The Royal Observatory back in focus after 60 years
THE Royal Observatory at Greenwich has been pivotal to astronomy and navigation since the beginning of time. Well, international standard time at least. But what few people realise is that it has not actually observed anything for more than half a century.
Astronomers were forced to abandon their work in the Fifties as London smogs grew so bad that they could no longer see the stars through telescopes.
As the railways expanded nearby, the rumble of trains also made it impossible to take accurate readings with sensitive instruments, while the evergrowing capital brought increasingly dazzling light pollution.
Now, after more than 60 years, a new telescope has been installed at Greenwich to restore its status as a working observatory once again. Not only is London’s air cleaner now, but modern telescope filters can tune out the pollution to hone in on stars, planets, nebulae and even galaxies. Dr Louise Devoy, curator of Royal Observatory Greenwich, said: “The observatory really started to wind down in 1948 because Greenwich had been expanding, and the power station was belching out smoke, so the telescopes were becoming useless.
“They also used to do magnetic and meteorological readings from here, but the railways and iron-framed buildings interfered with the signals and the vi- brations from the trains made accuracy impossible. With the new telescope we can use filters to process it all out.”
The Royal Observatory was founded in Greenwich in 1675 by Charles II for the purpose of improving navigation at sea through astronomical means by mapping the fixed location of the stars.
It was a working observatory until 1957, when the site and its instruments were moved to Herstmonceux in Sussex while the Greenwich site was preserved as a museum and outreach centre. But last year the Royal Museums Greenwich launched a campaign to restore the observatory to working status, raising more than £150,000 to buy the telescope and revamp the Grade II listed Altazimuth Pavilion where it is housed, a nautically inspired Victorian masterpiece designed by William Crisp, a naval engineer.
The Annie Maunder Astrographic Telescope (AMAT), named after one of the first female scientists to work at the observatory, is actually four different telescopes, the largest of which will allow astronomers to produce high magnification views of the Moon and planets in the Solar System. The AMAT also has a solar telescope to catalogue changes to the Sun, a practice started by Greenwich astronomers in 1870, and something Annie Maunder herself was doing in the 1900s.
Brendan Owens, an astronomer, said: “We now have filters that completely block out the wavelengths of light from things like street lamps and instead just focus on the hydrogen, oxygen and sulphur dioxide that are coming from stars and planets. As well as highly magnified images of the Sun and Moon, we have a cooled digital camera to take wide views of the sky so we can see nebulae and galaxies.”
The astronomers are hoping to use the observatory to witness the lunar eclipse on July 27 when the Moon will turn a dark red colour close to the horizon – known as a blood moon – as it passes completely into the Earth’s shadow.
“It should be quite spectacular,” added Mr Owens, “Because it will be close to the horizon so it should look huge and be a reddish colour. We can also use the red tinge to tell us about pollution in the air, as that changes the colour of the moon during an eclipse.”
They are also hoping to view next year’s transit of Mercury when the planet will cross in front of the Sun.
Annie Maunder first joined the observatory in 1891, processing data as a “lady computer”, one of the few paid opportunities for women in astronomy.
She was forced to give up the position when she married in 1895, but continued her scientific endeavours alongside her husband, embarking upon solar eclipse expeditions across the world. Their joint work in mapping sunspots established a link between solar activity and the Earth’s climate.
Tours of the facility and Altazimuth Pavilion will be available to book throughout the year. Visitors will also get the chance to see the images produced by the telescope in an exhibition space, which will also tell the story of Annie Maunder.