LOWELL’s 15 cm Refractor in 1892
Japanese here
As LOWELL’s infatuation with the Far East
began to wane, his boyhood interest in astronomy came once more to the
foreground. It was premonitory of the change in direction his career was about
to take that on his last voyage to Japan, in late 1892, he carried with him a
6-inch (15-cm) Clark refractor, which he used to observe Saturn from his Tokyo
residence – Mars being neglected only because it was already past opposition by
that time.
……….William SHEEHAN
A 15 cm Alvan Clark refractor in Tokyo:
The final grand opposition of Mars in the 19th Century occurred on 4
August 1892: The planet was closest to the Earth on 6 August with the maximal
diameter 24.8 arcsecs. The season was about λ=230ﾟLs. Percival LOWELL so missed to
catch the Great Mars observing bus when he made his fourth and final landing at
Yokohama on 23 December 1892 though he carried with him a 15 cm Alvan Clark refractor as described as above by Bill
SHEEHAN in “The Planet Mars – A History
of Observation and Discovery” (The University of Arizona Press,
1996, p103). On 23 December 1892, the angular diameter of the
planet was already down to 8.1 arcsecs (λ=315ﾟLs), and the planet just shined low
near the evening horizon. According to Toshio SATO, LOWELL really set up his Clark
refractor in the garden of his residence at Akasaka, Tokyo, but seemed to
lament the poor seeing at Tokyo
in winter time.
Percival was yet interested in the
Japanese Occultism: He gave a series of lectures in Tokyo to the Asian Society
of Japan in 1893 on the theme (later published as Occult Japan in 1895; the famous book disliked by Lafcadio HEARN, but referred to by William JAMES), and also
visited the Ise Shrine, the most distinguished and
revered out of all Shinto shrines in Japan. On 24 November 1893, Percival LOWELL left for ever
Japan
from Yokohama
on board the Oceanic (having a voyage
record of 13 days, 14 hours and 5 minutes to cross between Yokohama and San Francisco. Retired
however in 1896). The planet Mars was approaching, but its angular
diameter was under 4 arcsecs yet. Mars was bound to be closest to the Earth on 13 October 1894 with the
maximal angular diameter 21.7 arcsecs.
What became of the
15 cm refractor? Early in 1894, LOWELL contacted
with the PICKERING brothers in Harvard about the plan of the Arizona expedition
to look for the suitable observing site (to be also suitable for ladies and not
to be attacked by Indians): W H PICKERING and A E DOUGLASS, the latter once PICKERING’s assistant in Arequipa, Peru, received a leave
of absence from the Harvard Observatory to support Percival from 1 March 1894.
And by the first week of March, DOUGLASS got on board a westbound train
together with the 15 cm Clark refractor as
described by SHEEHAN as follows:
Douglass was sent west in early
March to scout out sites, taking along the 6-inch refractor Lowell had used in Japan. With
this instrument he planed to test the seeing, using a ten-point scale developed
by Pickering at
Arequipa that
was based on the appearance of bright star’s diffraction disk and rings.
Douglass arrived in Tombstone
by March 8 and tested the seeing there, then went on to Tucson, Tempe,
and Phoenix in
southern Arizona
before veering north to Prescott
and Ash Fork. Finally he came to Flagstaff,
on the main Santa Fe
Railroad line to California.
The altitude at this site (7,000ft, or 2,100m) on the Coconino Plateau appealed
to Lowell ……… . Thus Lowell,
on April 16, decided to build the observatory in Flagstaff. (Bill SHEEHAN, op cit page 105).
Also refer to W G HOYT, “Lowell and Mars” (Arizona Univ Press, 1976) on this point (another detailed
description on page 32). See also an interesting description by SHEEHAN (op
cit, p106). LOWELL
and W PICKERING arrived at Flagstaff on 28 May 1894, and they started to observe the
early morning planet Mars from 31 May by the use of a 30 cm refractor, and from
1 June by making use of a 45 cm Brashear refractor, both borrowed from Harvard.
On 1 June 1894, the angular diameter of the planet was still 8.8 arcsecs, and
the season was around λ=215ﾟLs. The planet was at opposition on
20 October (and closest on 13
October 1894 with 21.7 arcsecs as aforementioned).
Where can we then find the
15cm
Clark refractor
at present? This question was raised many years ago by Sho-ichi ITOH, an old astronomical
friend of one of us (MURAKAMI): ITOH visited first the Lowell Observatory in
December 1982 to find that the telescope was nothing but the finder one
attached to the famous 61 cm refractor which was also fashioned by Alvan Graham CLARK. The first photo here shows the cover of
David STRAUSS’s book “PERCIVAL LOWELL – The Culture and Science of a Boston Brahmin” (Harvard Univ
Press, 2001) in which Professor STRAUSS employed an old
photograph which displays the inside of the famous dome at Mars Hill. The photo
really proves a presence of the 15 cm refractor together with Percival LOWELL
himself drawing something at the eyepiece of the 61 cm refractor. The 61 cm Clark refractor was set up in July 1896. In 1896 the
planet was at opposition on 11 December (closest on 4 December with the maximal
diameter 16.7 arcsecs).
Sho ITOH visited again Flagstaff in July 1986,
and also in October 1999. He
recently made a
fourth visit to Mars Hill to produce some pictures inside the dome on 4 or 5
August 2002: The following photographs show here the 15 cm refractor by courtesy of ITOH: Two of the photos clearly
show the refractor was produced in 1892 by Alvan Clark & Sons, and so it was very new when it was brought to
Tokyo. ITOH presented
these photos on the occasion of a Meeting of the Lowell
Society of Japan
held on 31 August 2002
in Kanazawa.
So we should say the 15
cm refractor is a symbolical object that well reflects the transition of LOWELL from a psychical
researcher or a Japanologist to an astronomer or a
Mars observer. According to David STRAUSS, LOWELL already discussed with William PICKERING
about Mars in 1890. Furthermore STRAUSS reports there are kept letters of
LOWELL addressed to Edward PICKERING that were dated 9 September & 7
November 1892, in which LOWELL asked Edward “if he could see the charts and
maps of Mars that his younger brother had drawn.” So LOWELL’s inclination to Mars began around the time. The following
inclusive description of Professor STRAUSS is interesting concerning the
period:
The surviving documents tell us
little about how Percival Lowell reached his decision to collaborate with
William Pickering. It is evident, however, that his plan to visit the Arequipa
stations in Peru in 1893 fell victim to his research on esoteric religion in
Japan. His 1891-92 communications with the Pickerings
reveal a strong interest in investigating the surface of Mars; moreover, on his
way to Japan via Chicago and San Francisco, he had requested and received from
S. W. Burnham, the double star observer, a letter of introduction to E. E.
Barnard of Lick; and Lowell took with him a 6-inch Clark refractor through
which he viewed Saturn at his Tokyo residence. However, Lowell had apparently not decided on his
future course of action by November of 1893, when he wrote Ralph Curtis to urge
an Easter jaunt to Seville
in the following spring.
A Christmas gift of Camille
Flammarion’s La planète mars et ses conditions d’habitabilité was apparently the catalyst for Lowell’s decision to
launch an astronomical expedition. Inside the cover of the book, Lowell wrote “Hurry” in
his own hand, apparently in recognition of the fact that the Martian opposition
was approaching. ….. (David STRAUSS, op cit page 178)
STRAUSS also gives a
detailed description of the delicate relationship between LOWELL and William
PICKERING. As to W PIKERING, see also Chap 15:
The Madman of Mandeville, in “Epic Moon” written by W P SHEEHAN and T
A DOBBINS (Willmann-Bell Inc. 2001).
Before closing, we
would like to express our thanks to Sho-ichi ITOH for
his kind communications about LOWELL’s
15 cm refractor. ITOH works for the Suginami Planetarium, Tokyo.
(M MINAMI and M MURAKAMI, CMO)
Japanese here
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