great stellar system of hundreds of millions of stars (our galaxy)…would be an insignificant unit.” For Eddington, the heavens just seemed to make more sense viewed from this grander perspective.
The epicenter of this resurgence was located right at the Lick Observatory, where its director, W. W. Campbell, was at last persuaded by the mounting evidence and openly declared that thinking about the spirals as enormous distant bodies was “in best harmony with known facts.” And those facts were largely being gathered by Curtis, one of his most able staff members. Campbell was still focused on his monumental campaign, a virtual assembly line of stellar measurements systematically proceeding from target to target, to catalog the velocities of stars within the Milky Way. The survey was being done in hope that the data would reveal new clues on stellar evolution. It was left to Curtis to get back to the Crossley telescope and revive the observatory's investigation of the spiral nebulae, a program that had not been a top priority since Keeler's death. The compact reflector, however, was still one of the best tools around for imaging and analyzing the hazy celestial clouds.
Curtis, a gifted mechanic, right away made significant improvements to the telescope. First off, he erected a new observing platform that could be raised and lowered by an electric motor, installed a powered dome shutter, and devised a better mechanism for driving the telescope. The mirror had already been remounted in 1904 into a thick metal tube, whose rivets along the side made it resemble a beam on a naval battleship. This telescope remains in operation, now searching for extrasolar planets. It's possibly the oldest reflecting telescope still in use for professional research.
Heber Curtis standing by the renovated Crossley telescope
(Mary Lea Shane Archives of the Lick Observatory, University
Library, University of California-Santa Cruz)
When Curtis rekindled Keeler's pursuit of the spiral nebulae, the island-universe theory was regarded as just a good guess, an intuitive suspicion. Curtis was after more concrete proof. He started to dig deeper into the problem, in the same way that Keeler would likely have proceeded. But Keeler had a mere two years to work with the Crossley before his death; Curtis, fortunately, had more time, which allowed him to extend astronomy's knowledge of the spirals throughout the 1910s. This celestial quest became, in the words of a fellow astronomer, Curtis's “magnum opus.”
No one was more surprised perhaps at the zigs and zags in Curtis's career path than Heber Doust Curtis himself, who went to college at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, at the same time that Campbell happened to be teaching there. But their paths never crossed, for Curtis was a dedicated student of the ancient languages—Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Sanskrit, and Assyrian—earning first a bachelor's degree, then a master's. At this stage, Curtis voiced no interest whatsoever in science and never set foot inside an observatory. After teaching high school briefly in Detroit, he moved to California in 1894 to become a professor of Latin and Greek at Napa College, a small institution north of San Francisco. Curtis seemed destined for a life of quiet scholarship in the classics, until he came upon a small telescope at the college and on an impulse began to tinker with it.
His tiny college later merged in 1896 with the University of the Pacific, situated in the San Jose area, and he moved there, opportunely within the shadow of Lick Observatory. He continued his astronomical activities and got so caught up in his newfound hobby—and so adept at observing—that he was chosen to teach mathematics and astronomy at the small college. He was even able to spend some time on Mount Hamilton during the summers of 1897 and 1898 as a special student. The experience convinced him that he wanted to make astronomy his life's work. He hoped to continue at the
The epicenter of this resurgence was located right at the Lick Observatory, where its director, W. W. Campbell, was at last persuaded by the mounting evidence and openly declared that thinking about the spirals as enormous distant bodies was “in best harmony with known facts.” And those facts were largely being gathered by Curtis, one of his most able staff members. Campbell was still focused on his monumental campaign, a virtual assembly line of stellar measurements systematically proceeding from target to target, to catalog the velocities of stars within the Milky Way. The survey was being done in hope that the data would reveal new clues on stellar evolution. It was left to Curtis to get back to the Crossley telescope and revive the observatory's investigation of the spiral nebulae, a program that had not been a top priority since Keeler's death. The compact reflector, however, was still one of the best tools around for imaging and analyzing the hazy celestial clouds.
Curtis, a gifted mechanic, right away made significant improvements to the telescope. First off, he erected a new observing platform that could be raised and lowered by an electric motor, installed a powered dome shutter, and devised a better mechanism for driving the telescope. The mirror had already been remounted in 1904 into a thick metal tube, whose rivets along the side made it resemble a beam on a naval battleship. This telescope remains in operation, now searching for extrasolar planets. It's possibly the oldest reflecting telescope still in use for professional research.
Heber Curtis standing by the renovated Crossley telescope
(Mary Lea Shane Archives of the Lick Observatory, University
Library, University of California-Santa Cruz)
When Curtis rekindled Keeler's pursuit of the spiral nebulae, the island-universe theory was regarded as just a good guess, an intuitive suspicion. Curtis was after more concrete proof. He started to dig deeper into the problem, in the same way that Keeler would likely have proceeded. But Keeler had a mere two years to work with the Crossley before his death; Curtis, fortunately, had more time, which allowed him to extend astronomy's knowledge of the spirals throughout the 1910s. This celestial quest became, in the words of a fellow astronomer, Curtis's “magnum opus.”
No one was more surprised perhaps at the zigs and zags in Curtis's career path than Heber Doust Curtis himself, who went to college at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, at the same time that Campbell happened to be teaching there. But their paths never crossed, for Curtis was a dedicated student of the ancient languages—Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Sanskrit, and Assyrian—earning first a bachelor's degree, then a master's. At this stage, Curtis voiced no interest whatsoever in science and never set foot inside an observatory. After teaching high school briefly in Detroit, he moved to California in 1894 to become a professor of Latin and Greek at Napa College, a small institution north of San Francisco. Curtis seemed destined for a life of quiet scholarship in the classics, until he came upon a small telescope at the college and on an impulse began to tinker with it.
His tiny college later merged in 1896 with the University of the Pacific, situated in the San Jose area, and he moved there, opportunely within the shadow of Lick Observatory. He continued his astronomical activities and got so caught up in his newfound hobby—and so adept at observing—that he was chosen to teach mathematics and astronomy at the small college. He was even able to spend some time on Mount Hamilton during the summers of 1897 and 1898 as a special student. The experience convinced him that he wanted to make astronomy his life's work. He hoped to continue at the
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