Sky & Telescope - USA (2019-11)

O. M. Mitchel

34 NOVEMBER 2019 • SKY & TELESCOPE

Neither his projector nor the images for it survives, so we

don’t know exactly how they looked. However, eight months

later, Mitchel launched his monthly journal The Sidereal

Messenger, the fi rst U.S. periodical exclusively dedicated to

astronomy. In print from July 1846 through October 1848,

almost every issue of The Sidereal Messenger featured a dra-

matic frontispiece of an astronomical object, half a dozen of

which were drawn at the eyepiece of the Cincinnati telescope.

It’s likely his projected telescopic views were similar.

From all accounts, the emotional impact made by celestial

objects as seen through the nation’s largest telescope was akin

to that felt by the NASA generation on seeing the fi rst spec-

tacular images returned from the Hubble Space Telescope in

the 1990s. Immediately, the Boston organizers invited him to

repeat the course the next month (January 1846). One audi-

ence member invited him to offer a course in Brooklyn, New

York. Mitchel’s brilliant lecturing career was launched.

Over the next decade and a half, Mitchel lectured almost

every winter, ultimately speaking in at least 21 cities in 10

states to audiences of between 1,000 and 4,000 per night

and returning to several cities year after year for repeat visits.

By 1859, he was in such great demand that he offered three

concurrent lecture series at three separate venues around

New York City!

Although his lectures were not easy material, he had a

supreme gift for clarity and simplicity. He led his audiences

through the nebular hypothesis and discussions of the stabil-

ity of the solar system, detailing such complex concepts as

aberration of starlight and nutation. He excited audiences by

updating them on the latest news regarding the discovery of

the new planet Neptune and controversy over the determina-

tion of its orbit. He swept his listeners far out into space on

vivid imaginary journeys through the solar system to the very

edges of our Milky Way, and far back in time to the discover-

ies of ancient naked-eye astronomers.

Through all his lectures, Mitchel, a devout Protestant,

emphasized the sublime glory of God as creator and lord

of the universe — a message that deeply resonated with his

audiences, and that indeed was what he fi rst spoke when he

beheld the crescent Moon at age three from his brother’s

arms. In later years, he also gave entire courses of lectures on

the astronomy of the Bible.

Not only were Mitchel’s lecturing proceeds each winter

enough to support his family and the Cincinnati Observatory

for the rest of the year, but they also permitted him to raise

funds for other causes, including new astronomical obser-

vatories. One such benefi ciary of his efforts was the Dudley

Observatory in Albany, New York, for which he chose the

site and designed the building in 1851–52. In 1859, Mitchel

became Dudley’s second director, moving to Albany in spring

1860 — while still remaining director at Cincinnati. He was

scarcely at Dudley a year, however, when the Confederacy

fi red on the U.S. garrison at Fort Sumter, opening the Civil

War in April 1861.

“Old Stars”

Ever since his days as a West Point cadet, Mitchel yearned to

command an army. In August 1861, Abraham Lincoln offered

him a commission as Brigadier General of Volunteers. In early

1862, his commanding general tasked Mitchel — dubbed by

pNEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR Left: This undated lunar image, which

highlights Montes Apenninus (Apennine Mountains) and Archimedes

Crater (below center), shows the eyepiece fi eld of view through the 11-

inch Merz and Mahler refractor at 500×. In his early lectures, Mitchel

projected a few spectacular telescopic views at the end of his lectures.

Sometime after January 1851, however, he stopped including images

and relied exclusively on the power of the spoken word.

pTHE RINGED PLANET Right: Mitchel’s drawing of Saturn, made

the night of October 13, 1846, shows the planet’s orb and rings, as

well as six of the seven then-known satellites. Mitchel compressed

the proportional positions of the satellites at left, possibly because he

wanted to show as much detail as he could on the planet itself.

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