Contents
Introduction
Part One
1. Early Stargazers: The Mound Builders
2. Observatory Founders: Washburn, Woodman, and Bascom
3. Washburn’s First Telescope: The Clark 15.6-Inch Refractor
4. Washburn’s First Astronomer: James Watson
5. The Versatile Student Observatory
6. Chasing Vulcan: The Watson Solar Observatory
7. Washburn’s Second Director: Edward Holden
8. Washburn’s First Researcher: Sherburne Burnham
Spotlight: The Observatory’s First Photograph, 1881
9. The Forgotten Telescope: The Repsold 4.8-Inch Meridian Circle
10. Early Computers of the Human Kind
11. Selling Time: The Washburn Observatory’s Time Service
12. Keeping the Observatory Running: Alice Lamb and Milton Updegraff
13. Continuity Comes to Washburn Observatory: George Cary Comstock
14. Filar Micrometers: The Essential Tool of the Astronomy of Precision
15. Wisconsin Innovation in the Old Astronomy
16. Diary of an Astronomy Student: Sidney Townley
17. Training Astronomers: The Personal Equation Machine
Part Two
18. Pioneer of Astrophysics: Joel Stebbins
Spotlight: Hosting the Nation’s Astronomers
19. The Essential Absence: Jakob Kunz
20. The Steadfast Right-Hand Man: Charles Morse Huffer
21. A New Generation in Astronomical Photometry: Albert Whitford
22. Four Generations of Photometers
23. Mechanical Upgrades: Remounting Washburn’s Telescopes
24. Exploring Star Systems of Eclipsing Binaries
25. Eclipse Expeditions: Solar Corona Photometry
26. Mapping the Interstellar Medium with Space Reddening
27. Shrinking the Milky Way Galaxy
28. Scanning and Expanding the Nebulae
29. When It’s Dark on Observatory Hill
Spotlight: Washburn Observatory Staff, 1936
30. A Home for Washburn’s Directors: The Observatory Residence
31. In the Stew: Controversy and the Stebbins-Whitford Effect
32. The Country Telescope Arrives: Pine Bluff Observatory
33. The Astronomers Leave Observatory Hill
Part Three
34. Threading the Needle: From Classical Astronomy to Astrophysics
35. Wisconsin Women in Astronomy
36. Wisconsin Astronomy Goes to Space: Arthur Code
37. Orbiting Astronomical Observatories
38. The Heir of Washburn Observatory: Space Astronomy Laboratory
39. Flying to the Edge of Space: X-15 Space Instruments
Spotlight: Wisconsin’s Astronauts
40. Five Busy Minutes in Space: Suborbital Rocket Astronomy
41. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and Wisconsin’s High Speed Photometer
42. Wisconsin Ultraviolet Photo-Polarimetry Experiment
Spotlight: Welcoming the Public: Sharing Astronomy with the People
43. The Arc of History Bends Here and There
Acknowledgments
Public Resources
Note on Sources
Selected Bibliography
Notes
Index