History of the Mount Diablo Astronomical Society
It was October, 1957. Much excitement had been generated in recent
days by the launching of the Soviet satellite, "Sputnik", which became
the first man-made moon of Earth. The satellite carried a radio
transmitter, cheerfully beaming a 'beep, beep," which you could pick up
with almost any FM radio receiver. Many radio technicians had heard and
recorded the beeps, but few people had as yet observed the satellite and
its accompanying rocket. Satellites in low Earth orbit can only be seen
under twilight conditions, where the sunlit object appears against the
night sky. Conditions didn't favor West Coast observers immediately
after launch; in fact, few sightings were made in America the first week
or so after launch.
The newly formed Mt. Diablo Astronomical Society was prepared to observe
this event. In a vacant lot adjoining the property of Mr. William
Greenwood, in Walnut Creek, was situated one of the official Moonwatch
stations, built and operated by MDAS. A "can-do" bunch of people from
the very beginning, the Society hustled to get their Moonwatch program
underway in time for the International Geophysical Year, which began in
July. Money and materials were donated by local businesses; the Society
members did all the construction, from pouring concrete foundations to
aligning the small 6 x 50 Moonwatch 'scopes on their pedestals. At that
time, Bill Greenwood was the team leader.
This Moonwatch station followed the paradigm of having all observers
located along a north-south line, spaced several feet apart. Each
telescope sat atop a pier or table, and was centered on a mast with
cross-arm which stood in the midpoint of the line of telescopes. The
telescopes had front surface mirrors to bend the light 90 degrees for
the comfort of the observers. Thus, each observer had the same view of
the mast, only each from a different angle. The individual fields of
view made a fan across the sky with a little bit of overlap. The
American-launched satellites were expected to cross west-to-east and
would thus have to cross the fan in the field of somebody's telescope.
When the satellite disappeared behind the mast, the observer was
supposed to yell, "Mark!" into the microphone of a tape recorder; on the
same tape was dubbed a running time signal from a National Bureau of
Standards WWV radio station. The observer was also supposed to note
disappearance of the satellite out of his field of view, and to make a
sketch of the path it made.
Working from the time of "Mark!" and the sketch, the team leader was
able, with a little high school trigonometry, to make out a report
giving altitude of the crossing, time of crossing, and apparent angular
speed. This report was to be telegraphed to the Smithsonian
Astrophysical Observatory as soon as possible; the information was
vitally needed to keep the orbital elements up to date, and make future
predictions of the satellite's whereabouts. Given a sufficiently good
prediction, specially designed Baker-Nunn Cameras would go into action
to capture the satellite on high speed film. The astrometry then
provided sufficient precision to do a really first-rate job on the orbit
computation. All of this done by volunteer labor, sacrificing evening
leisure and early morning sleep.
The original MDAS Moonwatchers’ included Bill Greenwood, the first team
leader, a steamfitter by trade, Carl Carlson, Ted Cordua and his wife
Elaine, Wilson Massey, and Paul Schroth, all PG&E people. Other starters
were Clare Cochran, a chemist for Shell Oil Co., and Don Charles, a
chemist working for C & H. They were soon joined by Jack Borde and Elwyn
Martin. Pleasant Hill High School provided several students under the
leadership of instructor Norman McRae; they were Dennis Pisila, Ted
Beeston, Bart Blakeslee, Larry Shaw. George Hutchison, and Chris Tuft.
Ernie Wilson and David Steinmetz, students at DVC, also became active
Moonwatchers.
Bill Greenwood's team held a number of fruitless observing sessions on
various evenings. The predictions based on radio sightings weren't very
accurate, and, as the Moonwatch people were learning, Moonwatching takes
a hunter's skill and patience. Finally, one morning, several of the team
members, Don Charles for one, spotted the Sputnik rocket naked eye in
the morning twilight. It wasn't long before Bill got his team on the
official record book, but a little quick California ingenuity had to be
exercised. Down came the mast. The telescopes were swung out of their
north-south line to other positions more suitable for tracking the
Soviet satellites with their high orbital inclinations (they tended to
travel in roughly north-south directions, thus you had little chance of
intercepting them with a fan of telescopes oriented north-south).
Eventually, the site was dismantled, and the telescopes sited at the
homes of the more active observers.
Sputnik stirred up some excitement. I was a teenager at the time, and
did a little Moonwatching myself from Randolph Air Force Base, near San
Antonio Texas. Later, in 1959, 1 attended a convention of amateur
astronomers in Denver, Colorado, and there met a number of West Coast
enthusiasts, including some real spark plugs from what was called the
Western Satellite Research Network (WSRM). This group helped coordinate
all West Coast Moonwatch activities (MDAS belonged to it), and worked
under contract to the U.S. Air Force. WSRN also fed their stuff to Leon
Campbell at Smithsonian, but did a. lot of their own reductions. They
didn't just say, "We saw 58 beta at 02:15UT at 47 deg N elevation from
station 121:37 W, 37:48 N." They would have the pure, distilled orbital
elements (height of perigee, inclination, eccentricity... stuff you need
to grind out further predictions). I'm sure the Air Force was grateful.
I think we learned a lot from the Moonwatch program. And Sputnik got the
American space program out of its rut.
It also did a lot for high school physics and math courses. A bit late
for yours truly, but in time to help a few bright lads on to promising
careers in engineering and science. In those days, all a school
principal had to do was whisper, "Sputnik!" Coffer lids would open. Kids
who were sharp on their math weren’t considered nerds then. . .
Speaking of predictions, MDAS started getting into that game also. Don
Charles and Dave Steinmets devised a graphical method for computing
where to look for a satellite. The club also got involved with WSRN,
which often gave more timely predictions than SAO, and enabled the
observers to spend less time searching for satellites. I should also
mention Dr. Art Leonard, an engineering professor from U.C. Davis, who
did a lot of tracking on his own. I think he had a pretty strong
influence on the observing methods of the Mt. Diablo group. Art set up a
transit circle in the attic of his house, and used it for precise
satellite timings, which he submitted to WSRN.
Jack Borde, who has a talent for things mechanical and optical, designed
an eyepiece which would allow several observers to watch with
overlapping fields of view, much like the old Moonwatch fence, only this
time through a telescope of some considerable size. The game progressed
from sighting large objects, such as the Sputnik rocket, to small ones,
such as our own first satellites, or satellites in deep space orbits.
That meant larger instruments, better predictions, and even more
patience.
The MDAS Moonwatch team was ranked in the top ten Moonwatch teams by the
SAO, and was specially commended by the Moonwatch coordinator, Dr. E.H.
Kohn. Four team members: Jack Borde, Don Charles, Clarion Cochran, and
Elwyn Martin, were especially prolific, having averaged some 3500 hours
apiece between 1957 and 1963. Don Charles has continued the tradition
down to the present day, submitting his observations to the North
American Air Defense Command -(NORAD), later reorganized as the Deep
Space Tracking Network (SAO got out of the game after about the mid
'60's). Don and Art Leonard teamed up to find at least one lost
satellite, the second Vanguard satellite to be successfully launched.
Moonwatch was not the only activity pursued by the Society in the early
days: regular meetings of the Astronomical Society were held at Diablo
Valley College, and a well-attended series of public lectures were held,
covering various topics from calculation of comet orbits to
constellation study. As Moonwatch diminished in prominence, other
activities took its place. One activity which was pursued was the
observation of "grazing lunar occultations."
A "graze" occurs when the moon's apparent course in the sky carries its
limb across a fairly bright star. The star will be blocked perhaps by a
mountain, reappear through a lunar valley, and then be blocked again.
This phenomenon may be seen from a narrow path on the Earth's surface
perhaps a mile wide. If a chain of observers with telescopes is set up
along a line perpendicular to this path, different observers will see
different patterns of disappearances and reappearance’s of the star.
Someone too far out on the line will see a "miss”. The observers too far
in towards the moon's shadow will perhaps see only a disappearance and
reappearance. Those in between will observe sometimes a very complex
sequence of flashes of the star as it shines through notches in the
moon's Limb. If all these disappearances and reappearance’s are
carefully recorded, say with a tape recorder together with a time signal
(like the Moonwatch timings), then from our knowledge of the lunar
profile (studied by an astronomer, C.V. Watts), we can pin down the
orientation of the moon in the sky to a tiny traction of a second of arc
(one second of arc = 1 / 1,296,000th of a circle). Better Knowledge of
the moon's position means more refinement of the theory of lunar motion
(which is quite complex), and this can lead (and has lead) to a better
understanding of such things as the future evolution of the moon's
orbit, the amount of drag caused by the Earth's tides, arid so forth.
The king of "grazes" is Dr. David Dunham who was at that time with the
U.S. Naval Observatory. (Dave was a member of MDAS for a short while.)
Dave Dunham, and his wife Joan, send out predictions and recommended
locations for observing these events. It is up to amateur groups like
MDAS to carry out the observations carefully and to report the results
back to Dave, who reduces the data and provides a major scientific input
toward the- refinement of lunar theory. Veteran MDAS observers of
grazing occultations are Robert L. Chew, Jack Borde, Don Charles, Bill
and Jim Carlson, Dan Godell, Lyle Beardsley, Gary Estep, Jeff May, Bob
Kelley, James Buchanan, Jack Kosanke, and Mr. and Mrs. R.S. Landing.
As the sixties expired, many of these active people moved out of the
area, or on to other more pressing responsibilities. The Society can
boast of several of its members turning professional. Dave Steinmetz was
one; he went on to Kitt Peak Observatory. Most of those Pleasant Hill
High School students went on to careers in engineering. I know it
pleases Dennis Pisila to realize that a piece of hardware he designed
flew on the Ranger rocket, which impacted the moon in 1965. Jack Borde
now runs an optical shop at Lawerence Berkeley Laboratories.
As the "old order changeth" so did the fortunes of MDAS. With the loss
of some of the old members, arid the winding down of the Moonwatch
program, membership dropped. The club lost its use of QVC facilities, so
meetings were held at residences of the various club members. Without a
central meeting place for the Society, membership dropped further.
When Roger Griggs and Elmer Bricca discovered the MDAS, the meetings
were being held at the Odd Assortment, owned by Owen Duraen. You have to
bring your own chairs, or sit on crates or old radio chassis. The Odd
Assortment, behind the Post Office in Pacheco, needs to be seen to be
believed. It is a telescope nut's paradise. If you are an electronics
tinkerer, this is also a good place to be. Owen is more than happy to
let you rummage for the day in his life's accumulation of optics and
Electromechanical gizmos. Don't expect a hard sell; you won't get it
from Owen. He'd rather talk about the next telescope maker's convention
at Riverside, or what they observed last week up at Morgan Territory
(one of the last dark sky sites anywhere near t. he Bay Area).
There were about enough club members to fill the posts required by the
constitution. Mew members were generally recruited by Owen, from the
customers that visited his store. There was a distinctive quality about
this handful of people who kept the spark glowing. Like their
predecessors, they liked to observe. They were eager to explore the
heavens. They were skillful in the art of "star hopping" from the
familiar star patterns to the unfamiliar. They could locate faint,
elusive galaxies or trace out the diffuse Network Nebula as it ran its
course along the Milky Way. This sort of work required the dark skies of
Mt. Diablo, Black Diamond Regional Park, or the Morgan Territory Land
Bank near Livermore.
Visual astronomy is akin to bird watching. First there is a matter of
luck: good weather, steady atmosphere, and finding a dark enough site.
The rare bird you seek requires some skillful matching of stars on the
chart with those in the eyepiece, which are apt to be rotated into a
strange-looking configuration. There are stars on the sky that don't
show up on the chart; sometimes the eye makes out patterns that don't
resemble those on the chart. Finally, it takes a trained eye to glance
to one side (letting the rods in the retina do the looking) to bring out
faint, wispy details. A glimpse of a distant galaxy is awesome when you
reflect on the enormous distance at which it lies. Tracing out the
delicate features of a gaseous nebula reveals a beauty that can only
compare to that of an elusive, unusual bird. You learn to tune out the
discomforts of a winter's night. It helps to observe with a group of
like-minded folks, at a "star party. " "Hey, I've got M51 in my
eight-incher!" announces one person. Everyone drops by the get a glimpse
of the spiral galaxy with its faint companion. "Come over and take a
look at M57 in mine," says someone else. M57 looks like a perfect smoke
ring; it is the atmosphere shed by an aging star, and then lighted by
the intense blue and ultraviolet radiation from its dying core. If you
observe by yourself you can perhaps view several such objects in an
hour; if you observe in a group, many more can be seen, since you share
the business of locating things and finding the suitable eyepiece and
filter for showing them to advantage.
Don Charles stayed with the Society during this period. in the
mid—seventies, Jack Borde again became active, and took over the
frequent hosting of meetings at his home. His wife, Judy, took over the
mailing of newsletters, and the Bordes frequently hosted meetings at
their home, which sported a backyard observatory with an unusual
telescope built by Jack (an Art Leonard design). Dr. Walter Carr, Judson
Kern, Craig Gundy, Dan Holden, Linda and Ray Bryant, were some of the
folks active in MDAS at this time. In 1978, an old member, Dennis Pisila,
took over the Society newsletter, and that lively one—page bulletin has
helped get out the word and stir up interest ever since.
Roger Griggs, Charles O'Bryan, Steven Pittman, Jon Wilson, Randy
Cunningham, Elmer Bricca, Walter Carr, Jack Borde, Owen Durden, and Don
Charles were prominent in the Society during the late seventies and
early eighties. They were soon joined by Ron Wagner, LeRoy Wiens. Glen
Rickerd, and Mike Harms. The Society started heading in a somewhat
different direction: public education. Public star parties were given at
Black Diamond Regional Park, Yosemite. and even downtown Concord. The
response was gratifying. It is astounding to see how many folks out
there have never had the pleasure of looking at Saturn through a
telescope and seeing the rings, the Cassini division, the cloud bands,
and satellites. The moon with its rugged face is always a crowd stopper,
and Jupiter a sell-out. MDAS membership started growing. A permanent
meeting place was located: Citicorp Bank graciously consented to allow
the Society the use of its. board room in the Tice Valley Road building
in Walnut Creek, which is still the meeting place to this day. There you
can find us every second Tuesday of the month at 7:50 pm.
It was there where I caught up with the Society a few years ago.I
desperately needed help with the Mt. Diablo park programs. It had also
suggested to Rich Gililland, then Supervising Ranger at the Park, and
Bob Hare, with the California Department of Parks and Recreation in
Sacramento, that perhaps a small observatory could be constructed on the
Mountain. It got favorable mention in the draft Interpretive Prospectus
for the Mt. Diablo General Plan. Perhaps the Society would be interested
in this project as well. I joined MDAS in 1985.
Soon thereafter arrived the Comet. Comet Halley captured the imagination
of the public, and made demands upon our fledgling interpretive program.
The Society was pressed into service giving public shows on the
Mountain; they responded enthusiastically to this; the only
uncooperative element in the plan was the weather, which managed to ruin
most of our observing sessions. We had a couple of good nights in
December 1985, with a public attendance totaling over 200 people (in
fact, the Park Rangers were forced to limit the crowd to. this number
because of parking problems). We had one other program, hastily put
together out at Mitchell Canyon. It rained cats and dogs, but we had a
crowd of 75 standing out there getting wet, in hopes of seeing Halley.
Some got discouraged and left, but at about 6:30 in the evening the
skies suddenly cleared, and we got in some excellent views of the Comet
before it set in the evening sky. Halley was rapidly approaching
perihelion, and had just sprouted a faint trace of a tail.
I'd like to take the credit for re-introducing the Society to the
Mountain, but probably Halley deserves it more than I. We entered upon
an informal agreement with the Park to provide monthly star programs
during good weather; the Park allowed MDAS members access to Pioneer
Campground; the Society thus came home to the Mountain for which it is
named.
Jerry Hudson