ACTIONS
1998INTERACTIONS
1998
The Carnegie-Brashear Telescope
by Truman Kohman
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Truman Kohman is emeritus professor of chemistry, having served in that department from 1948 to 1981, specializing in nuclear chemistry and geochemistry. From 1971 to 1990 he taught the Introduction to Astronomy course in the Physics Department. He is now a senior research associate in the Physics Department doing research in instrumentation for X- and g-ray astronomy. He is the faculty advisor for the Astronomy Club. |
In an undated (apparently about 1910) brochure entitled Carnegie Technical Schools Illustrations of the Work and Equipment in the Various Departments there is a photograph of the telescope, reproduced here (Figure A). In the background appears to be the rear wall of the observatory and a slide-off roof. In the Carnegie Technical Schools- General Catalog for 1908-1909 and 1909-1910 it was stated that the telescope and auxiliary equipment were in process of construction. In the 1910-1911 and 1911-1912 editions it was stated that the observatory and telescope were in existence. But the 1912-1913 through 1916-1917 catalogs stated that the observatory was at present dismantled owing to new construction work. According to Professor Emerson Pugh, this was to permit the construction of the Fine Arts Building. Evidently there had been a hill there.
In spite of another article in the same issue of The Tartan mentioned above, stating that the telescope "will later be permanently housed in a splendid stone building, adequately equipped for systematic study of the heavens," the telescope was never remounted on the campus. It was stored in pieces and boxes in various places. Around 1960, Professor Cedric Hesthal of Ohio State University, who had learned about the unutilized telescope from Carnegie Mellon Physics Professor Charles Williamson, arranged for it to be transferred to Ohio State. Hesthal wanted to mount it on the roof of his Physics building, and constructed a number of missing parts, but he was never able to persuade his administration to provide funding. In 1964, pending Hesthal's retirement, at my request the telescope was returned to Carnegie Institute of Technology. Again it was stored in various locations. In 1969 the Carnegie Mellon University Astronomy Club assembled the telescope in the basement of Doherty Hall and in 1970 returned it to storage.
Seeing no prospect of mounting the telescope at what was now Carnegie Mellon University, I persuaded the chairman of the Physics Department, Professor Raymond Sorensen, to donate the telescope to the Amateur Astronomers Association of Pittsburgh, which was constructing an observatory in Deer Lakes Park in the northeast corner of Allegheny County. For several years again it was stored, at the Allegheny Observatory and a member's farm.
Finally, in 1993 members of the AAAP undertook the reconstruction of the telescope (Figure B). Components were cleaned and polished or painted. Many missing parts, especially a tailpiece, a modern clock drive, and a finder scope, were fabricated. A new sliding-roof wing was added to the Association's observatory, now named the Nicholas E. Wagman Observatory, to house it. Members who worked long and hard at the restoration include Bob Schmidt, Wade Barbin, Ken Kobus, Phil Breidenbach, Eric Fischer, Flaccus Stifel and David Smith. The telescope was mounted there and dedicated in 1995 October.
The accompanying photograph, (©David Smith), shows the Brashear 11-inch Refractor in the Wagman Observatory. Over the roof at the right can barely be seen the first telescope at the Wagman Observatory, a 12 1/2-inch reflector loaned by Carnegie Mellon in 1986, and recently replaced by a 20-inch reflector.
