South Carolina State Museum (SCSM)!

The highlight of nearly any trip to Columbia, South Carolina has got to be a stop at the State Museum. My first time there in 1990, it was a newly-opened facility, open 2 years (1988) in a converted century-old textile mill. It is an amazing place, covering all aspects of SC history, the sciences, and one of my main interests, a new observatory with a century-old telescope! One of my last trips there, they had a major part of the museum under construction building the observatory seen above the roofline at left.

Immediately seen as you enter the building is the tripod upon which the telescope sits up on the 4th floor. Shown at right, most likely don't know what it is, but note that the tripod that insulates the telescopes from building vibrations is even incorporated into the new emblem of the SCSM - note the embroidered patch and name tag on the inset!

Just past the ticket desk is a store that sells everything South Carolina! Being that it was just before Christmas for my visit, there was lots of cutsie gifts for those that have everything - like the kitchen towels that say Jingle y'all and the like (Left).

There is lots of symbolism in the SC flag and it appears on most everything from flip flops to glasses, including the silver bowl shown at right... Carolinians take their history seriously and there is quite the history section in their books for sale. They continue to relive the "War of Northern Aggression", and the second largest section is likely cooking books! I asked one of the young sales clerks what I couldn't live without (I just wanted to hear her delightful southern-belle accent), and she steered me towards the chocolate-covered caramel popcorn. But while her accent was adorable, was able to turn down the treats!

Just across from the store in the entryway
was the "Palmetto Gate", featuring the craft of Philip Simmons, a blacksmith-turned-artist in the Charleston area. Wrought iron work like this is very popular, adding to the allure of older neighborhoods in that city. This work was custom designed for the museum by Simmons. It shows incredible craftsmanship and details in the gate highlights - details shown at right...




There were a couple of commissioned artworks from local artists - using some unusual media! Shown at left is the detail of a portrait by Molly B. Right - in bottle caps on wood! Only when you back up and see the whole piece do you see it is the scientist Albert Einstein!  This was made for a 2014 exhibit "Building a Universe".







With a rotating set of exhibits, there is always something new to see. In fact, on one out-of-the-way hallway, there was a wall filled with posters of the various exhibits over the 30 years of the museum. I think it was in that same hallway that I found some new displays using old photos showing the transformation to century-old textile mill to state-of-art museum...





But the main reason I was there was that it was a Tuesday, and on Tuesdays (weather permitting) the observatory was open for public viewing! It isn't often one gets to observe through a century-old 12" telescope from the classic Alvan Clark and Sons manufacturers! And unlike Lowell Observatory and their classic 24", where I asked to focus a fuzzy image and told "NO", these guys not only told me to focus, and gave me the controller to "drive around" the moon! At left our telescope operator lines up on a gibbous moon as twilight approaches.

A little later as it got darker, we all gravitated to an outer deck where an additional Dobsonian could be set up, as well as spot city lights of Columbia a couple miles to the east. Also as part of the observatory expansion was increased display area for the Bob Ariail antique Telescope collection. I alternated with touring the collection of Clark and other manufacturers from the 1700s and 1800s, with walking out into the dome for fine views of the moon and tiny disk of Mars at 400X.

Finally I got my fill, and I had family to visit on my first night in Columbia, so headed out. Interestingly I saw that you could rent the museum and even the telescope for private events! I loved that they had a photo of a bride fondling the nearly century-old Clark telescope! It makes such a wonderful groom!

Finally out in the parking lot, I looked back at the observatory and could barely make out the shape of the telescope and observers inside the dome, so was worth trying to get a photo from outside. Shown at right the ghostly scope can be seen thru the windows out to the patio,

In short, if you get to Columbia, in fact, anywhere in the state, it is worth your while to head down to spend the better part of a day at the State Museum. It will likely always be a destination when I'm in town!

The Weekend - Antique Telescopes and Optics

One of the reasons to head off to Columbia, SC this last weekend was that friend Roger Ceragioli had an invitation to do analysis of telescope objectives, some of which approached 2 centuries old. Roger is a bit of an expert when it comes to antique telescopes as well as an expert optician, and there may be some interest in publishing research based partly on some of the examples that are housed in Columbia and environs.

The local telescopes of interest belong to Bob Ariail, who has bequeathed part of his collection to the State Museum there in Columbia. The museum itself is quite the gem. Built into a huge century-old cotton mill 20-some years ago, it is South Carolina's premier display of historical and scientific artifacts, as well as a showcase for traveling exhibits. It really is quite easy to spend a day there. Bob's telescope collection is quite extensive and evidently it is the aim of the museum to be a center of historical research in this area.

Besides the standard permanent display this weekend, they also had a traveling exhibit of working models of some of da Vinci's machines taken from his sketches, and a temporary display of movie artifacts and trivia of films made in South Carolina. They also had an ongoing celebration of the 20th anniversary of their opening with a harvest festival featuring crafts from local artisans, a stage with dancers, music and storytellers, and a "pig pickin'" bar-b-que. So besides visiting family and everything else going on, I really didn't pay much attention to Roger and his efforts, though we stopped and visited once or twice.

This was one of the store rooms far from the public area where some of the telescopes were stored and the location picked for Roger to do his work. You can see several examples of the standard brass-tubed telescope, most dating to the mid-19th century. My favorites, the long binocular-looking telescope, is newer - only about 100 years old, but are made by Zeiss and represent state of the art of the time, which all these scopes do, really.

Here, Bob Ariail (left) and Roger (right)examine a telescope objective, including a set of original eyepieces. Looking on at center is Tom Falvey, staffer at the State Museum, and primary archivist of these telescopes. All of these telescope lenses are actually doublets - two lenses of different glass types were put together with different curves to correct color errors inherent in most lenses. In those days, glass varieties were very limited, so some of the designs used to give good images are of much interest to collectors and fans of these instruments.

Here, Roger disassembles the lens components. He first uses a tester to examine the color correction of the assembled lens, then measures the curvatures, dimensions and accurate weights of the lenses to better estimate glass types and characteristics.

With the lenses now apart, they can be measured. In this one, the lenses were spaced by postage stamps that look to be from the 1960s or '70s, evidence that the lenses were at least disassembled and possibly worked on in that era. Roger admits that working with the crowd around him and with the wealth of examples, he didn't get as far as he wanted this trip. I suspect there is enough interest and further samples of telescopes to schedule him for a return visit.

The Telescope Maker's Art

I'm way behind on posting.  This one is from way back in April from our trip to Columbia, South Carolina.  Besides the primary reason to go to visit my mother-in-law Betty, another was that I had heard from her that they had a display of antique telescopes from the collection of local amateur astronomer and collector Bob Ariail.  We actually posted about Bob, and the early stages of that optics collection a few years back, when we last travelled there with friend Roger Ceragioli.  Shown here at left are 2 placards of introduction to the display.

The South Carolina State Museum is an amazing place.  It is located in a 120 year old textile mill, the first mill to be fully electrically powered at the time.  It is a huge space, 4 floors of displays and artifacts of art, history, science and technology.  There are visiting and always changing exhibits - they were about a week away from opening a "Titanic" artifact exhibition, and when we were there last time there was a major Napoleon display.  The Bob Ariail exhibit is the first part of a major expansion of the museum for a planetarium and observatory, which will feature an Alvin Clark 12 3/8" refractor as it's centerpiece - also donated by Bob, I believe. 

Besides the on-site display, there is also a digital version that can be accessed on line for those of you who cannot travel there in person.  The exhibit was spacious and displayed a good variety of telescopes from the last two and a half centuries.  Interestingly, the collection includes a 12.5" reflecting telescope that Bob himself made 35 years ago and used for making over 10,000 estimates of variable star brightnesses for the AAVSO.  While Bob's own telescope was made by his own hand of plywood, the antique telescopes from the 1700s into the 1900s were made by true artists in the materials of the day - fine brass, chrome and wood.  It was amazing to see the craftsmanship of these devices - my only regret is that we were not able to look through them.  Perhaps in the expansion project they will figure out a way to allow such intimate contact with these historical artifacts.

I'm a big fan of giant binoculars, owning a not-so-antique pair of 20X120 Japanese battleship binoculars now approaching 70 years old.  I was amazed to find not one, but two pair of Zeiss instruments from a couple decades earlier.  I was also amazed to see an illustration of one of these at the Grand Canyon at Kolb Brother's Studio, where they still sit objectives pointing down dejectedly, eyepieces missing.  I didn't have a clue they were Zeiss, but the illustration seems to support it (seen in the background in the image at left). The pair seemed a natural for a stereo pair also, so have included it at right.  These are a "cross-eyed" viewing pair - click to enlarge, then cross your eyes slightly to view the right image with your right eye and vice-versa.  There will be a center image that will display the stereo effect.

Shown here also are some of the earliest achromatic telescopes - two-lens objectives of differing glasses that correct chromatic aberrations of singlet lenses.  At left the image shows a Dollond telescope from 1780.  From about the same time period at right is a Gregorian reflecting telescope from 1760.  The reflecting telescopes didn't have the color error of the early refractors, but were difficult to make well because of speculum mirrors and small diameters available at the time.

As someone associated with optics and astronomy the display was doubly interesting to me, but the wide variety of the instruments even kept Betty and Melinda interested while I hung around taking picture after picture...  But as I mentioned earlier, the craftsmanship really stood out - the engraving and attention to detail was amazing.  If we could only look at a distant horizon scene and watch the troops of Sherman approach...  Oops - that is a different section of the State Museum!

Road Trip!

No sooner did I arrive at "Ketelsen East" that things fell in place for me to hit the road again for road trip to the east coast! Last Spring I visited Betty, my mother-in-law in South Carolina, and another friend in Virginia. This time, I ordered some telescope parts from a manufacturer in North Carolina, and shipping was going to be $320 to Arizona! That would pay for a lot of gas, so repeated last Spring's trip with a side stop near Raleigh, NC. The call from Raleigh came right after landing in Illinois, so pretty much hit the road 2 days later!


First up was a visit with Betty - at 94 you want to take every opportunity to visit, but I'm convinced that she is going to outlive us all! She is doing a daily exercise class! Not that she NEEDS to exercise, but seems more of a social thing for her and to get her out of the house as a friend picks her up. At left she is shown in front of her Christmas tree. I ended up staying 3 nights, visiting, doing a little shopping and generally hanging out!

On Tuesday, the afternoon I arrived, I happened to check to see what nights the State Museum was open for telescope viewing. Turns out it was Tuesday, and it was clear enough that they were going to be open! Centerpiece of the Bob Ariel antique telescope collection is the observatory built around the Clark 12 3/8" refractor telescope. Shown at right, it is a very nice facility - shown here is a young astronomer on the step ladder with dad behind him, observing the planet Mars. Look here in a few days for a post about the State Museum...


Eventually I pointed the car north and headed towards North Carolina. Interestingly, most of the central - to south sides of both the Carolinas are pretty flat, but rarely do you get a view out from the interstate system! They have trees growing along both sides and between the roads too! You can get a peek when in the northern areas where it is hillier or downright mountainous, but strange they have planted trees along hundreds of miles of roads, assumingly to minimize road noise for locals...




Thanks to my maps app on my iPhone, navigation was easy and I followed directions to the home of the head of Parallax Instruments, Joe Nastasi, outside of Raleigh. He had rolled an aluminum tube out of sheet, then welded it, and painted the interior black. While you can get commercial tubing to 12", I needed 16" tubing for this project! He then made the rings that hold the tube firmly to the telescope mounting. It was the high price of shipping the bulky tube that motivated the trip. I wished I'd had a chance to see his main shop, but wasn't possible that day. Shown here is Joe carrying the tube to my car at left and besides the rings at right. The tube is for a new project - a 14.25" mirror that also made up the trip from Tucson with me and is getting coated while I'm here to bring back. It will go on my AP 1200 mount and mostly anticipated to do astronomical imaging with a focal length of 1300mm and a speed of F/3.6.


After visiting Joe's place briefly, the goal was to find my way to friend Elaine's place in Virginia before dark! On the last weekday before Christmas, the roads got busier and more crowded as the weather turned worse as well. Heading up the mountains of northern North Carolina and Virginia the cold rain started, and literally it turned to snow just a few miles from Elaine's!

I seem to have known Elaine forever - she started coming to the Grand Canyon Star Party last century, and she was a friendly smile there for many years. Her beloved husband Tommy died a couple years ago, and she has been staying closer to home in recent years. In the Spring she was recovering from a broken leg in a wheelchair - she looks much more normal moving about afoot! One of our excursions took us to Tommy's gravesite where there was a pretty view of snow-or-frost covered trees to the north, shown at right.

Mostly we hung out at their beautiful home located in the foothills or rolling hills near local mountains. She organized a pasta dinner for me to meet some of the local amateur astronomers to eat and talk shop, and also gave the chance to sing carols around her Christmas tree! And of course, out there in the country we also watched for the local white tail deer population and see who came to the bird feeders. The photos at left and right show a panorama of late afternoon light at left, and a bit later, some nice colors as sunset came... Some of the highest mountains in the state are just a few miles to the south shown here. Also, below at left is a view of the mountains just north of Elaine's house showing the snow/frost covered trees from her front yard.


Finally Sunday arrived and it was time to transition back to "Ketelsen East" again. At 650 miles from Elaine's it is a long, but doable drive in one day. For some reason, the maps app took me on a northerly route and for the first time that I know of got to travel in West Virginia! Mostly interstate all the way, there were still surprising vistas of multi-lane highways going thru tunnels in mountains, and the wide valley of the Ohio River. Finally through north central Indiana I crossed a huge windmill farm (hundreds!) just before sunset. Even after stopping at the store for groceries, I was home before 9pm. It was nice to get out from behind the wheel! More soon, I promise!

Binocular Overdose!

Today was day 2 of the Binocular History Society meeting, held at the home of local collector Steve, up on the far NE side of Tucson, nestled between the Catalina Mountains to the north and the Rincon Mountains to the east.  It was a longish drive from the central part of town, so we missed part of the "swap meet", and the official picture of the day from our buddy Dick Buchroeder who supplied the shot at left.  There are a few people from Tucson, but there are a number from Phoenix, one from Iowa and Washington State as well. 

 

Our host Steve has an incredible collection, and most of it is still in storage in Washington, as he continues his relocation to Tucson.  Highlights included some aged big Zeiss binoculars, or perhaps better referred to as double telescopes!  Now I've seen these before - in fact, posted about them!  They were in the collection of the State Museum in Columbia, South Carolina, donated by Bob Ariail a few years back.  Of course, it is always better to look THROUGH them rather than AT them, so it was great to have a chance to do so.  While these I think are smaller than the 130mm in the above museum link, they are quite good - difficult to believe they are approaching 100 years old!  The weird-looking assembly in the rear is actually a turret eyepiece, allowing you to change the eyepiece, thus the magnification to 3 different powers.  It was great to sit in a chair, use the nice controls to scan across the landscape, and change the magnification at will - the device worked absolutely perfectly and the optical quality was excellent.

 

 

These binoculars are also Zeiss, but I think they are a little older.  They also have turret eyepieces, and can vary the magnification from 23X, 45X or 100X - yes, 100 power!  Again, the optical quality and collimation was good, but the clarity wasn't quite as good as the pair above.  High power was pushing it, but the low powers were quite good...

 

 

It wasn't all play, though...  We were invited to bring in some of our favorite binoculars to compare to other's favorites and there were some very good performers.  Comparisons were non-trivial, there were a number of criteria we needed to rate, including resolution, contrast, ability to use glasses, those sorts of things.  It is difficult, perhaps not even fair to compare modern binocs to older uncoated models, so most of these were from the last couple decades, most of very high quality.  There were many of Zeiss and Nikon manufacture, but a number that were new to me.  Results will be compiled overnight and reported tomorrow morning... 

 

 

One big surprise was presented to me later in the afternoon as it was passed around the group.  Though of unmarked manufacture, they were supposedly Zeiss, manufactured for the German war effort under the code name blc, highly prized by u-boat commanders (M.S.S. supposedly stands for Marine Signal Station).  They were quite stunning visually, with enough eye relief to allow my glasses, low distortion and very high acuity.  They have the reputation as the "best handheld military binocular ever made!"  And yes, they have the Nazi swastika stamped on the right side...  From my Internet research tonight they are quite rare, but I'd love to try them out under a dark sky sometime!

 

 

The last item of this post is a device I'd never seen or heard about before - but Steve had 2 in his garage!  This was a multiple-position fire control sight.  This one had 3 pairs of objectives and observing positions, one behind/below, the others on the right and left side.  The optics were quite exceptional in quality, and supposedly were used on German cruisers to control anti-aircraft or canon fire.  I'm not sure what the redundant sights get you - perhaps I'll learn more tomorrow as there is a talk on "Fire Direction Optics", though it covers the Japanese Navy...  I've been spoiled by my limited binocular exposure, but I sure learned a lot today as I got to use all of the varied units presented.  After thinking about what I've seen, I'll have to ask more questions tomorrow - my last chance this meeting!