September Zooniverse Update

Hi everyone!             Sam and Nico here, the researchers behind Star Notes. We hope you are all doing well as the summer comes to a close. It’s been 8 months since the launch of our project, and we’re very grateful for everyone who assists with Star Notes. We appreciate your diligence and assistance as we …

Visual Astronomy Display: September 2020

The Wolbach Library wishes good health to everyone during this unprecedented global crisis. Highlights… Why auroras can appear like pearl necklaces; Musician Beck uses NASA images and artificial intelligence to create cosmic art; Building a Venus rover with no electronic components; See Mars and Venus in the September sky; Fermilab breaks down why the existence …

Frank Kameny: Cold War Astronomy and the Lavender Scare

*With this blog series, we also hope to instigate meaningful conversations about our institution’s history. We therefore invite you to comment on our posts and share your thoughts with us. Franklin Edward Kameny decided at four-years-old that he was going to be a scientist. It was another year or two before he managed to narrow …

Developing an Anti-Racist Strategy for the Library

Background I came to the CfA in 2015, and in 2017 I became Head Librarian here. At that time, I decided I wanted to update the library’s mission. I also wanted to make explicit the library’s priorities (what we do) and guiding principles (how we do it). However, at the time, I was not considering …

James Baker: WW2 and The Observatory Optical Project

*With this blog series, we also hope to instigate meaningful conversations about our institution’s history. We therefore invite you to comment on our posts and share your thoughts with us. In the summer of 1938, James Baker and his wife Elizabeth traveled to Stockholm for the annual meeting of the International Astronomical Union. The trip, …

The Sinking of the S.S. Robin Goodfellow

On July 25, 1944, German submarine U-862 torpedoed and sunk the S.S. Robin Goodfellow, a U.S. freighter en route from Cape Town, South Africa to New York. A nearby British motor merchant received the distress signal, but was unable to intervene. None of the eight officers, thirty-three crewmen, or twenty-eight armed guards on board survived. …

Dorrit Hoffleit: Harvard Astronomers in the Second World War

*With this blog series, we also hope to instigate meaningful conversations about our institution’s history. We therefore invite you to comment on our posts and share your thoughts with us. Dorrit Hoffleit moved to Cambridge, MA as a young teenager. Her older brother, then only fourteen himself, was a new student at Harvard with an …

Visual Astronomy Display: August 2020

The Wolbach Library wishes good health to everyone during this unprecedented global crisis. See an animation of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover landing site; Fabio Pacucci explains the three-body problem; Comet NEOWISE as seen by spacecraft; How celestial bodies affect life under the sea; Why communication with extraterrestrial life might always be one-sided! Playlist Archive …