The Columbus Astronomical Society
The Columbus Astronomical Society
by Tony Hoenbrink
The McMillin telescope became inoperable in the fall of 1961 because of deterioration of the building, but the Society continued to hold public nights there. The program still featured a tour and a talk, but there was no longer any observing with the refractor; if it was clear members would set up their own telescopes on the front lawn. A shortage of willing manpower forced a paring back of the traditional schedule of an open house on the first and third Saturday nights of each month to just one on the first Saturday. Continuing deterioration of the observatory building eventually put an end to even that. The last McMillin public night was held on June 6, 1964. Shortly thereafter the eighty year-old observatory, located at 239 W. 12th Avenue between the President's Residence (now known as the Honors House) and Pomerene Hall, was condemned. In 1976 it was finally demolished.(9)
In May of 1961 the Society's expertise was sought during the planning stages of a new observatory at Hoover YMCA Park. The new facility, Borror Observatory, was dedicated on September 28, 1961. The observatory's dome and 10-inch reflector were purchased from Society president Charlie Worch, who had had them mounted atop his garage. A continuing program of astronomy talks and observing sessions given by Society members for campers and the general public was set up. This was the beginning of a relationship between the Society and the YMCA that would continue for almost two decades.
In 1962 the Moonwatch team began to undergo changes. The continuing development of radar was making visual satellite tracking obsolete. Moonwatch Committee chairman Steadman Thompson had left Columbus the previous June (10). The team, now under the direction of Barney Golding, continued to observe satellites but began to include lunar occultations in its program as well. In the spring of 1963 an out-of-town high school student, David Dunham, calculated a grazing occultation path. He plotted it on a common road map and sent it to the amateur astronomy groups nearest to the path, one of which happened to be the CAS. Golding replotted the path on a USGS map and organized an expedition. Almost miraculously, the crude plotting turned out to be exactly correct. In fact, the observations were of such a high quality that they were written up in Sky and Telescope.
Encouraged by this initial success, the Society for many years afterwards would regularly mount expeditions to various parts of the state to observe grazing occultations. A regular program of occultation observing was also begun at the Moonwatch station, and this became one of the Society's major observing activities during the 1960's.
In 1963 the issue of a science museum for Columbus arose yet again, and it's time had finally come. In March the Society agreed to do fundraising for a planetarium to be contained in the soon-to-be-opened Columbus Center of Science and Industry (COSI) in Memorial Hall. The fundraising stopped almost before it started: In June Battelle came through and agreed to foot the entire bill, and thus was born Battelle Planetarium.
The Society had ambitious plans for its role at COSI. Assistance in preparing planetarium programs would be provided, as well as classes in mirror grinding, telescope making, and other subjects. In March the Society even moved its regular meeting site from Battelle to the lecture room in COSI, before the Center was even opened to the public (11). The Society also made repeated (unsuccessful) attempts to get a room in the Center for use as its headquarters. Most of these plans came to naught due to lack of funds and, more importantly, lack of interest by COSI. The Society in fact was basically shunned by COSI, which was a strange way for the Center to thank a group that had worked so hard to bring it into existence.
In April the Society set up the Junior Astronomers of Columbus (JAC). This group was intended to provide for the younger (high school and below) members, much the same as the Junior Astronomers of the early 1950's had done. The JAC began as a series of exercises in observing and record keeping which could earn a merit pin, but by 1964 it had grown into an entirely separate organization with its own meetings, officers, dues, and newsletter (the vaguely familiar-sounding Prime Meridian). Activities emphasized observational astronomy (timing lunar eclipses, measuring the phases of Venus, etc.).
The JAC prospered but was soon disbanded as it was felt that it was drawing too many members away from the Society itself. May of 1965 saw the last meeting of the JAC and the last issue of The Prime Meridian. All members and activities were then folded into the Society under the name "Junior Astronomers of the CAS." Columns about the group's activities appeared in The Prime Focus as late as 1967, but the group was essentially dead by the summer of 1966.
The Society's killing of the JAC might seem self-centered, but by the mid-1960's membership was becoming a serious concern. It had fallen steadily by almost half during the years after Sputnik, to seventy-six in 1964. There the drop ended, however, and the number of paying members remained remarkably steady at between seventy and eighty until the 1970's. Unfortunately, the lost half included many of the most active members. The bulk of these core members had joined in the late 1940's and early 1950's and over time they were steadily removed from the Society by various factors, among them relocation away from Columbus, loss of interest in astronomy, and in some cases death. In the 1960's there was a consequent decrease in the Society's level of activity. The remaining membership, while not apathetic, was certainly not willing to keep up the furious pace of the 1950's. There were still people willing to run for the elected offices, but there was increasing difficulty in filling the Advisory Board, standing committees, and appointed offices that had carried out so much of the Society's work during the previous ten years. This kind of cycle would repeat itself, with differing frequencies and amplitudes, a number of times in the future: A relative handful of very active members would suddenly appear on the scene and cause a sharp upswing in Society activity, which would then slowly taper off over the years as these members fell away for one reason or another. In an organization of a hundred people, a core group of five or six can make all the difference. The Society's biggest and longest such cycle began in the late 1940's and was petering out in the mid-1960's.
Nevertheless the Society continued to be active in research. Eclipse measurements made by Charles Legg and Roger Cole appeared in an article in the September, 1963 issue of Sky and Telescope (12). The Metropark programs also continued. In January of 1965 a monthly series of constellation programs was begun at Blacklick Woods under the direction of Jane Gann. The Constellation Study Program (CSP) got off to a fast start with the first three talks being blessed with clear skies. They became enormously popular with the public and that fall the Metroparks asked to have them expanded to Darby Creek as well. Gann gave a talk about the CSP to the Astronomical League national convention in August and got her picture in the September Sky and Telescope. In addition, for many years Society members had been giving small star parties or talks on astronomy to local schools and organizations. These activities continued.
In June the Society held a picnic/star party at Borror Observatory. It was the first official Society function at the observatory, although members Charles Legg and Ted Kissel had largely run the place almost since its opening four years earlier. During 1966 the Society became more involved with Borror. Members were heavily solicited for astronomy materials and equipment. A Society-staffed public night was held every Friday, but this impossibly ambitious schedule was later scaled back to the first Friday of each month. A regular column began appearing in The Prime Focus, variously entitled "Borror News" and "Happenings at Borror," that continued almost uninterrupted until the early 1970's. The YMCA was pleased with the operation, and especially with the 25 cents park admission it collected from all park visitors.
Efforts were also made throughout the year to get the Society more deeply involved in occultation observations. A small but active group of members frequently observed from the Moonwatch station, and The Prime Focus began to regularly publish lunar occultation predictions. A particularly spectacular occultation of the bright double star Gamma Virginis was observed from the station on January 3, 1967. Over time much of this occultation observing activity gradually shifted to Borror, and during the 1970's Borror Observatory even became one of the "Standard Stations" used by Sky And Telescope in its occultation predictions.
Later that month Barney Golding took office for an unprecedented third term as president. Not to be outdone, Roger Cole was elected that fall to the first of what would be a string of four consecutive terms, 1968 through 1971.
In 1968 the CSP began flitting about the various Metroparks with the idea of finding a new home. Borror was not considered, probably because Society attendance at the functions there was consistently low. The membership would be harangued about this by the officers on a fairly regular basis over the next ten years, despite the fact that the observatory belonged to the YMCA and the public nights were not official Society events. Attendance at the Society's meetings continued to be good enough, however, to draw professionals as speakers. Programs of this period ranged far and wide, with the OSU Department of Astronomy continuing to provide the majority. But one program, delivered by an OSU professor of the fine arts, dealt with visual perception. Another was given by a grad student from OSU's Institute of Polar Studies, who discussed natural fallout from the aurora borealis. A high point was perhaps reached in September of 1968 when Grote Reber, then doing research at OSU's Big Ear, addressed the Society ("A Hectometer Cosmic Static Study"). The Society continued to stay in good stead with the astronomy staffs at OSU and Ohio Weslyan, with the result that meetings and tours at Perkins and OWU's student observatory continued to be annual events.
In March of 1969 Kevin Kane started what came to be known as the Messier Group, a band of beginning telescope owners who resolved to work their way through the Messier catalog. Regular observing meetings of this group were held at Borror until 1973. The occultation group continued to observe regularly at the Moonwatch station and Borror, and some of the Society's deep sky observers started turning up at Borror as well. A system was set up whereby members could get individual access to Borror through one of several Society keyholders. Harry Balsiger and his farm, where so much observing had taken place during the 1950's, had left the Society years earlier, but observation meetings continued to be held at various Metroparks and at the homes of members (chiefly Roger Cole and Charlie Worch) who lived in outlying areas of Columbus.
In the spring of 1970 a major solar eclipse went through the southeastern United States and a large contingent of members drove to North Carolina to view it. In May the McMillin Lecture was cancelled because a riot was in progress on the OSU campus; Society member and Columbus police officer John Lenihan was injured in the festivities. The following month a splendid transit of Mercury was observed from the Moonwatch station.
Borror Observatory underwent a reorganization. The Society had had de facto control over the operations of the observatory almost from the day it opened, and in March, 1971 this state of affairs was made official when the YMCA and the Society signed a contract splitting the duties of running the facility. The YMCA agreed to maintain the building and grounds, while the Society agreed to organize the public nights and maintain the telescope. Within the Society the Borror Committee was created to carry out these duties. The observatory's original 10-inch reflector, purchased from Charlie Worch ten years earlier, had been damaged by vandals the previous May. It was replaced by a new Celestron 10 donated by Roger Cole. The attendance of members at observatory functions continued to be small, but the place was popular with the public. Public nights during this time were usually run by Roger Cole and on clear nights averaged over 25 visitors.
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