John Franklin Adams Charts produced with Thomas Cooke 10 inch and 6 inch cameras

John Franklin Adams photographed the entire night sky between 1904 and 1909 from Godalming in Surrey for the northern hemisphere and from South Africa for the Southern Hemisphere using a 10 inch Cooke camera and two 6 inch Cooke cameras. 

In 1913 the Royal Astronomical Society undertook to publish a small number of the Franklin Adams Charts. The 206 photographic plates covered the entire sky. Each plate covered an area 15 degrees by 15 degrees.  

The reproductions were on bromide paper 15 inches by 12 inches with the plate area being 11inches by 11 inches. The cost of each set will be 10 guineas in 2024 this would be over £1,400!! 

It is hoped that a sufficient number of subscribers will be enlisted to help to defray the cost of such an expensive undertaking. It is hoped that they will be ready in 1914. 

Today the Franklin Adams Charts are still use by astronomers due to their quality and their historical reference to the night sky over 100 years ago.

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Occultation of Delta 3 Tauri seen from Liverpool through a Cooke telescope

On November 9^th 1870 John Joynson of Waterloo in Liverpool observed an occultation of delta 3 Tauri. Delta 3 is one of the members of the Hyades cluster of stars that are near to Aldebaran in Taurus. Joynson was using a 6 inch Cooke telescope. 

An occultation occurs when the Moon passes in front of a star blocking out the light from the star. Very occasionally a planet will pass in front of a star. This happened in 1977 when Uranus passed in front of a star leading to the discovery of its system of rings. 

According to Joynson the Moon passed over this star and the disappearance took place at 11 hours, 19 minutes and 11.3 seconds. The star reappeared at 12 hours 16 minutes and 50.7 seconds. The observations were considered very satisfactory.

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NASA looking at Moon landing at Haworth.

If you think of Haworth, you naturally think of the Bronte sisters, and Wuthering Heights, possibly the steam engines going through Haworth Station, and all the film crews there for numerous films and shows. But would you associate Haworth as a moon landing site. Well NASA certainly is.

NASA is hoping to send the Artemis III crewed mission to the Moon in late 2026 or early 2027. One of the potential landing sites they have chosen is Haworth.

But don’t worry if you live in Haworth a massive space craft is not going to land in the parsonage. The Haworth that NASA is looking at is on the Moon.

Haworth is a crater near the south pole of the Moon that was named after the British chemist Sir Walter Norman Haworth 1883-1950. He was awarded the Nobel prize for chemistry in 1937 for his ground-breaking work on carbohydrates and vitamin C.

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Snowballing and the Cooke’s Works

  In early December 1882, two youths employed at the Thomas Cooke, Buckingham Works, Bishophill, York were summoned for snowballing near the works. It was shown that two residents in the vicinity were compelled to put their shutters in lest their windows should be broken. 

Mr Haley stated that he had had numerous complaints respecting snowballing. Mr Ditmas who appeared for the boys submitted that the defendants not having been previously warned might with justice be discharged. 

Mr Rowntree said that snowballing could not be considered a privileged. The youths were find 1 shilling each.

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Great Comet of 1882 seen from India with a Cooke telescope

 The great comet of 1882 was first seen in September of that year and was observed and photographed by astronomers all around the world. This included from India.

On September 25^th 1882 H Collett from Lahore, the Punjab, India observed the comet with a 4.5 inch Cooke telescope. At 04 hours and 50 minutes local time the comet was estimated to be about 14 degrees long and of unusual breadth. The borders of the tail appear much brighter that the central part.

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The Astronomy Show on Drystone Radio

 Join me, Martin Lunn MBE tonight and every Monday evening from 7.00 pm-9.00 pm on the Astronomy Show on Drystone Radio, probably the only regular astronomy show on any radio station in the country. 

I will take my weekly look at the night sky and look at all the latest news in astronomy. There will be the astronomical anniversaries this week plus the A-Z of Constellations 

The Astronomy Show every Monday evening only on Drystone Radio live on line at www.drystoneradio.com DAB radio in Bradford and East Lancashire, or 102 and 103.5 FM and can also be heard later on the Drystone Radio Podcast.

 

 

Take an intergalactic journey with me every Monday evening between 7.00pm and 9.00pm to look at what’s in the night sky and catch up with the latest astronomy news. This is probably the only regular weekly astronomy show on any radio station in the country,

 

 

Cooke Instruments were of the highest quality, But…….

 Cooke Instruments were of the highest quality but by the 1920s with a slump in trade around the world for optical instruments Cooke’s were now discovering the penalty of making instruments too well, they did not need repairing!! 

With this in mind in the late 1920s Cookes which by his time was trading as Cooke, Troughton and Simms undertook a major advertising campaign encouraging people who had brought equipment in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries to bring them back and have them repaired.  This particular advertisement was from 1927. 

The campaign was not just in the UK it was also global, and senior salesmen were sent to the various Cooke offices around the world to try to drum up extra business. It worked briefly but sadly for Cookes and other major industries around the world the Great Wall Street Crash in 1929 signalled the beginning of the Great Depression in the 1930s and the demand for optical instruments ceased almost overnight..

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