Sky & Telescope - November 2020 - 34

ARCHIVAL TREASURES

by Steve Gottlieb

The famed American astronomer was an avid observer yet didn't publish many of his ﬁndings -
now, his unreported discoveries are coming to light.

IC 2196

IC 2194

IC 2199

30′ × 20′

NOVEMBER 2 02 0 * SK Y & TELESCOPE

u HICKSON GROUP 99
Part of a quintet later
cataloged by Paul Hickson
in 1989, Barnard observed
these two members of the
compact galaxy group on
the night of January 27,
1889. The glare from the
magnitude-11.5 star at
lower right of the largest
member of the group,
HCG 99A, prevented
Barnard from detecting
the galaxy.

HCG 99C

HCG 99B

HCG 99A

10′ × 10′

BA R N A RD: S&T A RCHIV ES; POSS-II / STSCI /
CA LTECH / PA LO M A R OBSERVATORY (2)

Although Barnard lacked advanced scihe life of legendary astronomer Edward
entiﬁc training, Edward Singleton Holden,
Emerson Barnard is a rags-to-riches
the ﬁrst director of Lick Observatory, offered
story. Born in 1857, he endured an
him a position. Holden was impressed with
impoverished childhood in Nashville during
Barnard's visual prowess and anticipated the
the Civil War era. Before his ninth birthday,
attention new comet discoveries would bring
he was already working as a photographer's
to the ﬂedgling observatory. The staff for the
assistant in order to support his widowed
world's ﬁrst permanent mountaintop observamother. Despite severe economic hardships
tory also included the pioneering spectroscoand the lack of a comprehensive education,
pist James Keeler and the skilled double-star
he rose to become one of the leading astronoobserver Sherbourne Wesley Burnham.
mers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Barnard jumped at the prospect of using
At 19, Barnard purchased a 5-inch Byrne
the new 36-inch Clark refractor - the largest
refractor for $380, which amounted to
p PROLIFIC OBSERVER
in the world at the time - under the inky
two-thirds of his annual salary. The lure of
E. E. Barnard might not have
skies seen from atop Mount Hamilton. Dura $200 prize for ﬁnding new comets offered
published as avidly as he could
ing his Lick years, Barnard regularly docuby Rochester, New York businessman and
have, but thankfully he left a rich
mented features on Mars and Jupiter and
philanthropist Hulbert Harrington Warner,
legacy in copious logbooks.
was a trailblazer in wide-ﬁeld photography
prompted him to start searching for them, and
of comets and the Milky Way. In 1892, he capped his visual
he discovered nine between 1881 and 1887. The prize money
career with the discovery of Amalthea, Jupiter's ﬁfth moon
helped ﬁnance his ﬁrst home, which he called "Comet House."
- a supremely tough target and the last planetary satellite
During this period, he took undergraduate classes in
to be discovered visually.
mathematics and physics at Vanderbilt University. He also
Spectacular photographic discoveries followed, many
made several astonishing discoveries using both Vanderbearing his name: Barnard's Star, all the dark nebulae carbilt's 6-inch Cooke refractor and his own telescope. These
rying the designation "Barnard" (or simply the letter "B"),
include the Pacman Nebula (NGC 281), the California
Barnard's Loop (photographed earlier by William Henry
Nebula (NGC 1499), the eponymous Barnard's Galaxy
Pickering at Harvard College Observatory), and more. But he
(NGC 6822), and an independent discovery of the Rosette
was also an indefatigable visual observer of nebulae, a term
Nebula (NGC 2237).
used in his day to describe any nonstellar object, including
galaxies. While scouring the heavens for comets, he must
q QUARTET IN GEMINI It was while he was pointing the Lick 12-inch
telescope at Alpha Geminorum, familiarly known as Castor, that Barhave run across many such unknowns. Yet, curiously, he
nard discovered these four galaxies shown below. Curiously, despite
published only a few of these discoveries.
the fact that Castor is one of the most comprehensively observed
Several years ago, I came across the Lick Observatory
double stars, nobody had noticed (or reported) these objects before
Historical
Collections Project and their high-resolution
Barnard did in 1888. It took him another nine years, though, before he
scans of early staff logbooks (collections.ucolick.org). By
published his finding.
examining Barnard's currently scanned logs from May 1888
through October 1890, I found a treasure trove of uncredited
deep-sky discoveries that have lain hidden in his personal
logbooks for more than 130 years.
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http://collections.ucolick.org/archives_on_line/

Sky & Telescope - November 2020

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