Astronomy for the beclouded astronomer

ozens of times a year, large, warm, wet masses of air would drift in from the Pacific and slide up and over a barrier of cool, dry continental air, forming thick clouds over central British Columbia. They could last for days or even weeks, but this very amateur astronomer didn't stop enjoying astronomy.

One cloudy night while I was working with my Ireland stamp collection in my home in Prince George, I ran across a stamp commemorating Dunsink Observatory in Dublin. I had never heard of Dunsink, much less the Dunsink Observatory, but the stamp made me wonder if there were there other stamps with astronomical themes. A quick check of the Scott stamp catalog confirmed the existence of hundreds!

Among the best-known observatories in the world — now overshadowed by newer high-tech facilities — is California's Palomar Observatory.

The "Kropp Natural Color Card" at the left was published before the completion of the observatory at Palomar. The telescope's 200-inch mirror lens, at the time the largest in the world, was made by Corning Glass in Corning, New York.

At the right, a stamp commemorating the dedication of the Palomar Observatory on August 30, 1948.

Not only are observatories the subject of stamps, but so are telescopes, astronomers, stars, constellations, the sun and solar system, eclipses, aurora, the Moon, comets, galaxies, clusters, nebulae, and astrological mythology.

Since that night, I have obtained a small but attractive collection that I call "Stars on Stamps." Many of the stamps are beautiful, and most are inexpensive since they are modern issues: relatively few stamps featured astronomical themes until the 1950's.

The philatelic cover below is franked with the first-ever pictorial set featuring astronomical images — "astrophotos". Previous astronomy-themed stamps featured paintings or drawings of celestial objects, usually constellations. The stamps were issued by Mexico to commemorate the 1942 Astrophysics Congress and the inauguration of an observatory at Tonanzintla.

The stamps on the cover, from top left, feature:

• a total solar eclipse
  
  
• a Russell Diagram
  
  
• the Horsehead Nebula
  
  
• the Sombrero Galaxy
  
  
• the Whirlpool Galaxy
  
  
• the Ring Nebula

Many stamps have been issued to celebrate one of the most notable of recurrent astronomical events in earth's history, the periodic return of Halley's Comet. This set of British stamps was issued in 1986, the last year that Halley's returned to earth's skies in its long, eccentric orbit about the sun. That long-heralded visit turned out to be a bust. The comet's tail, celebrated in former times, was scarcely visible. Later 20th Century Comets, notably Hale-Bopp, were far more spectacular.

With the revolution in digital imaging and the launching of satellites and space probes, astronomy has taken giant leaps in its understanding of the Universe. The images obtained by the Hubbel Space Telescope have opened earthbound eyes to sights that we never suspected. The U.S. Hubbel Telescope issue of 2000 celebrates some of its incredible images. Click on the following image for a look at the souvenir sheet featuring these stamps:

My collection has taught me much, and not just about astronomy! For example, the 1769 solar transit of Venus, commemorated on an issue of Norfolk Island, took me to my library, which contains a tattered but interesting book, A Narrative of the Voyages Around the World, Performed by Captain Cook, published in 1853.

I learned that James Cook and the scientists in the expedition observed a "dusky cloud" around Venus, which made it difficult to establish the times of contact. While they were observing the transit, sailors stole "spike-nails" to trade to the natives. To native women, specifically. One thief received two dozen lashes, a vicious punishment which could disable a man for days.

From the two Danish stamps shown at the left, I learned about Tycho Brahe's discovery in 1573 of a supernova in the constellation Cassiopeia; the supernova, an explosion of a star, is shown as a white star at the top of the stamp at the far left. Brahe himself is shown on the other stamp.

Brahe's discovery contradicted the Aristotle's theory of the immutability of the heavens , and pre-dated by decades Galileo's discovery that the planets orbited the sun, thus proving that the earth was not the centre of the Universe.

Only in the 1960s, scientists working with a telescopes at Palomar Mountain discovered the remnants of Brahe's supernova (the small, red object in the upper left of the image at right). The supernova has since been confirmed as a Type Ia, in which a white dwarf star accretes matter from a companion until it reaches the Chandrasekhar Limit* and explodes. A shell of gas is still expanding from its centre at about 9,000 km/s.

No less fascinating than astronomy itself are the biographies of the astronomers. I learned this oddball fact about Brahe: He wore a silver nose after his own flesh-and-blood nose was sliced off in a duel!

Among the most attractive of astronomy topicals are those illustrating the constellations, those bright stars that seem to earthbound cultures to represent particular shapes, often representative of mythological beings. The stamps illustrated were issued by Tristan da Cunha, an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean; note that the stamp on the far right shows the Southern Cross, a constellation that cannot be seen from most of the northern hemisphere:

I no longer live in Prince George, but in Vancouver, where clouds and smog often prevent visual astronomy. Even on clear nights, serious light pollution obscures all but the brightest objects in the sky. But my "Stars on Stamps" collection still allows me to continue my voyage of discovery through the Universe.