Little Gnome Astronomical Fact #10

George Alcock discovers his first comet.

George Alcock of Peterborough England one of the greatest of all comet and Nova hunters discovered his first comet on August 25^th 1959. This was the first comet discovered in Britain since 1894. Alcock would go on to discover 5 comets and 5 nova.

Astronomy Scrapbook Monday 25th August 2014

August 25th 1835 Great Moon Hoax

It could have been an April`s fool joke but it was August. A series of articles published in the New York newspaper the Sun regarding the supposed discovery of life and civilization on the Moon.

The discoveries were attributed to Sir John Herschel possibly the best astronomer of the time and son of Sir William Herschel who had discovered the planet Uranus in 1781.

Sir John was observing at the Cape Observatory in South Africa and was completely unaware of these stories. In the 1830s it took weeks for messages to travel from South Africa to America by sailing boat.

The stories told of fantastic animals on the Moon including bison, goats, unicorns and bat winged humanoids who built temples. There were also oceans, trees and beaches on the Moon.

These ‘discoveries’ were made using the most massive of telescopes using entirely new scientific principles. The sales of the newspaper increased due to the stories. Eventually, the authors said that the observations had been stopped by the destruction of the telescope.

Apparently the Sun had caused the lens to act as a "burning glass," setting fire to the observatory. It would take several weeks before people realised that the stories were just a great hoax.

Even today it is unclear which of the Sun`s reporters were responsible. We know that at first Herschel was amused saying that more people were reading about him. However later he became annoyed at having to answer such silly questions from people regarding the Moon

Little Gnome Weather Fact #2

St Bartholomew's Day Weather Lore

August 24th is St Bartholomew day. There was a frost which is unusual for August, this does not bode well with the weather lore according to the St Bartholomew day predictions.

'If this day be begins with a frost the cold weather will soon come, and a hard winter will follow'.

Astronomy Scrapbook Friday August 22nd 2014

August 22nd 1852 the asteroid Fortuna discovered

August 22^nd 1852 the asteroid Fortuna was discovered by J R Hind using a 7 inch Dollond refractor at the George Bishop observatory in Regent’s Park London.

 Fortuna is asteroid number 19 and is named after the Roman god of luck. Fortuna has a diameter of 225 km and is one of the larger asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. 

Astronomy Scrapbook Thursday 21st August 2014

 August 21st 1785 birth of George Bishop.

 George Bishop (1785- 1861) was born on August 21st 1785 in Leicester he made his fortune as a wine merchant, but his great passion in life was astronomy.  In 1836 in the grounds of his home in South Villa in Regent`s Park, London he built an astronomical observatory.

George Bishop' s Regents Park Observatory 

The observatory was equipped with a 7 inch Dollond refractor. The Rev William Rutter Dawes used the telescope from 1839-1844 until poor health forced him to leave. In October 1844 John Russell Hind became the observatory`s astronomer.

 Between 1847 and 1854 Hind discovered 10 asteroids from the observatory, they were, 7 Iris, 8 Flora, 12 Victoria, 14 Irene, 18 Melpomene, 19 Fortuna, 22 calliope, 23 Thalia, 27 Eutepe and 30 Urania.

 Another asteroid 29 Amphitrite was discovered in 1854 by Albert Marth Hind`s young assistant.

After the death of George Bishop in 1861, the observatory dome and instruments were moved to Twickenham in west London to avoid the more polluted skies of the capital.

The observatory operated until 1877 when the instruments and library were donated to Royal Observatory at Naples.

The original Regent`s Park observatory no longer exists.

  

Little Gnome Weather Fact #1

August 20^th 1795 The Aeolian Harp and Samuel Taylor Coleridge 

While sitting in a garden in Somerset, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge listens to the mysterious tones created by the Aeolian harp a stringed instrument played by the wind alone.  This ‘transposing of the spirit of the wind’ inspires a poem.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

‘And that simplest lute, plac`d length-ways in the clasping casement, hark! How by the desultory breeze caress`d, like some coy maid half-yielding to her lover, It pours such sweet upbraiding’   

Little Gnome Astronomical Fact #9

August 20^th 1964 INTELSAT Formed.

The USA, Australia, Canada, the UK, Denmark, France, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, and the Vatican City sign the International Communication Satellite System agreement. Between 1964 and 2001 INTELSAT was an intergovernmental consortium owning and managing a series of communication satellites providing international broadcast services. The system was privatised in 2001. 

Earlybird being prepared

Its first satellite INTELSAT 1 which was called Early Bird was launched on April 6^th 1965; it was placed in geostationary orbit above the Atlantic Ocea

Astronomy Scrapbook August 20th 2014

August 20th 1920 Nova Cygnus discovered

W F Denning discovered Nova Cygnus 1920 on August 20th 1920 while observing from his home in Bristol, England. At its brightest the Nova reached magnitude 1.8 which is slightly brighter than the North Star.

Astronomers today believe it was one of the brightest and fastest galactic nova observed. It increased in brightness nearly 13.5 magnitudes and declined 3 magnitudes in only 16 days.

A nova the word means ‘new’ in Latin is a binary star system where two stars orbit close to each other. One star which is hotter than the other will pull gas from its companion onto itself. When enough gas hits the hotter star it sizzles or sends out a shell of gas which makes the star become brighter, we see this and call it a Nova. A Nova can repeat this process several times.

It is believed that the star now called V476 Cygnus is about 4,000 light years away and at its brightest was about 250,000 times brighter than the Sun.

Astronomy Scrapbook Wednesday 20th August 2014

August 20th 1977 Voyager 2 launched

Its mission was to explore the outer planets of the solar system.

The Voyager 1 and 2 space craft were updated versions of the highly successful Mariner space missions built by NASA.

voyager 2

This is the time line so far of Voyager 2

1977 Aug. 20 Voyager 2 launched from Kennedy Space Flight Center

1979 July 9 Voyager 2 makes its closest approach to Jupiter

1981 Aug. 25 Voyager 2 flies by Saturn

1986 Jan. 24 Voyager 2 has the first-ever encounter with Uranus

1989 Aug. 25 Voyager 2 is the first spacecraft to observe Neptune

 Voyager 2 begins its trip out of the Solar System

2007 Sept 5 Voyager 2 crosses Termination Shock

2016 expected to enter interstellar space

2025 power supply will probably fail

   

Little Gnome Astronomical Fact #8

Aug 19^th Kappa Cygnids reach Maximum

The Kappa Cygnids meteor shower peaks on the 19^th August, it has been regularly observed since the middle of the 19^th century, but it often gets overlooked by people observing the Perseids. The average number of meteors is about 6 per hour.

Although a minor shower William Denning observing in the 1880s and 1890s was struck by their speed, leaving a short streak and in many cases the nucleus bursting.

 As the Kappa Cygnids came so close to the Perseids it was only in the early 20^th century that the duration of the shower, from July 26^th- September 1^st and its peak on the 19^th August were recognised.

More Kappa Cygnids are plotted than any other August meteor shower apart from the Perseids. It is unclear if the meteor stream is absent some years due to the fact that the shower has never been the focus of intensive observations.

Astronomy Scrapbook Tuesday 19th August 2014

August 19th 1960 Belka and Strelka return from Space

Strelka and Belka

On August 19^th 1960 the first creatures safely returned to Earth  after being sent into space.

On board Sputnik 5 were two dogs Belka (which means Whitey) and Strelka (Arrow)  and there was also one grey rabbit, 42 mice, 2 rats and some flies that went up with them, all of which survived the mission too.  However it was Belka and Strelka that had the most publicity.

Both dogs were strays, both were female, Strelka would later have puppies and one Pushinka (Fluffy) was given to Caroline Kennedy, JFK’s daughter. This was of course at the height of the cold war.

Their mission paved the way for Yuri Gagarin in 1961 to become the first person to go into space.

Astronomy Scrapbook Monday August 18th 2014

On August 18th 1877 the moon Phobos was discovered orbiting Mars

Discovery of Phobos

Phobos the larger of the two small moons of Mars was discovered by the American Asaph Hall at the U S Naval observatory in Washington on August 18^th 1877. Hall also discovered Deimos, Mars's other and smaller moon, a few days earlier on 12 August 1877.

They were discovered because Hall`s wife Angeline Stickney Hall was convinced there were moons orbiting Mars. She kept prodding her husband to search for the moons and following her encouragement he finally he found them.

Angeline Stickney Hall

His wife could not use the telescope to search for the moons because under the rules of the day a woman was not allowed to be in the observatory on her own, it was considered too dangerous and it was certainly not permitted for her to be on her own with a male colleague in the observatory.  This made life  a little difficult for women astronomers in the 19^th century.

The moons are very small and quite possibly are captured asteroids. The larger Phobos has an enormous crater which is called Stickney after his Asaph Hall’s wife.

In an uncanny prediction, Jonathan Swift’s satire Gulliver’s Travels published in 1726 refers to the astronomers of his fictional land Laputa having discovered two moons of Mars.

It was 150 years after the publication of Swift’s book that two moons of Mars were actually discovered!

Astronomy Scrapbook Monday 18th August 2014

Monday August 18th 1783 Great Meteor seen over Britain

Nathaniel Pigott and the Great Meteor

On Monday August 18^th 1783 a great meteor was seen in the sky not just over Yorkshire but all over Great Britain travelling from the North West to the South East.  Meteors are seen every August the Perseid meteor shower is on display.  However this meteor was not a Perseid.

At this time astronomers were unsure what meteors were, could they be caused by rising and igniting vapours, were they upper atmospheric electrical phenomena or solid bodies crashing into the Earth’s atmosphere?  What we do have is a wonderful account from an astronomer from York, Nathaniel Pigott the father of Edward Pigott who worked with the deaf astronomer John Goodricke in York.

Nathaniel Pigott writes that about it was about 9 o’clock in the evening and with 2 other gentlemen was riding to the East Riding when while on ‘Hewit Common’ about 3 miles from York the night sky was by flashes and sparks and a ball of light was seen traveling across the sky lighting up the dark surrounding. The head of the meteor appeared blue/white in colour the tail a dusky red.

 A boom similar to a cannon firing was heard. Pigott assumed that the meteor might be about 40 miles above the surface of the Earth.

His full letter was read at the Royal Society in London on June 24^th 1784.

Other reports from around the country confirmed what Pigott had observed, the height of the meteor being estimated at between 46-65 miles high. The meteor was in fact also recorded over Europe and travelled about 1,000 miles before being totally destroyed.

 It is assumed today that the meteor was not very substantial and that there was some gas around the small object which burned off when the meteor entered the atmosphere causing it to become so bright.

No trace of any meteorite fall was ever reported.

Little Gnome Gardening Fact #1

1st Prize at Gardening show.

Just to show that astronomers not only look at the sky, I won best vegetable prize for my tomatoes at my local village gardening show, the Earby Horticultural Show in Lancashire on Saturday August 16th.

 I can`t show the tomatoes they were quickly eaten, but this is the cup I won.

Little Gnome Astronomical Fact #7

Jupiter and Venus in Conjunction

On the morning of August 18^th for early morning risers there will be a chance to see the two brightest planets next to each other in the sky. Jupiter and Venus are said to be in conjunction which means they appear to be next to each other in the sky. In reality of course they are many millions of miles apart.

 The best time to see this conjunction will be at about 5.00 am and you will need a clear eastern horizon as both planets will appear low in the sky.

Astronomy Scrapbook Sunday August 17th 2014

August 17th 1885 discovery of S Andromeda

S Andromeda

On August 17^th 1885 the French astronomer Prof L. Gully at Rouen in France saw a star near the centre of the Andromeda galaxy, it just about reached naked eye brightness it could just be seen without binoculars or telescopes, but this was no ordinary star, this was a  supernova. A supernova is a star that destroys itself in a massive explosion.

The star was designated as S Andromeda, at this time astronomers did not know how far away the Andromeda Spiral as it was then called was away from the Sun. It was assumed to be a spiral group of stars within our galaxy. Therefore they could not work out how bright the star had really become. S Andromeda was in fact the first extra galactic supernova to have been discovered.

At this time stars that suddenly appeared in the sky were referred to as nova or ‘new stars’ (nova means new in Latin), but S Andromeda was different and although the astronomers at the time did not know it,but  this was a special nova, a ‘supernova’, although the term would not be introduced until the 1930s.  

When later the distance to the Andromeda Galaxy as we now call it was worked out, the modern estimate is about 2.2 million light years we know that S Andromeda was about 1.6 billion times brighter than the Sun.

Astronomy Scrapbook Saturday August 16th 2014

August 16th 1862 English astronomer W S Jacob dies

Captain William Stephen Jacob

On August 16th 1862 Captain William Stephen Jacob of the East India Company died.  He was born in Somerset in England in 1813;

He had a career with the Indian army and was engaged with a survey of the North West provinces.  He established a private observatory at Poonah in India in 1842 while here he compiled a catalogue of 244 double stars. In 1847 he discovered that the star Nu Scorpius is in fact a triple star.

He was director of the Madras observatory from 1848-1859, where he made observations of Jupiter trying to work out its mass. He also made observations of some of the satellites of Saturn.  He noticed at the same time as Lassell in 1852 the transparency of Saturn`s dusky ring. Many of these observations were done using a 6.3 inch refractor.  

The Madras Observatory

In 1855 he found anomalies with the movements of the star 70 Ophiuchus, he believed there might be a planet orbiting the star.  The star is a binary system only 16 light years away astronomers today believe there could be a faint brown dwarf accounting for the discrepancies in the stars movements.

He retired from Madras in 1859 due to ill health and returned to England. In 1862 he returned to India on August 8^th 1862 with a 9 inch Cooke refractor, his health failed him again and sadly he died on August 16^th 1862, he had planned to install this telescope at a mountain observatory at Poonah which was 5,000 feet above sea level.

His Cooke refractor  was later sold to Thomas Barneby who used it at his Morton House observatory near Worcester.

Little Gnome Astronomical Fact #6

Nathaniel Pigott and the Great Meteor

On Monday August 18^th 1783 a great meteor was seen in the sky not just over Yorkshire but all over Great Britain travelling from the North West to the South East.  Meteors are seen every August the Perseid meteor shower is on display.  However this meteor was not a Perseid.

At this time astronomers were unsure what meteors were, could they be caused by rising and igniting vapours, were they upper atmospheric electrical phenomena or solid bodies crashing into the Earth’s atmosphere?  What we do have is a wonderful account from an astronomer from York, Nathaniel Pigott the father of Edward Pigott who worked with the deaf astronomer John Goodricke in York.

Nathaniel Pigott writes that about it was about 9 o’clock in the evening and with 2 other gentlemen was riding to the East Riding when while on ‘Hewit Common’ about 3 miles from York the night sky was by flashes and sparks and a ball of light was seen traveling across the sky lighting up the dark surrounding. The head of the meteor appeared blue/white in colour the tail a dusky red.

Nathaniel Pigott`s drawing of the Great Meteor

 A boom similar to a cannon firing was heard. Pigott assumed that the meteor might be about 40 miles above the surface of the Earth.

His full letter was read at the Royal Society in London on June 24^th 1784.

Other reports from around the country confirmed what Pigott had observed, the height of the meteor being estimated at between 46-65 miles high. The meteor was in fact also recorded over Europe and traveled about 1,000 miles before being totally destroyed.

 It is assumed today that the meteor was not very substantial and that there was some gas around the small object which burned off when the meteor entered the atmosphere causing it to become so bright.

Path of Meteor

No trace of any meteorite fall was ever reported.

Astronomy Scrapbook Thursday August 14th 2014

August 14th 1842 birth of Thomas Backhouse

An astronomer who had a wide range of interests. He was born in Sunderland on August 14th 1842, and would spend most of his astronomical career at West Hendon House in Sunderland. He traveled abroad to observe 4 eclipses of the Sun, he intended to go to watch the eclipse in 1914 from Norway but the war prevented this. In 1911 he produced a catalog of  9842 stars that were visible to the naked eye without using binoculars or telescopes.

West Hendon House with observatory

Observatory

The Backhouse family owned banks in Darlington and Newcastle that would be taken over by Barclays.

He died on March 13th 1920 following a short illness.

Astronomy Scrapbook Tuesday August 13th 2014

13th August 1847 discovery of 7th Asteroid Iris

The seventh asteroid to be discovered was called Iris and was found by the English astronomer John Russell Hind from an observatory in Regent’s Park, London on August 13^th 1847. It was Hind’s first of his ten asteroid discoveries.

Iris is indicated by the arrow.

Iris was named after the rainbow goddess Iris in Greek mythology.

Astronomy Scrapbook Tuesday 13th August 2014

August 13th 1596 The variable star Omicron Cetus discovered

Omicron Ceti (Mira the Wonderful star)

This is the oldest recorded variable star. It is a star that varies in brightness. It was first discovered by the Dutch astronomer Fabricius.  A few weeks later it could not be seen. In 1603 when the German astronomer Bayer was giving stars their Greek letters it was seen again and given the designation Omicron.

 Astronomers now know that Mira is a star that appears and disappears fairly regularly. It has a period between being at its brightest of about 331 days. At its brightest it is easily seen but when at its faintest binoculars will be needed to find it.

 Mira is the prototype star of a class of large red giant stars that vary in brightness. These are called Mira variables.

Little Gnome Sports Fact #1

1967 Charity Cup Match

Ex hurricane Bertha has been causing problems recently, but the weather was also a feature in the 1967 Charity Cup Final.

In was windy in 1967 at the FA Charity Cup final between Spurs and Man Utd.

After 8 minutes spurs goalkeeper Pat Jennings punted the ball into orbit from his own penalty area. It was wafted by a favouring wind over the half way line. Everyone waits for Alex Stepney the Man Utd keeper to catch the Ball.

The wind causes the arc of the falling football to confuse the Man Utd keeper. The ball bounces on the hard surface over the head of the advancing Alex Stepney into the goal.  It’s a goal scored by a goal keeper from his own penalty area!!

As the Times reported Stepney simple stares at Jennings giving him the look that one fast bowler in cricket gives to another when he bowls a bouncer. “Against union rules, old man, surely?”

The score ended 3-3. 

Little Gnome Astronomical Fact #5

The Tears of St Lawrence (The Perseid Meteors)

On the night of August 12^th/13^th  the Perseid meteor shower can be seen, to most people they are referred to as ‘shooting stars’, they have however nothing to do with stars, they are tiny grains of dust burning up as they enter our atmosphere.

Meteors are connected with comets, the Rosetta space craft has just arrived at comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. As comets travel around the Sun they leave a trail of dust behind them, if the Earth passes through such a trail we see a meteor shower like the Perseids. This shower is so named because all the meteors appear too radiant from one point in the sky, in this case the constellation Perseus.

If it is clear around 60-90 meteors per hour can be seen from sites that are not badly affected by street lights. These meteors come from the trail of comet Swift- Tuttle.

A long time ago the Perseids were often known by another name ‘The Tears of St Lawrence’

In 258 AD in Rome the Christian called Lawrence told Emperor Valerian that he could give him all the wealth of the empire. Valerian thought Lawrence was talking about gold and silver but he was referring to the people of Rome. Valerian was not impressed and had Lawrence burnt alive. This was on August 10^th 258.

The following evening the Perseids arrived right on schedule, but people looking up thought they were tears from heaven, ‘The Tears of St Lawrence’.

Over a 1,000 years later the French explorer Jacques Cartier was exploring the new world, the part we now call Canada. He arrived at a great river and camped. It was August and at night the Perseids were doing their regular display. Being the first European and knowing the story of the tears of St Lawrence he decided to name that mighty river, the St Lawrence.

Astronomy Scrapbook Sunday 10th August 2014

August 10th 1972, Great Meteor that bounced off the  Earth`s atmosphere.

On August 10th 1972 a meteor was seen by thousands of people to entered the Earths atmosphere. It was travelling at a speed of about 15 km per second, at a height of 76 km it started to burn up and was seen over Montana in America. It came down to a height of 58 km before moving upwards and bouncing off the atmosphere.

The object was very bright and could have been as big as 80 meters. This would make it bigger than the Tunguska meteorite of 1908 which destroyed over 80 million trees in a 2,000 square km area of Siberia.

It is presumably still orbiting the Sun

Little Gnome Astronomical Fact #4

The Mega and Sturgeon Moon

On August 10^th the Moon will be full, nothing new there it happens each month, but this month will be a ‘Mega Moon’, it will look massive when it rises, much bigger than normal.

This is all to do with how the Moon orbits the Earth. Full moons vary in distance  of  between 348,294 km and 398,581 km from the Earth. In August the moon will be 356,896 km the closest this year.

The Moon orbits the Earth in an ellipse rather than a circle and this varies each month, therefore there will be one month in the year when it will be closer than the others. This year it is August.

Each full moon has its own special name most people will have heard of the ‘Harvest Moon’, but in August we have the ‘Sturgeon Moon’.  These moon names go back to medieval times and were often connected with monasteries.

In the 14^th century it was decreed by Edward II that if anyone caught a sturgeon in English waters, they were most likely to be caught in August, it had to be offered to the monarch. In other words it was a royal fish.  Caviar comes from Sturgeons.

Sturgeon were regularly caught in the river Don at the beginning of the 20^th century and a 200 pound specimen was caught in the river Humber in 1953 and presented to the queen. The installation of locks, weirs together with pollution caused sturgeon to stop swimming from the sea to spawn in English rivers. They are serious predator fish and can grow up to 11 feet long.

Astronomy Scrapbook Saturday 9th August 2014

James Van Allen 1914-2006.

On August 9th 2006 the American scientist James Van Allen died, his research into radiation belts around the Earth led to their discovery by the Explorer 1 space craft in 1958. Today these are known as the Van Allen Belts.

Little Gnome Astronomical fact #3

WW1 Battlefields and Lunar Craters

At the beginning of the 20^th century astronomers were still arguing over what caused the craters on the Moon. Some thought they were caused by volcanoes erupting soon after the formation of the Moon, while others thought that most were caused by meteorites crashing onto the surface of the Moon.

It was the First World War which actually gave the answer. New Zealand astronomer Algernon Charles Gifford (1861-1948) realised that  large explosive shells fired by guns and the huge mines triggered before battles left craters in the ground similar to those found on the Moon.

Algernon Charles Gifford

The huge crater at Lochnagar in northern France at the Battle of the Somme was caused by the ignition of 24 tons of explosive which caused a crater 300 feet deep and 70 feet wide. It was the largest man made crater produced during WW1 though a mere pinprick compared to lunar standards.

Lochnagar Crater

Compared this to Meteor Crater in Arizona which was made about 50,000 years ago by a meteor about 150 feet across, it made a hole 1 mile wide and 570 feet deep. The meteor hit the Earth with an explosive energy equal to 2.5 million tons of explosive. 

Meteor Crater

Gifford realised that if you compare the results of a meteorite striking the surface of the Moon or indeed any rocky planet and a massive explosion on Earth the end result would be in the same form, a circular crater. These craters could be seen during the horrendous battles fought on the western front.

Craters on the Moon

Today we know that Gifford was right, in the 1950s scientists examined the craters caused by the testing of atomic bombs.These were also circular in shape.

The craters seen in WW1, meteorite crater in Arizona and craters on the Moon were caused by impacts.

Astronomy Scrapbook Thursday August 7th 2014

Comet McNaught

On August 7th 2006 Rob McNaught observing from Siding Springs observatory in Australia discovered what was the become the brightest comet in 40 years. It would be observed for many months and as it became brighter it was called the Great Comet of 2007. It is believed that it will next return to the Earth in about 92,000 years.

Comet McNaught seen against an observatory in Australia

Little Gnome Astronomical Fact #2

On this day in 1809 Alfred Lord Tennyson who became poet laureate of England was born. He appears to have had an interest in astronomy as one of his most famous poems 'Locksley Hall' contains many astronomical references. There are other astronomy references in some of his other poems.

Little Gnome Astronomical Fact #1

                                                   TIME

Greenwich Mean Time became the legal time on August 2^nd 1880.

It actually took an act of parliament on August 2^nd 1880 to define time. This Act may be cited as the Statutes (Definition of Time) Act, 1880.

We take time for granted today but we actually owe our 24 hour clock to the ancient Babylonians who live around 4,000 years ago. The Babylonians worshiped 12 gods in the day and 12 at night, this meant that they divided their day into 24 parts. Their base number for counting was 60 (we use the decimal system 10) so they divided each of their 24 parts of a day into 60 smaller bits. Here is the beginning of our familiar 24 hour day with 60 minutes in an hour.

The Greeks had a great idea for measuring time; they used a container of water with a plug in it. This was to stop people arguing at meetings as to who had the longest time to talk.  People at meetings began talking when the plug was removed and could only talk while water was running out; this ensured everyone had the same length of time to speak. When the water stopped so did the speaker. Could that be used today?

Mechanical clocks were introduced in the medieval time but were not very accurate. By the beginning of the 19^th century clocks were more reliable, however to work out what the time was many towns and cities had small observatories with astronomers measuring the positions of the stars and working out the time. This was called local time.

This became a very complicated affair with every town having its own local time.  There would be local Manchester time, local York time, local Birmingham time and so on. Transport was measured at the speed of a stage coach about 10 mph, time was not so important. In classic Western films the morning stage coach was on time if it arrived between sunrise and midday.

With the introduction of the railways transport speed increased and local time became very confusing with trains running on their own local time. It all came to a head at the great exhibition of 1851 at Crystal Palace when trains were arriving from all over the country but using their own individual times. Can you imagine what the number of time tables looked like!!

The introduction of the telegraph followed the development of the railway. As railway lines were built the telegraph system followed. Astronomers at Greenwich observed the positions of the stars worked out the time and sent this information via the telegraph system. This system came into use around 1850 and was known as ‘railway time’. It was then decided to change railway time to Greenwich Mean Time or GMT.

I would like to finish with this little riddle of time.

It’s present everywhere but occupies no space. We can measure it, but we can’t see it, touch it, get rid of it, or put it in a container. Everyone knows what it is and uses it every day, but no one has been able to define it. We can spend it, save it, waste it, or kill it, but we can’t destroy it or even change it, and there is never any more or less of it.

Astronomy Scrapbook Friday 1st August 2014

August 1st 1786 Caroline Herschel discovers her first comet.

Caroline Herschel (1750- 1848) the sister of the astronomer William Herschel who discovered the planet Uranus in 1781. She is often portrayed as William Herschel s assistant but she was a great astronomer in her own right.

On the night of August 1st 1786 at 9.50 p m she discovered her first comet while observing from Slough in England. Between 1786 and 1797 she would discover 8 comets a number not passed by a woman astronomer until  Carolyn Shoemaker passed this number in the 1980s. Shoemaker has discovered over 30 comets.

Carolyn Herschel made many other astronomical discoveries including a companion galaxy to the Andromeda Galaxy.