Waxing and Waning a Memoir of an Amateur Astronomer

By Xlibris US

The true story of my life as an amateur astronomer. I tell of all the start and stops in the hobby as I past
through different stages of my life, always returning to astronomy. The love of the night sky has remained
with me ever since I discovered the stars at the age of five.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499038941

Book preview

Waxing and Waning a

Memoir of an Amateur

Astronomer

James Hannon

Copyright © 2014 by James Hannon.

ISBN:                  Softcover                        978-1-4990-3895-8

                            eBook                             978-1-4990-3894-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 06/18/2014

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Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1   Jackson Street and My First Stars, 1944-1953

Chapter 2   Treadwell Avenue and Big Changes

Chapter 3   August 19, 1955

Chapter 4   Roadway to the Stars

Chapter 5   High School Days

Chapter 6   Stranger Than Fiction

Chapter 7   USS Brumby DE 1044

Chapter 8   January 8, 1968

Chapter 9   The Stars are Mine

Chapter 10   A Night in the Observatory

Chapter 11   My Boys

Chapter 12   Getting Serious

Chapter 13   Doubt Creeps In

Chapter 14   Entering the Digital Age

Chapter 15   We Build a CCD Camera

Chapter 16   Deep into the Universe

Chapter 17   DQ Herculis: My Height of Research

Chapter 18   To the Very Edge of the Solar System in Color

Chapter 19   The Universe in Color

Chapter 20   Waxing and Waning

Dedication

I need to recognize several people that are responsible for the publication of this book.

First, I dedicate this book to my lifelong partner, my wife Roseann. From the time I walked into a door as I was looking at her for the first time she has backed me at every turn and though she never was interested in astronomy she always made sure I had the tools I needed to make my astronomical journey possible.

Second, Tom Johnson was 4 years older than me and at twelve years old he took me under his wing and started me on my journey to the stars.

Third, Jim Edlin came to my life later at a time when big changes were taken place in astronomy in the computer age. He built my first CCD camera and coached me through my entry into the computer age.

Fourth, Mark Koyama an intern from the Yale Divinity School and an experienced writer gave me the push and the confidence to tackle a project I thought was well beyond my ability.

Fifth, Rachelle Eaton Copy Editor. Rachelle was very professional and easy to work with making this project much easier for me.

Introduction

Ask five people what a hobby is and you will probably get five answers, all about the same. A hobby is something we do in our spare time for fun. But there are those for whom this answer does not fit; they have to take their interest to a higher level. These people want to go deeper, understand more, and add to the conversation. This will not stop that person from doing his or her daily duties such as those which are required to run a family. But when those duties are completed and it is time to pick up that hobby, it is done with great anticipation and excitement. It is not enough to be enjoying your time working on your project; you want to take it to the next level, you want to make a difference. To do that you need to be involved in a hobby that’s not just fun, but one in which you can branch out on your own and, if you are lucky, someday discover something new.

In our discussion of hobbies it becomes clear that if you are to reach this upper level you will need to find a hobby which allows you to do research. You need to be able to stand on the shoulders of others and build on their work. That is, in fact, a description of science. Not that all serious hobbies need to be in the field of science, but this is the field I found myself drawn to. I did not choose it, it chose me, and once I started down its path there was no turning back. I could not get enough. Early on I could not find a source of information and facts, something I needed if I was to get started and succeed. It was by pure chance that events in my life led me to my ticket to the stars. I might have found my way on my own, but the trip would have been much more difficult had I not found a mentor willing to share his time and knowledge. It was this meeting that led to a friendship which made my early years in the field of amateur astronomy very memorable indeed. I have many fine memories of nights under the stars, at first learning my way around and later diving deep into the field in real research, which yielded results that have been put into print and will live on long after I am gone. This all happened because of a drive to understand just what it was that I was seeing in the night sky. I have no special talent but I did have a drive to understand more.

I look back on my lifetime interest in the night sky and now realize that on my next birthday I will turn seventy years old. If I do not put into words my journey of the past fifty-seven years as an avid amateur astronomer, everything I have done will be lost and I will take a lifetime of wonderful memories with me. If for no other reason, I am writing this memoir so at least my family members will know just what it was I was doing all those nights at the telescope and in my homemade observatory. I have decided to include the events of my life to tell the story—just a bunch of written-up scientific observations would be a pretty boring read.

It is to my wife Roseann that this memoir is dedicated. She has stood by me through all these years, and even though I have only gotten her to look through my telescopes a mere few times, without her the rest of the story would never have happened. I hope after she reads this whole story she understands how she filled the wow factor which changed my whole life.

James Hannon

Terryville, Connecticut

October 15, 2013.

Chapter 1

Jackson Street and My First Stars, 1944-1953

Thomaston is a small town located along the Naugatuck River at the base of the foothills of Litchfield County in northwest Connecticut. Like many towns along the Naugatuck, Thomaston sprung up when industry came to the state in the 1800s. Thomaston got its name from the Seth Thomas Clock Factory, which was the main industry in Thomaston. I graduated from Thomaston High School in 1963. One of my classmates was Katie Thomas, a direct descendent of the Thomas family. My older sister graduated from the same school in 1959 with a Seth Thomas, a namesake for the family.

My parents moved to Thomaston from New Jersey when my father was relocated because of his job. They bought a two story wooden home on lower Jackson Street in the south end of Thomaston. Our house was bounded on the east side by Mrs. Lackmen’s home. Mrs. Lackmen was a kind older lady who enjoyed having my sister Donna and I into her home for milk and cookies. I really think she enjoyed the company. She would go to her bedroom and come out with many different kinds of army patches and ask which ones I would like sewn on my jacket. World War II had just ended and I never gave any thought back then as to where she had gotten them. I did notice that she never really had anybody visiting her at her home; it now really makes me wonder. Her property was bordered on the east by woods and her backyard was a patch of grass that led into a meadow which sloped down to the right and on to the woods below. Her property was great for sledding in the winter. Both the woods and the meadow would hold some problems for me in the future.

Our house was bordered on the south side by Jackson Street and the Fox family, good friends of my parents, on the west side. Bobby Fox, their son, helped teach me how to play baseball and basketball; this was going to lead to some great times for me in the coming years.

By far the most interesting area for me was our backyard, which had a nice grassy area to play on, and beyond that my father had a large garden. A steep embankment was at the end of our yard, which led down to a stream, which ran along to the west, and a nice open meadow which was bordered on its west side by the New Haven Railroad. Beyond this meadow was a hill which led out on to a sandpit that looked as though it had not been active in many years. The Sand Bank, as we called it, held many mysteries for me. I spent many hours playing in and around it. It also yielded some very interesting finds.

This was my world—its area probably covered no more than the area of two football fields, yet it kept my interest for all those early years of my life. Very early on, I remember an incident that was not one of my better days. I was working on building a fort using small tree limbs in the woods next to Mrs. Lackmen’s property. Every fort worth its salt needs a lookout post. I went to my father’s tools and found some spikes. Actually they were large nails. I grabbed a hammer and was off to the fort, picked out a tall straight tree, and pounded the nails on either side of the tree, forming a ladder. It looked much like a telephone pole with metal rungs on it for linemen crews to climb. I climbed up about eight feet, feeling I had a nice view and all was well. I made this climb several times, but on the last climb I felt my feet, slowly at first, bending down as the nails started to bend under my weight. Then, with one quick movement, the nails bent all the way down as I fell toward the ground. By natural instinct I grabbed for the tree in a big bear hug. All this did was ensure the remaining nails in the tree would rip at my upper arms all the way to the ground, which I hit very hard. In great pain, not from hitting the ground, but from the rips in my arms, I picked myself up, blood everywhere, and ran the short distance home. My parents used towels to clear the blood and check the damage. My left arm was ripped open but not real bad. The right arm was a different story—ripped open very deeply and bleeding badly. It was off to the doctor’s office in Thomaston three miles away.

Dr. White’s office had all the up-to-date equipment for the 1950s, but he was one of a dying breed. He was one of the last of the old country doctors who would come out to your house in the middle of the night for a sick child. He took us right in and, without of any of today’s local painkillers, I watched in great pain while he stitched my arm up. Over sixty years later I still have the scars of that day.

Several months later we were in the middle of a cold, snowy winter. Overnight we got about eight inches of snow, which turned to a cold freezing rain. This freezing rain placed an ice sheet over the fresh snow, thick enough to walk on without breaking through. I was dressed and ready to go sliding down Mrs. Lackmen’s back meadow, but as usual my sister Donna was not. Out the door I went, saying, I’ll be on the trail. I shuffled my feet so as not to fall on the ice-covered snow. The whole area was like a giant ice skating rink. I made my way to the head of the trail, which curved slightly to the right, then bent back straight down the hill, passing the long barbed wire fence along the woods. The trail then crossed a small wooden bridge over a small stream and ended in a small open area. Here we would dig our feet in, to brake. Beyond that, farther than anyone had made it on a sled before, was a small hill with a barbed wire fence at the woods’ edge.

At the top of the trail I placed my two-railed sled down and sat on it. What happened next was right from the movie Christmas Vacation with Chevy Chase, if you have ever seen it. He put lubricant on his flying saucer sled and took off in a bolt of flame. That is just what happened to me. I was off like a shot. By some miracle I made the bend to the right and then managed to straighten out and miss the barbed wire fence along the woods. The bridge was next, and I flew over it and up into the opening where we would normally stop by dragging our feet. There would be no stopping this day—up the small hill I went, past the opening, and slammed right into the barbed wire fence. This stopped me instantly, knocking me off the sled at the same time. I was lying on the ice, blood streaming from a hole in my upper lip caused by a single barb going directly into my lip. It was by pure chance that I hit the fence head on and did not run along it, which would have ripped my face wide open. I now had the problem of being at the bottom of an icy hill, almost impossible to walk on, alone and needing to get back to the house. I walked sideways, slamming my feet into the ice to get a bit of a hold, moving forward a bit at a time. Each time I would slam my foot down, my whole mouth shuddered in pain. I finally made it back to the house, where my sister was still not ready, and yes, it was off to Dr. White’s office. Luckily one stitch closed the gaping hole in my upper lip, and in about a year it healed up with no trace of damage.

It may sound as though my years on Jackson Street held nothing but bad times for me, but that was far from the truth. I had wonderful parents and they did all they could to raise me in a good, stable home environment. I was allowed the free run of my world and all I had to do in return was behave myself. This was not a problem for me as I was basically a shy child and did not like to make myself stand out in front of others.

One of my favorite pastimes was to walk to the end of our backyard, then head along the top of the hill across the end of our neighbors’ property, the Foxes. From here I would go down the grassy hill to the meadow which was bordered by the New Haven Railroad. The stream which ran through the meadow entered on the east side, made a winding S turn, and passed under a small bridge made of several railroad ties. The stream was not all that wide, and with just a few running steps I could jump over at any point and land on the opposite bank with no problem. I spent many happy hours playing down there. TV was new and almost all new shows were westerns, and many of the movies that we would go to in our small movie house in Thomaston were also westerns. With this in mind, it is little wonder that we young ones would spend many of our free hours playing cowboys and Indians. We all had gun and holster sets as well as toy rifles. When we got older and it was time to hang up the toy guns, I don’t recall that we ran around shooting people if we did not agree. In today’s politically correct world we seem to be blaming the wrong things for our gun problem. Maybe we should be looking at the breakdown of the family and our morals. I best leave this matter alone at this point and avoid getting myself into trouble.

Another pastime I took up along this stream was to go to the beginning of it as it entered the field. Here I would find a straight stick and break it into two pieces, one long and one short. I would drop them in the middle of the stream and run down to the bridge and sit and wait to see which stick would win the race to the small waterfall that was just beyond the bridge. Once in a while I would walk alongside as the sticks made their way downstream. They would pass one another, first the short one in front, then the long one, as each stick found its own current downstream. I held many of these races but could not tell which stick won the most races. Years later I developed a deep interest in the America’s Cup yacht races. Who knows, maybe this is where that interest was born.

As you can see, back in those days a youngster could stay occupied for many hours with the simplest of things. I think if we were to take a child from today and transport them back to this time, they would be totally lost. It is sad to me that we have lost the ability for children to go outside their houses with nothing but the clothing on their backs and keep themselves lost in a world all their own.

Leaving this magical meadow and heading up the grassy hill to the Sand Bank, I entered another world all its own. I think it was here that my interest in science began to sprout and grow. I started to identify different minerals such as quartz and feldspar and would go on field trips in search of nice samples. The Sand Bank, as I said, looked as though it had not been active in quite some time. Grassy brush areas were sprouting up all over, and at the head of the pit when you entered it and again at the far end, there were two deep holes which had been dug out. These, now left to their own devices, had filled with water. This water was crystal clear, and even though it was three to four feet deep, you could see right to the bottom. I sailed many wooden boats on these seas or, I should say, sticks. Some