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Skyward for February 2020.
Something old, something new…Eureka instead of Echo.
This is the story of my first
telescope, of the comet it did not discover and which later collided with
Jupiter, and the telescope that replaced it.
Although this story has been building for almost sixty years, it came to
a head last fall. First, in late
October, I got myself a brand-new reflector telescope. It is a 12-inch diameter reflector, with a
fast f/5 focal ratio, which means that at low power I can get well over a
degree field of sky when I gaze through it.
That means more than two Moon-diameters.
I had some difficulty setting up the new telescope, and needed some
help, but when it finally was ready, the views were a wonder to behold and a
true joy.
I named the new telescope
Eureka, after an asteroid I discovered, at Palomar with Henry Holt, in June of
1990. The asteroid turned out to be
orbiting at the L5 point (LaGrangian 5) in Mars’s orbit, as has been that way
for much of the life of the solar system.
The asteroid is the first known Martian trojan, and our proposed name,
Eureka, was accepted as an expression of joy in making a discovery. It was named for Archimedes’ expression of
delight after discovering how objects displace water, and how he leapt out of
his bathtub and ran down the street yelling Eureka! (There is nothing in the
story that suggested that Archimedes bothered to dry off and dress before he
darted outside.) For my new telescope Eureka’s first light, (see last month’s
column) I chose Jupiter, which is my choice for first light objects ever since
September 1, 1960.
That brings me to the second
telescope, named Echo after a large passive communications satellite launched
on August 12, 1960. Echo was my very first telescope, and it was the telescope
through which I looked at Jupiter for the first time on that far-off night. On
that distant night, Mom and Dad were with me and they were excited as
well. An entirely new world was opening
up for me, a world that has remained open and inviting ever since. For a few years it was my only telescope,
replaced only when I upgraded to a 5-inch telescope while I was a patient at
the Jewish National Home for Asthmatic Children in Denver, and an 8-inch a year
later. Over the years Echo has provided a wealth of happy nights under the
stars.
On Thursday evening, November
7, 2019, I formally donated Echo, my first telescope, to the Linda Hall Library
of Science, Engineering, and Technology in Kansas City, along with more of my
observing records. Echo began its new
life that very evening. Under a clear
sky, some people got the chance to look at the Moon through Echo, which still functions well after 59
years. May Echo get a lot of use at this
wonderful library, one of the largest science libraries in the world.
All this brings me to the
point of this article, that Eureka is instead of Echo. After all these years I wanted a powerful
telescope to replace my first telescope.
With Eureka, I now have that telescope. Every time I look through it, my mind is
filled with the magic and delight of that long-gone evening[DL1] when
I first set up a telescope and looked at Jupiter. On that night I saw Jupiter, its belts, and
its four big moons. One thing I did not
see, and neither did anybody else, was a small comet moving close to the
planet. That comet would remain
undetected until March 23, 1993, when Gene and Carolyn Shoemaker and I set up a
night’s observing at Palomar that would include the field that revealed this
comet. It was reported on the 25th. Sixteen months later, this comet, now
known as Shoemaker-Levy 9, collided with Jupiter in the most dramatic
explosions ever witnessed by humanity.
May Eureka, instead of Echo, also reach for the stars.
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| 2: Eureka, my latest telescope. If you look carefully you might catch Venus at the top center. |
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Picture: 1: Wendee and Echo, from White Sands National Monument. Photo by David Levy. |
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