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  • Australian Sky & Telescope

    The Mountains of Mitchel

    Apr 15, 2020 4 minutes
    by Thomas A. Dobbins

    This year’s favourable apparition of Mars presents an excellent opportunity to witness the development of a transient but recurring Martian feature known as the Mountains of Mitchel, discovered 175 years ago by the founder of the first major observatory established in the United States.

    Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel was born in 1809 in Kentucky, then a rural outpost on America’s western frontier. In 1825 he secured an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, where the curriculum included surveying, civil engineering and practical astronomy in addition to military subjects. After graduating, Mitchel remained at West Point as a mathematics instructor for three

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