canopus@amdahl.UUCP (Frank M. Dibbell, III ) (10/16/86)
I apologize for being a bit late this month...
OCTOBER ASTRONOMICAL ANNIVERSARIES
Oct 1, 1962: The 300 foot radio telescope at Green Bank, West Virginia
becomes operational.
Oct 3, 1911: The "Earth-grazing" asteroid 719 Albert discovered by J.
Palisa at Vienna Observatory. It was lost after a few days
Oct 4, 1957: Russia orbits the first artificial satellite, Sputnik.
Oct 9, 1933: A great meteor shower with recorded rates of up to 350
meteors per minute was observed coming from a radiant
in the constellation Draco.
Oct 10, 1846: Neptune's larger satellite Triton discovered by English
amateur astronomer William Lassell.
Oct 11, 1758: H. W. M. Olbers, German amateur who made many observations,
cometary and asteroid orbit calculations, and discoveries,
was born.
Oct 11, 1852: The first verified case of a nebula that varies in
brightness (NGC1555, associated with the star T Tauri)
was found by J. R. Hind of London.
Oct 15, 1608: Evangelista Torricelli "discovered" outer space. He
accomplished this by inventing the mercury barometer, which
which he used to calculate the height of the atmosphere.
Oct 17, 1963: Saturn's shadow eclipsed its outer satellite Iapetus.
Oct 19, 1859: The faint diffuse nebula surrounding Merope in the Pleiades
discovered by Wilhelm Tempel.
Oct 19, 1955: Eugene J. Delporte died at the age of 73. He drew up the
internationally adopted constellation boundaries for the
northern half of the heavens.
Oct 21, 1914: Adam Massinger, a Heidelberg astronomer who specialized
in photographing galaxies, nebulae, and star clusters,
died in battle at Ypres.
Oct 22, 2137BC: First recorded solar eclipse, in China.
Oct 22, 1942: Vienna selenographer Karl Muller died. He was an expert
on lunar history and nomenclature, and co-authored the
IAU atlas of the moon (1935).
Oct 24, 1851: William Lassell discovered two inner satellites of the
planet Uranus: Ariel and Umbriel.
Oct 28, 1959: Walther Bauersfeld, inventor of the first modern projection
planetarium, died at the age of 80. He was the chairman
of the board of directors of Carl Zeiss, Oberkochen, West
Germany.
Oct 29, 1937: K. Reinmuth discovered the unusual asteroid Hermes. Two
days later, the asteroid passed within a half a million
miles of Earth. At closest approach, Hermes appeared
like an 8th magnitude star moving 5 degrees per hour.
Oct 29, 1951: Robert G. Aitken, discoverer of over 3,100 visual double
stars, died.
Oct 31, 1961: The Governor-General of Australia officially commissioned
the 210 foot radio telescope at Parkes, New South Wales.
--
Frank M. Dibbell III (408-746-6493) ...!{ihnp4,cbosgd,sun}!amdahl!canopus
Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA [This is the obligatory disclaimer..]