The AAVSO Turns 90

This year marks an important milestone for the AAVSO; our 90th Anniversary! Looking back over the historical records of the AAVSO one finds a wealth of fascinating objects, photographs, and correspondence that help to tell the story of the AAVSO. Mike Saladyga is finding lots of interesting bits of trivia, humor, and the occasional touching sentiment, while working with the AAVSO Archives. We’d like to share some of these here with you. Watch for more in upcoming issues of the Newsletter.

1920 Dec 30, Leon Campbell, writing about the AAVSO to Henry Norris Russell, states: "The vocations of the members are certainly varied. Ministers, students, lawyers, farmers, doctors, teachers, reporters, bankers, and some cranks are included in the ranks."

1922 Feb 8, A sample of a new product, "The Radium Star Map ('It shines at night')" is sent to HCO; HCO returns the sample, objecting "to having the stars connected by the radium compound lines-for aesthetic-not safety, reasons.

1923 AAVSO Recorder Leon Campbell is friends with Hiram Bingham, discoverer of the Macciu Piccu ruins. Campbell was an amateur authority on ancient Peruvian culture, and often gave lectures to social clubs. Campbell spent five years in Peru as part of a research team from Harvard.

Margaret Olmsted of Sunset, Maine
Excerpt from a letter to Margaret W. Mayall, Jan 25, 1960:

I just have to tell you how I enjoy making my little observations-I step out in pajamas and rubber boots and the first thing I notice is the sound of the trumpet buoy down the bay. Then the cool freshness of the air and the unbelievable number of glittering stars and a faint light of dawn coming. Then into the utter stillness punctuated by the buoy signals there comes the wonderful long rising call of a loon that seems like the voice of the Penobscot Bay. Then I pick up Mizar and run down Z UMa by sliding down the handle of the Dipper. Then after I have run in to check the time on the kitchen clock, I run out again and get the last bit of moon crescent and the morning stars in my binoculars. By this time I wonder how I ever saw Z UMa because it and all its companions have fled into the pearly gray light of dawn.

Observing Wit and Wisdom from an Old-Hand, or, How Not to Spend Your Monthly Observing Time, or, At Least Have Fun Doing It!

Expect to do better. Changed over from 8" reflector to 4" refractor and had the eyepiece so low had to get on hands and knees with kink in neck.

There is two queer looking observations in this report. Am leaving them in as some day I may be right and every one else wrong.

Weather interfering. Get out of practice also hard to hold still long enough. Take one observation and then jump around to keep warm. End up by running out of wind.

Seeing was fuzzy on all of these. / Nearly had a visitor the other night. A skunk came by. Quite ripe. We both behaved. / A man here who used to trap and skin them said one could get used to them. Claimed he never caught a cold while working with skunks. I don't believe he could tell when he had a cold.

Have seen quite a number of meteors crossing before I received the [meteor report] form, now only 2.

Worked over the telescope mounting during cold weather and ended up in a heck of a mess. Not good yet. Have to fish around to locate vari[able star]. It was good enough before I rebuilt it.

This is the second month I have missed on observations. / Have not quit. 3,300 ft. elevation here and still can not get thru the clouds. / May clear up some later in the night but the neighbors' dogs get excited and soon I have them from all over the town threatening me.

About observing in below zero temperature. Have built a small addition to the observatory, 5' x 5'. This is insulated and has an electric heater with thermostat and ventilating fan in wall. / Can be quite pleasant at 10 below. The big trouble is getting up courage to step out in observing room for each variable. Takes more time this way but does not let the cold soak thru.

[After describing attempt at making a home-made photometer.] OK to start laughing now. Would make a drawing but had better try it out some more, may end up at the dump.

[One week later....] When sending in last report I enclosed a paper about a type of a photometer had been working on. / Throw it away. Useless.

Who says astronomers lead dull lives? From a diary of a trip to Mt. Wilson Observatory, Pasadena, California August 1910, by Edward C. Pickering Saturday, August 20. My adventures began before the train left. The porters could not tell me in which car was my drawing-room, and in passing from one to the other I got locked between the two cars! As the Pickerings and Mr. Bailey waved me a cheerful farewell they did not know that I was a prisoner, alone in a glass cell, from which I could not escape. Moral: Parlor doors have spring locks.

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