Pope's stargazers teach tomorrow's astronomers

Interesting article about how the Vatican promotes astronomy through its observatory - the plain old scientific way, regardless of the astronomers' religious background or beliefs... If only Galileo could see it now!

Article Here

Seanie.

Fabulous article Seanie, thanks for posting.

Vatican Observatory URL clavius.as.arizona.edu/vo

Its roots go back further than 1891. Pope Gregory XIII set up a council of astronomers and mathematicians to investigate the reasons for and implications of changing the calendar in 1581 (or there abouts I don't remember the exact year!).

Also I remember reading that there was a Vatican Observatory in the 1700's, long before the 1891 building. It was somewhere in Rome but funded by the Papacy, and ran, like most sensible scientific Catholic institutions, by the Jesuits. The current Vatican Observatory is still staffed mainly by Jesuits, but has had staff and been ran by people from other orders over time. I've read (but as usual cant find the reference) that Jesuits had their own observatories since the 1700's, since their contacts with the Chinese.

Cheers,
~Al

The Jesuits also have been running the Manila Observatory in the Phillipines.
since the 1830s. Apparently, it is still operating under them. The main telescope was used for solar observations. An Irish link is that I think the 13 inch refractor at Markree Castle Observatory was moved to the Manila Observatory. However, it was only there for about 40 years when the telescope was moved to Hong Kong during the 1940s.

Manila Observatory became famous when it was the main feature in Time magazine back in the 1940s.

I think there main studies now are in climatology.

Eamonn A

The Manila Observtory is still very much in operation.

The Markree 13" was bought at public auction in 1927 by the Jesuits and shipped firstly to Hong Kong where it was set up at the Aberdeen Seminary. It remained there until the 1940's when it was bombed by the Japanese who thought it was an AA gun! The lens was then presented to Manila Observatory where it still remains along with the Comet Seeker. The late Father Heyden used the lens to photograph various solar eclipses, and it is now used in a Roland Spectrograph.

Hope this adds a little more history to it?

Johnmc.

The Manila Observtory is still very much in operation.

The Markree 13" was bought at public auction in 1927 by the Jesuits and shipped firstly to Hong Kong where it was set up at the Aberdeen Seminary. It remained there until the 1940's when it was bombed by the Japanese who thought it was an AA gun! The lens was then presented to Manila Observatory where it still remains along with the Comet Seeker. The late Father Heyden used the lens to photograph various solar eclipses, and it is now used in a Roland Spectrograph.?

Johnmc.

Are there any pictures of the spectrograph and Comet Seeker?

I was down in Markree a couple of weeks back and the observatory is fairly derelict. Just a tall round wall is what is left with trees etc growin out of it.

I have some pictures by the way John and I'll send them on to you.

The building itself was sold about 2 years ago, when old Mrs. Cooper died. A bit of a missed opportunity there really for someone with a half a million to spare.

A real pity that it's not still being used as the skies in that part of the country are pretty good, when it's not cloudy or raining.