The Columbus Astronomical Society
The Columbus Astronomical Society
by Tony Hoenbrink
The Columbus Astronomical Society had its beginnings in the fall of 1946 when a returning World War II veteran with an interest in astronomy named Clyde Eide enroled at the Ohio State University. He contacted the chairman of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, to inquire as to whether there was a campus amateur astronomy group that he could join. There wasn't, but Hynek liked the idea so the two of them resolved to start one. An ad was placed in the student newspaper, The Lantern, and an organizational meeting was called.
Only four people showed up - too few to form a group - so it was decided to extend the organization to the entire city. At the time Hynek was writing a weekly astronomy column for The Columbus Dispatch, and in one of these columns he asked for interested people to attend a meeting. Response was still small (only 13), but it was good enough to get an informal group started. Bill Koehl was appointed "chairman" by popular acclaim.
About the same time a south Columbus resident named Bill Sharlach was also searching for an astronomy group to join, and when he could find none he too decided to start one. He wrote to Sky and Telescope for a list of subscribers in the Columbus area and began to contact them. Sharlach's group, like the campus group, was small and very informal. The two groups soon crossed paths and in the late summer of 1947 a merger was agreed upon.
On September 30, 1947 the new Columbus Astronomical Society met for the first time in the McMillin Observatory on the Ohio State campus and elected its first slate of officers. L.R. Stewart, better known as "Bud," became the first president. Annual dues were set at three dollars, which included a subscription to Sky and Telescope. Regular meetings were held at McMillin and various other OSU buildings on the last Tuesday of each month, with the summer months being skipped. Occasionally a meeting would be held in a member's home, and a few years later the American Legion Hall in Worthington became a frequent site. The meeting date was eventually moved to the second Saturday night of the month, a routine that has continued largely uninterrupted to this day. These meetings would usually feature an invited speaker giving a talk on astronomy or space science. Most of the speakers were OSU astronomy faculty, but some were from the military and private industry.
In May of 1948 Hynek succeeded in getting OSU to recognize the CAS as the official forum for amateur astronomy in Columbus, and the Society forthwith set to work on its first major project. Bud Stewart headed up a group of members who began construction of a sky patrol camera, using a lens provided by Hynek. The camera was completed and presented to OSU at a Society meeting held in Perkins Observatory on March 29, 1949. The meeting featured a tour of the observatory guided by Hynek and a talk by Dr. Keenan on the observatory's operations. Members were also invited into the dome to witness Keenan make an actual "run" with the observatory's spectroscope (1).
Few members in the late 1940's owned telescopes, so there wasn't much observing unless the Society was able to get an invitation to one of the local university observatories (2). This happened rather frequently in those days, for the Society was an immediate hit with the local astronomy departments. Dr. Hynek, of course, was heavily involved with the Society and later Dr. Stanger of Ohio Weslyan became a frequent speaker. Field trips to Perkins and Ohio Weslyan's student observatory were organized on a regular basis through the good graces of Dr. Keller of OWU, and Cecil Guinn and Marco Paliobagis, two grad students at OSU. Hynek was also very cooperative in getting members access to McMillin Observatory.
Purely social events became a part of the Society's calendar. Beginning in 1949 an annual summer picnic was held, usually at Southside YMCA Park (now known as Hoover YMCA Park) or a member's home, and beginning in 1954 an annual Appreciation Dinner was held each December in order to thank that year's speakers (a summer picnic is still occasionally held today, and the dinner is still an annual event, although it is now more of a Society party than an honors banquet). In the spring of 1950 an ongoing series of bull sessions, called the Discussion Group, was begun. These meetings consisted of members getting together in each other's homes on the fourth Saturday night of each month and talking about astronomy, or any other subject that caught their fancy. The Discussion Group became a major activity for the Society in the early to mid-1950's, but had mostly petered out by the early 1960's.
The Society in these early years constantly teetered on the brink. Membership was quite small; only a couple of dozen at most. A low point was reached early in 1951: At the January meeting it was seriously debated whether the Society should terminate itself as a formal organization and once again be an informal "club". It was decided to push on. Hynek began to promote the Society in his Sunday astronomy column for The Columbus Dispatch. The Society also hosted a few "public nights" at Whetstone Park, at which the public was invited to observe through members' telescopes. These activities heightened awareness of the Society and membership began to climb that summer. By early 1952 it had expanded to the point where it was cumbersome to keep the membership informed of upcoming activities by telephone, so it was decided to publish a monthly newsletter. Steadman Thompson was the first editor of The Astronomical Bulletin, the first issue of which appeared in May, 1952.
The gradually expanding membership brought with it an expansion of the Society's activities. A number of members were bringing their children to Society functions and many of them responded with enthusiasm. To better provide for them it was decided in the summer of 1952 to create a separate section of the Society called the Junior Astronomers. Starting in June, this group met under the direction of Frank Hudnall on the second Saturday of each month (the same night as the general Society) in the basement of the North Broadway Methodist church. A year later the core members of the Junior Astronomers moved on to the general Society and this sub-organization was disbanded. The idea of a separate section of the Society targeted towards young people is something that would be resurrected at various times in the future. Like the original Junior Astronomers, these offshoots would typically die out in a year or two as the people originally involved moved upward to the general Society.
In the fall of 1952 a Committee on Observation was formed under the chairmanship of John Kissel, whose mission was to find something scientifically useful for the Society to do. This ultimately led to the formation of the Observation Group, whose members worked with university equipment under the supervision of Hynek and other OSU personnel. Their first meeting was on November 28 at McMillin. Meetings were held irregularly for a while thereafter, being called on short notice by telephone if a clear night came along. Eventually a regular schedule of a meeting every clear Friday night was adopted. The first project undertaken was a study of bird migration at night, by observing the moon and counting the birds passing in front. Later, variable stars were targeted and plans were made, which ultimately came to naught for lack of funds, for building a photometer.
The McMillin refractor at this time was in serious need of an overhaul. The drive was clogged with dirt, the wiring was still the original from 1885, and the optics were quite dirty. Tight budgets led OSU to put the job off for years, and it wasn't until Hynek enlisted the Society's volunteer labor in the fall of 1952 that work could begin. Fortuitously, Bud Stewart owned a cement contracting business and was able to provide scaffolding and other heavy equipment free of charge. The telescope (except for the optics, which were sent to the instrument shop at Perkins) was disassembled, cleaned, painted, and rewired over the course of six weekends, largely by Society members.
Favorably impressed by the work on the telescope and probably pushed by Hynek, the Department of Physics and Astronomy decided late that year to let the Society take control of the McMillin public night program. Public nights had been held at McMillin for years but the schedule was sporadic, usually depending on when a grad student could find the time. The Society, however, was able to provide plenty of eager manpower and adopted a regular schedule of public nights on the first and third Saturdays of each month, with a month or two in the summer usually being skipped. Frank Hudnall took charge of the unofficial "McMillin Committee." February 7, 1953 was the first McMillin public night hosted by the CAS. The programs typically consisted of a tour and a talk on the history of the observatory and on telescope operation, with observing afterwards if the weather permitted. They became so well attended that an advance reservation system eventually had to be set up.
With the McMillin nights on the first and third Saturday of each month, the regular meeting on the second Saturday, and the Discussion Group on the fourth Saturday, from 1953 until well into the 1960's there was a regularly scheduled Society event of one kind or another on almost every weekend.
Membership was growing. The McMillin public nights gave the Society a high profile with the public. On clear nights crowds of one hundred or more were not uncommon. Paying membership in the Society more than doubled, to sixty-two, between 1951 and 1953. Active members were plentiful and three standing committees were established: The Program Committee was charged with arranging meeting activities, the Membership Committee undertook the Society's PR work, and the McMillin Committee was made official and handled the public nights. In late 1952 a library was established with books donated by the membership and a librarian (Steadman Thompson) was appointed. Although the Society was barely six years old, a historian (also Steadman Thompson) was also appointed and began to collect documents and memorabilia (3).
Technical expertise among the membership began to increase. Some amateur telescope making had been going on in Columbus since the mid-1940's: Don Murphy, a professional optician, and Bud Stewart, who had an extensive collection of machining equipment, were among the early practitioners. Frank Hudnall and Frank Paulus also dabbled in mirror making. As the 1950's progressed more and more members became interested. In March of 1953 Stewart and Hudnall organized a telescope-making class in which they guided several members through the process of producing a 6" reflector. A population explosion of 6" reflectors followed as several other members began to produce homemade optics with the aid of Murphy, Stewart, Hudnall, and Paulus. Glen Hyder constructed a grinding machine in the fall of 1952 and in 1954 he used it to help produce a 16" reflector, a huge instrument for the time. The number of telescope owners grew to the point where the Society began to schedule its own star parties, called "observation meetings." The first of these affairs was held on October 16, 1953 at member Harry Balsiger's farm on the far West side of Columbus. Observation meetings would be held on an increasingly regular basis over the next several years.
The name of the newsletter was changed in September, 1952. The Astronomical Bulletin was felt to be too unoriginal, so the more original (?) name of The Observer was adopted and used throughout 1953. The membership was still unhappy, so a contest was run in January of 1954 to come up with yet another one. Clyde Eide submitted the winning entry, The Prime Focus, which remains in use to this day.
The Society was approaching one hundred members, but it still had no constitution or by laws. To address this a constitution committee was formed with Steadman Thompson in charge. The committee drafted a constitution and read it at the April, 1953 meeting. It was a simple document, providing for four elected offices (President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Secretary) who would be elected every fall and take office in January. Four appointed offices were also created (Librarian, Prime Focus Editor, Historian, and Property Officer) as well as four standing committees (Education, in charge of conducting courses and training sessions for the membership; Research, to oversee Society participation in scientific research; Activities, to manage all Society activities except the regular monthly meetings; and Programs, which organized the monthly meetings). In addition, an Advisory Board of five members was created to deal with the Society's routine business, including the approval of expenditures. The summer was spent chasing down the members so they could sign the document (4). The new constitution took effect on January 1, 1954.
In September of 1953 the Society's first publication, The Sky Is Yours, was published. Intended to publicize the Society, it was basically a description of the Society and its activities, with a little elementary astronomy thrown in and a commercial ad (Unitron) on the back cover. The booklet was an immediate hit around the Columbus area and over the course of the next year over three thousand copies were distributed. Another booklet, largely written by Steadman Thompson and entitled So You Want To Build A Telescope?, was published shortly thereafter in response to numerous requests from the public for a "do it yourself" telescope-making manual. The Astronomical League was impressed with the volume and ordered large quantities for distribution nationwide. The Ohio Department of Aviation, impressed by a Society program for school teachers at Don Scott Field, also requested an educational astronomy booklet that it could distribute. A group of members obliged by writing up a series of simple astronomy exercises, which was published under the title Adventures In Astronomy.
Telescopes, particularly homemade reflectors, continued to become more common throughout the 1950's. By June of 1954 the Society could boast one 16", four 10", five 8", and literally dozens of 6" reflectors. The Society's observing tastes during this time ran chiefly to the planets and the moon. Such objects do not require extremely dark skies, so much observing was done in backyards. In addition, observation meetings became almost regular monthly affairs, except during the winter. Most of them were held at Balsiger's farm, which had become a very popular observing site. In the summer of 1956 Balsiger constructed a shelter and the gatherings were held regardless of the weather, with the Society picking up the tab for coffee, soft drinks, and munchies. The Society was invited to give public programs at other sites from time to time, and when the skies were clear these programs were usually followed by observing sessions that continued long after most of the public had left. Small groups of members also began to give private star parties for various schools and community groups around Columbus.
"CAS Night" at Perkins Observatory became an annual event. This was quite a treat because until 1959 Perkins boasted a 69" reflector (5). From time to time Perkins would also ask the Society for help with its regular program of public nights. Attendance at the public nights was often too large for everyone to be able to look at very many objects through the 69", so the Society's telescope owners would bring reinforcements and set them up in the parking lot out front.
Late in the summer of 1954 Mars was in a very favorable opposition and it dominated the McMillin public nights. In September the Society ran a special two-night (Thursday and Friday) observing session for Mars. The planet's mystique and the growing media hype over the embryonic U.S. space program stoked public interest to a high level. The skies were clear, and the Thursday night show drew over five hundred people. Friday night drew over one thousand. The affair also drew a number of complaints to OSU from the public: The Society did not expect anywhere near that many people to show up and it was woefully unprepared for them when they did.
At the June, 1956 meeting Hynek spoke to the Society about the space program, which was rapidly gearing up. At the meeting a motorized model, demonstrating the mechanics of a satellite's orbit around the Earth, was unveiled. It was built by Jack Charlton with some help from Jim Knight and it intrigued everyone with its cleverness. Hynek was fascinated by the device and borrowed it to show to his colleagues. Later that summer the National Academy of Sciences asked to examine it.
The Society was starting to make a bit of a name for itself. It was filling a definite educational niche in the Columbus area with the McMillan public nights and the various other public programs, and it was starting to take some small steps onto the national stage as well. In November several members took part in the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers' Lunar Meteor Watch program, which was set up to try to detect meteorites striking the Moon. Ohio was blessed with clear weather for the event, but although no meteorites were seen by the Society (or anyone else) it did bring the Society its first piece of national recognition, in ALPO's newsletter. Harold Povenmire's picture of one of that year's Leonid meteors appeared in the December, 1956 issue of Sky and Telescope. It was thought good enough to be used in several astronomy textbooks over the years. At the national convention of the Astronomical League in June, 1956 Jane Gann agreed to take the post of editor of the League newsletter, The Astronomical League Bulletin (now known as The Reflector). For the next three years it would be published in Columbus under the auspices of the Society.
In the summer of 1956 Franklin County began seeking a new use for the old Memorial Hall in downtown Columbus. Dr. Hynek, with the Society behind him, broached the idea of a planetarium. The idea was not new. In January of 1954 Hynek had written an article in The Columbus Dispatch calling for a planetarium to serve the educational needs of Franklin County. He and president Frank Hudnall even went before the Franklin County Commissioners that year to plead the case, but nothing came of it. This time president Jim Knight went to a Commissioners' meeting to lobby and found a more receptive audience. A bond issue was put on the ballot that fall to raise money to build a science museum, including a planetarium, in the renovated Hall. Armand Spitz, owner of the famous planetarium firm, got wind of the movement and donated one thousand dollars to the Society to promote the issue. Flyers were printed up and distributed and bumper stickers were even mailed out in the October Prime Focus. The bond issue was narrowly defeated.
In December Hynek left OSU for the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory to take charge of setting up a global tracking system for the soon-to-be-launched U.S. space satellite. The system was planned to consist of a network of twelve observing stations placed around the world. The data from these twelve stations would be supplemented with observations from a number of amateur stations, some of which would be equipped with optical gear by the government. The entire system was christened "Moonwatch." Steadman Thompson quickly organized a Columbus Moonwatch team. Although it was made up almost entirely of Society members, it was at first a separate organization with its own officers and finances. Later that year the team was officially merged into the Society, where the Moonwatch Committee replaced the old McMillin-based Observation Group (6).
Because of Columbus' unfavorable location the team was told by the government to keep its observing to the level of "practice sessions." The team nonetheless proceeded to build its own telescopes (ten two-inch refractors) and took up residence in a room on the roof of the International Research and Development Corporation, with the roof of the building serving as an observing platform. Setting up the station took most of the spring, but it was complete in time to participate in the first nationwide practice alert on May 17, 1957. The government eventually provided the Columbus team with a 5" apogee telescope. The Moonwatch station also became the storage site of the Society's library and most of its other possessions (7).
In January of 1957 Steadman Thompson also reorganized the Research Committee. It was divided into three sections: Lunar and Planetary, Variable Stars, and Meteors. The three sections conducted separate meetings, clinics, and observing sessions for their members. The revamped program met with some success, and Thompson appeared in Sky and Telescope in connection with his lunar observations.
Shortly after adopting its constitution in 1954 the Society had affiliated itself with the Astronomical League, a national umbrella organization of amateur astronomy groups. In late 1956 the Society had agreed to host the AL's 1957 Great Lakes Regional Convention. Jane Gann took charge of the organizing and on July 5-6, 1957 the Second Annual Great Lakes Regional Convention of the Astronomical League was held in the old Fort Hayes Hotel in downtown Columbus. One hundred and two people showed up; about the number expected. Various activities were arranged for the convention-goers. The Perkins observing night was held in a driving rainstorm, but tours of the Moonwatch station and Dr. Kraus' radio telescope at OSU's University Farms (now known as West Campus) were big hits (8). The League was quite pleased with the results of the Society's efforts.
That October came Sputnik. Jane Gann and Larry Ochs believed that they had sighted the satellite from the Moonwatch station, and many other observers across the country reported similar sightings, but the government insisted that this was impossible. Sputnik fuelled public interest in astronomy and the Society reaped some benefits. Membership had levelled off during the previous two years, but by the end of 1957 it had spurted to a peak of 129. Also in October the Society adopted the Battelle Memorial Institute on King Avenue as its regular meeting place. Except for brief interlude in the early 1960's the Society would continue to meet at Battelle for more than thirty years, until the meetings were shifted to Perkins Observatory.
In March of 1958 a series of six bi-weekly programs was arranged at Whetstone Park, consisting of an astronomy lecture followed by observing. Graham Kendall was in charge of the first set. Good attendance inspired a return engagement that fall under Barney Golding. This second set was directed primarily towards high school students and was so successful that Golding decided to form an entirely new group for high schoolers. Called "Asteroids," the group continued to meet bi-weekly at Whetstone starting in February of 1959. Asteroids soon affiliated itself with the Society and continued to meet at Whetstone until May of 1961. It ranks as one of the most successful Society programs ever. In July of 1958 the Society held its first Metropark program: A star party at Blacklick Woods Metropark. The headline attraction was a passover that night of Sputnik III. Heavy publicity, clear weather, and the glamour of the new artificial satellites drew almost three hundred people. The Metropark management was quite impressed by the turnout for the program and urged the Society to stage another. The Society was only too happy to oblige, and the very next month at Blacklick the first Perseid Meteor Watch was held. Again the weather cooperated and a good crowd turned out to see over fifty meteors. The Metroparks were again impressed and allowed Blacklick to become a fairly regular site for the Society's public programs and observation meetings in the ensuing years.
The Perseid Watch went on to become an annual event for the Society. Over the years the Watch would be held at Blacklick, the Moonwatch station, and members' homes among other places, but eventually it settled permanently at Highbanks Metropark and is almost always among the best-attended Society programs each year.
The Society had still more plans for Blacklick. In August of the following year it hosted Amateur Astronomers' Night (AAN) there. Telescopes and exhibits were set up and the affair was blessed with splendid weather. Almost four hundred people showed up and observed into the wee hours. Amateur Astronomers' Night was reprised in August of 1960. Continuing an incredible streak of good luck the skies were clear yet again, and again several hundred people showed up. The Society's programs thus acquired a strong reputation with the Metroparks for being big draws and have been a regular feature in the Metropark schedule of events ever since.
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