After finishing an appraisal inspection in midtown Kansas
City a last month, I stopped by the Linda Hall Library of Science and
Engineering on the UMKC campus.
Opened in 1946, the library is privately funded and is
"the world’s foremost independent research library devoted to science,
engineering, and technology."
It had been a while since I last visited and was reminded of
the fact when I found a story online about how Canadian comet hunter David Levy
had donated his observing logs to the library last September. How I missed
that, I don't know.
The library has seen several significant renovations since I
ast visited, including the William M. Deramus III Cosmology Theater, and an
expanded area for Special Collections and Rare Books.
I was chatting with the assistant librarian for the History
of Science about our both having attended the University of Virginia's Rare
Book School and endured the Principles of Descriptive Bibliography course, when
Bill Ashworth, instructor for the university’s History of Astronomy course I
took over 20 years ago, came by. I had not seen him since Dr. J.A. Stack's
memorial service at the library in 1997, and it was good to catch up.
Anyway, apart from getting a new library card, I wanted to
see David Levy's observing logs, which are now on display. I was very
pleasantly surprised to see his observing log from when he was eleven looked
very much like my own at that age. Of course he went on to become of the 20th
century’s most prolific comet hunters.
Perhaps the most famous of his discoveries was
Shoemaker-Levy 9, a comet that fragmented and crashed into Jupiter over the
course of six days in July 1994.
Here are some pics from the exhibit:
 |
| David Levy and Clyde Tombaugh |
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