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Astrophysics at Mount Stromlo: the Woolley Era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2016

S. C. B. Gascoigne
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Extract

Mount Stromlo Observatory came into being on 1 January 1924. First known as the Commonwealth Solar Observatory, it was founded primarily for studying the Sun and solar-terrestrial relations, though from the outset it was much concerned with various aspects of geophysics. There was also a stellar programme, but after a promising start this had to be discontinued. The solar-geophysical regime continued, with success, until World War II. The Observatory went through the War with a new director, and at the end of it embarked on a new and unfamiliar course to develop into the fully-fledged astrophysical institute it has become today. This transition marks an important chapter in the history of Australian astronomy: I have tried here to describe some of its aspects, as they seemed to me.

Type
Contributions
Information
Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , 1984 , pp. 597 - 605
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of Australia 1984

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References

Notes and References

Records = Records of the Australian Academy of Sciences

DNB = Dictionary of National Biography

1. Allen, C. W. Records 4, No. 1, p. 27 1978 Google Scholar. This paper gives a detailed first-hand account of the Observatory up to 1939. The Supplement to the Report of the Commonwealth Astronomers, 1950, should also be consulted. It is a history of the Observatory to 1950 and was written by Mrs G. Siminow, PhD, the observatory librarian at the time.

2. See DNB for a biography (by C. W. Allen).

3. See Records 1, No. 3, p. 58 1968 for a biography (by S C B G).

4. A. J. Higgs went to Radiophysics in 1941 and worked there until he retired in 1969.

The Radio Research Board, which operated under the CSIR, was by far the most influential body associated with physics research during the 1920s and 1930s. In a sense it was a direct ancestor of the Radiophysics Division. See White, F. W. G. and Huxley, L. G. H., Records 3, No. 1, p. 7 1975.Google Scholar

6. The committee was Sir David Rivett, Chief Executive Officer of the CSIR, and Prof. O. U. Vonwiller, Professor of Physics at the University of Sydney.

7. For biographies see: Records 2, No. 2, p. 47 1972 (J. H. Piddington and M. L. Oliphant); and Biographical Memoirs of the Royal Society 17, 497-510, 1971 (Sir Harrie Massey). Further information in ‘Oliphant’, Stewart Cockburn and David Axiom, 1981 (Chap 5).

8. Mellor, D. P., ‘Australia in the War of 1939-1945: The Role of Science and Industry’, 1958 Google Scholar. Several chapters are devoted to topics mentioned in this section. I do not know of any account of the optical work at Mt Stromlo in the War.

10. Mellor, , loc. cit., p. 508.Google Scholar

See, for instance, Lovell, A. C. B., Journal of the History of Astronomy 8, 151–183. 1977 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Proc. Roy. Soc. A, 342, 439-586 1975, discussion on ‘The Effect of World War II on the Organisation of Science in the UK’; also, Mellor loc. cit., Chap. 29.

11. See for instance Proc. Astron. Soc. Aust. 4, 268, 1981, where Bowen writes of ‘people I had been involved with in the radar day … men of enormous stature in the American scene’.

12. The four were: Arthur Hogg, who spent the War at the Munitions Supply Laboratories, Marybyrnong; Cla Allen; Jim Banham, workshop foreman; R. W. McNair, Scotsman and clerk.

13. This telescope was a gift from Mr J. H. Reynolds, an engineer and amateur astronomer who served a term as President of the RAS. See Observatory, 70, 30, 1950; MNRAS, 110, 131, 1950.

14. R.v d R. Woolley, Presidential Address to Section A, ANZAAS, Perth 1947.

15. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 111, 315, 1951.

16. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 110, 395, 1950.

17. Allen, C. W. ‘The Physical Conditions of the Solar Corona’, Reports on Progress in Physics 18, 135, 1954.Google Scholar

Woolley, R.v d R., The Masson Lecture, Aust. Journal of Science (supplement) 10, No. 2, Oct. 1947.Google Scholar

18. Allen, C. W. and Gum, C. S., Aust. Journal ofSci. Res. A, 3, 224, 1950.Google Scholar

19. For an appreciation of Cla Allen, see Stibbs, D. W. N., Quart. J. R. Astron. Soc., 14, 311–317, 1973.Google Scholar

20. I have had to decline the Editor’s invitation to say more about the fire, it would take too long. As a start, see the Supplement to the Mt Stromlo Annual Report for 1952.

21. Gum, C. S., Mem. R. Astron. Soc., 67, 155, 1955.Google Scholar

22. Obituary in Quart. J. R. Astron. Soc., 2, 37, 1961 (B. J. Bok).

23. A Mt Stromlo publication; has been out of print for some time.

24. This section includes some material given in a talk to the ASA at Wollongong in 1982.

25. In ‘The Realm of the Nebulae’ Dover p. 133-4 ‘The estimated magnitudes of the [Cloud] clusters have been-revised from time to time. The most recent estimates, though admittedly uncertain, suggest that these clusters are closely comparable with those in M31, but are systematically fainter than globular clusters in the galactic system’.

26. Supplement to the Australian Journal of Science, 17, No. 3, 1954.

27. See Woolley, R.v d R., Records, 1, No. 3, p. 53 1968 Google Scholar; Susan Davies, Records, to be published.

28. Woolley, , loc. cit., p. 54.Google Scholar

29. Hogg, A. R., ‘The Last of the Specula’ Pub. Astron. Soc. Pacific Leaflet No. 364, 1959.Google Scholar

Hogg, A. R., Aust. Journal of Science, 21, 2–5, 1958.Google Scholar

Perdrix, J. L., ‘The Great Melbourne Telescope’, Journal Astron. Soc. Victoria, June 1970, p. 54–67.Google Scholar

30. Made by F. J. Hargreaves, of Pilkington Pyrex.

31. Coombes, H. C., ‘Trial Balance’, McMillan, 1981 p. 199.Google Scholar

32. Woolley, , loc. cit., p. 56.Google Scholar