Talk:United States Naval Observatory/Archive 1

Archive 1

January 2006

I moved the following paragraph to the comment page because I'm not sure it is appropriate for the article in this form. Articles should never have text written in the first person.

Original names and a lot more including the building site and the construction itself are often harder to settle upon. When instruments were first placed in the original they had to be removed due to the faulty work of concrete and dampness. Once that was corrected the expensive instruments were returned. I have a transcribed letter I did that describes the National, uh..- "Naval Observatory" to the President of the United States which I shall place online in due "Time".

--Etacar11 00:48, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Meterology Vs. Metrology

Meteorology is the study of the earth's atmosphere. The United States Naval Observatory (USNO) could care less about the earth's atmosphere. The USNO has one function. It is to decide where the earth's position in space is with regard to the sun and a few million other solar systems. It does this to determine where in time we are currently located. Time is the measurement of the earth's rotation around the sun. Time is an integral measurement for all sciences. Metrology is the science of "measurement" not of the earth's atmosphere. Time is a fundamental study of Metrology. Please be very careful in the future differentiating between these two separate fields of study. --David.c.h 07:44, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I should have caught that too. Thanks for noting the error. -Will Beback 08:01, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Will: My appologies, my rant was not really addressed at you. I was more concerned about user:MAURY who seemed adamant on keeping meteorology as a category and removing metrology. He may have a legitimate reason for doing so, but for the life of me, I haven't seen the connection as of yet. If he should make the change again, I would only hope that he provides his reasoning for doing so on this talk page. I would also ask him not to delete the category Metrology again.--David.c.h 08:40, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

David and Will: I included meteorology because of Matthew Fontaine Maury and one of the categories the work he did at the Naval Observatory. I did not know exactly all of what the modern Naval Observatory does. I believe my kinsman, Captain Maury Werth was superintendent there for a few years and he can explain what I desire to know. I was including all of the history at the United States "National/Naval" Observatory whereas you fellows are focused upon only the modern one. It is my belief that a good history, including the past as well as present should be presented. Personally, I am not as fascinated with the year 2000 atomic clock anywhere near as I am of what had to be used and how of the past. I will leave it as it is. I did not see any "rant" or I would have "ranted" back. Do not do such a thing because it is an insult and people will return the offence. The rules here state not to insult one another. I am new here but I am very used to debates on List Servers. So, I ask that any personal attacks or "rants" be left out. They provoke and as such are not needed nor wanted. We are supposed to remain friendly, communicate, and work together.

"The USNO has one function.."

Incredible, it has shrunk from many functions of the past.--Maury (talk) 18:57, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, rant or no, the initial comment that precipitated this discussion was simply incorrect. Astronomers care very much about the Earth's atmosphere and weather. Day-to-day observational astronomy requires understanding and constantly monitoring meteorological conditions. Ground-based astonomy, at least in the visible wavelengths, is inextricably wrapped up with meteorology, or more generally aerology, and therefore meteorology is implicitly very much part of the mission of any major observatory, particularly the USNO. Modern telescope design accounts for atmospheric affects and the USNO was involved in components of that design. For instance, there was USNO participation in studies of the scintillation of starlight in the 1950's, culminating in a 1958 manned balloon flight to make telescopic observations from the stratosphere (see Malcolm Ross). Results of these USNO studies are incorporated in modern telescope design. And during various site testings, the USNO was definitely interested in meteorology, as meteological considerations affect placement of any new observatory. The bottom line is that until the USNO is relocated to the far side of the Moon, both metrology and meteorology fall in the scope of USNO functions, past and present. Catrachos (talk) 21:32, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Added Redirect Page

Made a redirect for Naval Observatory to come here...Smarkflea (talk) 22:22, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Discoveries

I think it would be good if this page could include some of the more notable discoveries made at the observatory, such as Asaph Hall's discovery of the moons of Mars in 1877. There's also no mention of the instrument he used; a 26-in. refractor, the largest in the world at that time.—RJH (talk) 17:45, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Yearly reports

I'm doing a bit of research on Tom Van Flandern, and it is worth noting here that Publications of the U.S. Naval Observatory contained an org chart at the beginning of each volume (e.g. 1903, 1911 1920 1927 1938), then there are reports in Astronomical Journal (e.g. [1] [2], 1962, 1963, 1967), and from the launch of Bull. Am. Astron. Soc. in 1969, reports were published there yearly (e.g. 1969, 1970). John Vandenberg ^(chat) 05:17, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

19th-century photo: what relationship?

This 19th century stereo card is captioned as the "National Observatory" and is clearly an observatory, but seems not to be the same building. Anyone have a clue to what it might be, or whether the building has been dramatically reconfigured? - Jmabel | Talk 00:14, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

For what it's worth (over a year later), that looks like it's the old Naval Observatory at Foggy Bottom (which, until recently, was BUMED Headquarters).

http://ad.usno.navy.mil/wds/old_observatory_site.html--68.247.91.163 (talk) 18:03, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Metonym

I'm not sure if it should be added (thus why I'm asking here) but should a note be added to the introduction noting that "Naval Observatory" is often used as a metonym for the Vice President's residence contained therein? It seems to me that it's more well-known for the residence than the observatory itself. --Kevin W./Talk•CFB uniforms/Talk 22:30, 1 March 2011 (UTC)