The Observatory

By D. E. Harrison

Galileo is credited with the first telescope, but there were many people involved before him. However, he made it into a science.
Metal mirrors were first used to reflect the star light. They worked but had problems. When glass could be formed into mirrors and then silvered to reflect the star light, astronomy became a true science. In England in the 1850-90 a small university had the money and telescope to do leading edge astronomy. Unfortunately, over time the money ran out and others had better telescopes.
A hundred year later the astronomy department is almost closed. The final two students can find no telescope time for research. The past Chancellor sold the telescope many years ago. The current Chancellor is selling all the property and buildings on the observatory’s property. The Chancellor is paying the two-astronomy student a small amount to see if there is any value in the buildings before the land agent bulldozers the buildings over.
The students find that some of the old lumber has value. The college library has some ancient manuscripts that say the village and site may have a national historical value. The university sees money in this and moves on that. It sells to the students the cleaning and all materials in the buildings for a very small amount. The students hope to publish an article on the history of the telescope.
A major astronomical find is discovered in the basement of the old observatory and the students go to a barrister for help. How much of the find can they keep and what does it show?

Meanwhile, in a very luxurious conference room in New York city a meeting is about to start.
Around the conference table sits people that control $100s of millions in private grant money.
A fellow stands, “Your people have reviewed our proposal. Briefly, I wish to build six radio telescopes, carefully placed on the earth. We are going to photograph the first black hole at the center of our galaxy.”
A fellow asks a question, “You hope to build a scope at the south pole? The exact south pole?”
“Yes, we need it there to complete the grid of six radio scopes all over the world. This will provide positive proof of the black hole.”

Another fellow stands, “You have requested $100 million. What use of the equipment is there after the initial experiment is successful? But what if it fails?”
“We have outlined our entire program after we photograph the black hole. We will return on your investment at least three time, not counting the good will.”

The chairman asks, “Do we fund, yes or no?”
It is not a 100 % yes vote, but close enough.
“We will finalize the paperwork, the funding milestones, the review points, and the completion. There will be standard language as usual.
“May this be the success we all expect.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: D. E. Harrison
• Release date: Jun 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463756997

D. E. Harrison

I am trained as a theoretical mathematician. I am an emeritus member of the American Mathematical Society for fifty odd years. I have lived in Seattle since 1967. I starting writing fiction after writing a family history.

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The Observatory

By D. E. Harrison

Copyright 2019 by D. E. Harrison

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Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1 English Telescope

Chapter 2 Sell Their Observatory

Chapter 3 Cleaning the Observatory

Chapter 4 Buy the Building’s Contents

Chapter 5 Digging Deeper in the Basement

Chapter 6 Finding Telescope’s Mirrors

Chapter 7 The Barrister’ Offices

Chapter 8 The Barrister Reports Back

Chapter 9 the Final Agreement

Chapter 10 the Glass Manufacture

Chapter 11 the First Major Find

Chapter 12 All is Good

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Prologue

Telescopes have been available since the 1600’s. As lens making became more refined so did the instruments that used them. The Royal Society of England was presented with several telescopes over a period of years.

During the period 1850–1900, reflector telescopes suffered from problems with speculum metal mirrors. These larger reflectors suffered from the poor reflectivity and fast tarnishing nature of their speculum metal (bronze or silver metal) mirrors. This means they need more than one mirror per telescope since mirrors had to be frequently removed and re-polished. This was time consuming since the polishing process could change the curve of the mirror, so it usually had to be re-figured to the correct shape. There was always a question of the observations after changing mirror?

Important developments in reflecting telescopes happened when John Hadley's production of larger parabolic mirrors in 1721. The process of silvering glass mirrors for household use was introduced by Léon Foucault in 1857. In 1856–57, Karl August von Steinheil and Léon Foucault introduced a process of depositing a layer of silver on glass telescope mirrors. The silver layer is much more reflective, longer lasting than the finish on speculum mirrors, it has the advantage of being able to be removed and re-deposited without changing the shape of the glass substrate. Towards the end of the 19th century very large silver on glass mirrored reflecting telescopes were built.

The adoption of long-lasting aluminized coatings on reflector mirrors was introduced in 1932.

Chapter 1 English Telescope

In merry old England in 1860, there was a world class college of Astronomy in a small university. They had for a time the largest, most productive telescope in Europe. The patrons of the college paid for the most advanced equipment, which collected the best minds.

Over the years the university’s patrons die, and their beneficiaries are more interested in spending the money than supporting the college. The Astronomy department slowly withers on the vine, refusing to acknowledge their deteriorating position.

It is now over 100 years later. In a luxurious conference room in New York City. Around the conference table sits people that control $100’s of millions in private grant money.

One fellow stands, Your people have reviewed our proposal. Briefly, I wish to build six radio telescopes, carefully placed on the earth. We are going to photograph the first black hole at the center of our galaxy.

A fellow asks a question, You hope to build a scope at the south pole? The exact south pole?

Yes, we need it there to complete the grid of six radio scopes all over the world. This will provide positive proof of the black hole.

A different fellow stands, "You have requested