Brown offers look at 400 years of astronomy
1:54 PM Thu, Oct 15, 2009 | Permalink
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PROVIDENCE, R.I. --This is the International Year of Astronomy, coming 400 years after the first telescope observations by Galileo, and Brown University is celebrating the event with an exhibit of venerable equipment and images. "Beyond the Moon: 400 Years of Astronomical Observation" is offered by the Brown Library and the Brown Department of Physics, and the Ladd Observatory. The exhibit displays texts and images dating from the early 17th Century drawn from the Brown Library's science collections, historical records of the Ladd Observatory, and a range of astronomical instruments of the 18th century to the present day used for observation by Brown astronomers. The exhibit, curated by scholarly resources librarians Holly Snyder and Lee Pedersen, will be on display in the Main Gallery and lobby of the John Hay Library at 20 Prospect St. through Oct. 31, 2009. Visitors can see texts and images that trace the development of the telescope and its implications for understanding the universe - ranging from Galileo's 1610 "Siderus Nuncius," with notations in Galileo's hand. The work includes his firsthand observations of the moon and Jupiter using a telescope he constructed himself after learning about the new invention.
Also included are images that represent current work by Brown physics Professors Greg Tucker and Ian Dell'Antonio, made possible by significant improvements in telescope technology in recent decades. Dell'Antonio's research focuses on observational cosmology, the experimental measurement of the fundamental properties of the universe, while Tucker studies the early universe by measuring the cosmic microwave background and by looking at the very earliest galaxies formed. The display also will offer the Gregorian telescope used by Brown astronomer Benjamin West to observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the face of the sun, according to Michael Umbricht, a staff member at the Ladd Observatory. Other instruments include a spectroscope and micrometer used with the Ladd refractor from 1891, and the Schmidt camera used by the late Charles Smiley, a legendary professor of astronomy at Brown who observed many solar eclipses in the 20th Century. The exhibit enables the Brown University Library to participate in the International Year of Astronomy 2009, which was launched by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The IAU and UNESCO have encouraged events and celebrations worldwide to promote astronomy. More about the Ladd Observatory can be found at: http://brown.edu/Departments/Physics/Ladd/index.html 
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This sounds very interesting but stand by for the links to slavery, Columbus, and the word "plantation". As tenuous as this seems, some bozo over there will link those things to Copernicus, Galileo, and Tyco.
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