pattern emplaced in 1870-72 was designed to replicate the sky seen locally at the traditional beginning of the first Christmas. The resulting media blitz following the discovery generated several unanswered questions: who designed the original pattern?, who was the artist responsible for the work?, and why was such a scene used at St. John's? Further research into such questions has made little progress, mainly because there is no direct archival evidence related to the events of 1870-72. Indirect archival clues are more revealing, however, and lead to a likely scenario that explains all available evidence, including why Lunenburg residents referred to the original star pattern as "the Mariner's Sky." The original work appears to have been completed under the guise of a Canadian Confederation project, and provides graphic evidence for more extensive astronomical expertise in Nova Scotia in that era than previously believed.

10:45 4. Universe boundary in Einstein 1931 same as Lemaître 1927
Ian Steer, NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database
Einstein and Lemaître derived the same boundary for our universe, independently. Both may have been on the right track. Einstein's unpublished 1931 dynamic equilibrium theory - only recently reported - is a hybrid theory of general relativity incorporating both dynamic and static theories. In its basics, it is identical to Lemaître's 1927 dynamic equilibrium theory, also reported on only recently. Both dynamic equilibrium theories are based on the same relationship between Einstein's gravitational constant, κ, rest matter density, ρ, and radius, r, and the same equation, namely: 1 = κρr². Because the dynamic equilibrium theory has finite limits, it gives us testable and realistic estimates of the universe’s age, virial radius and mass, and Hubble constant of expansion. Those estimates are 14.2 Gyr, 14.2 Gly, 9.12 x 10²² solar mass, and H = 68.7 km/s/Mpc, respectively. Abundant observational evidence supporting those estimates means cosmology might be on the verge of a revolution. Because of the relatively recent discovery of vacuum energy, cosmology could come full circle back to an old idea abandoned by two of the greatest cosmologists: dynamic equilibrium. Quintessentially, a vacuum energy-filled universe in balance, changing but always steady, eternal but ever-reborn, is exactly what we observe.

11:00 5. 400th Anniversary of Marius's Book with the First Image of an Astronomical Telescope and of Orbits
Jay M. Pasachoff, Williams College & California Institute of Technology; Pierre Leich, Nürnberger Astronomische Gesellschaft e.V.
Simon Mayr's (Marius's) Mundus Iovialis Anno MDCIX Detectus Ope Perspicilli Belgici (The World of Jupiter) was published in Nuremberg in 1614; Marius was the Ansbach court mathematician. The frontispiece includes not only a portrait of Marius (1573-1624) himself but also, in the foreground, a long tube labelled "perspicillum," the first known image of a telescopic device used for astronomy; the name "telescope" came later. A schematic diagram of Jupiter with four moons appears at upper left; Marius, following a suggestion from Kepler, gave these Galilean satellites the names now still in use: Io, Europa. Ganymede, and Callisto. The title continues Hoc est, Quatuor Joviali cum Planetarum, cum Theoria, tum Tabulae, Propriis Observationibus Maxime Fundate.... A pair of conferences was held in Germany in 2014 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Marius's book and to discuss Marius's work and its relation to Galileo's work (http://www.simon-marius.net/index.php?lang=en&menu=1; 28 languages are available). Marius (Mayr) had independently discovered the four satellites of Jupiter, apparently one day after Galileo, on December 29 O.S., 1609; by the time he published his work four years later (a local-circulation publication had appeared in Nuremberg in 1611 in Prognosticon Astrologicum auf das Jahr 1612), Galileo had gained fame and priority, and Galileo accused Marius of plagiarism in Il Saggiatore (1623). With his Belgian telescope, Marius also noted the tilt of the orbital plane of Jupiter's moons, sunspots (1611), and the Andromeda Nebula (1612). He claimed to have worked out a system of cosmology similar to the Tychonic system in 1596, contemporaneously to Kepler's Mysterium Cosmographicum. A crater, the Marius Hills, and the Rima Marius rille on the Moon are named for him by the I.A.U., as well as, to celebrate the quadricentennial, a main-belt asteroid, now (7984) Marius. Acknowledgment: JMP thanks Seth Fagen, PRPH Books in New York, for introducing him to Marius's book 18 years ago.

11:10 6. A Modern Update and Usage of Historical Variable Star Catalogs
Ashley Pagnotta, American Museum of Natural History
One of the earliest modern variable star catalogs was constructed by Henrietta Swan Leavitt during her tenure at the Harvard College Observatory (HCO) in the early 1900s. Originally published in 1908, Leavitt's catalog listed 1777 variables in the Magellanic Clouds (MCs). The construction and analysis of this catalog allowed her to subsequently discover the Cepheid period-luminosity relationship, now known as the Leavitt Law. The MC variable star catalogs were updated and expanded by Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin in 1966 and 1971. Although newer studies of the MC variables have been performed since then, the new information has not always been correlated with the old due to a lack of modern descriptors of the stars listed in the Harvard MC catalogs. We will discuss the history of MC variable star catalogs, especially those compiled using the HCO plates, as well as our modernized version of the Leavitt and Payne-Gaposchkin catalogs. Our modern catalog can be used in conjunction with the archival plates (primarily via the Digital Access to a Sky Century @ Harvard scanning project) to study the secular behavior of the MC variable stars over the past century.

11:20 7. What Can a Historian Do with AstroGen?
Joseph S. Tenn, Sonoma State University
"Astrogen," the Astronomy Genealogy Project, is in the development stage. Patterned after the Mathematics Genealogy Project at http://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu, it will eventually include most of the world's astronomers, past and present, and provide information about their years of life, highest degrees, universities, and thesis titles. There will also be links to online theses, home pages, and obituaries when these are available. Although a few details remain to be worked out before it becomes public, it is possible to make some use of what has already been compiled. I will give an example, comparing graduates of Harvard University, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Chicago from different decades, with information about their professional careers and publication records. The author welcomes queries about AstroGen and is seeking more participants.

11:30 End of session.