Catching Up

Here are a number of Palomar anniversaries that I let slip past me while I was on vacation last week.

March 22, 1955 — Discovery of comet 52P/Harrington-Abell by Robert G. Harrington and George O. Abell on a plate taken during the National Geographic Society-Palomar Observatory Sky Survey.

March 22, 1972 – First light for the Palomar 60-inch telescope located in the Oscar Mayer Building. Thirty six years later the 60-inch is a major workhorse telescope. Its main task now is in rapid-response observations for gamma-ray bursts and other transient phenomena.

March 23, 1993 – Discovery of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 at Palomar’s 18-inch Schmidt telescope by Eugene M. Shoemaker, Carolyn S. Shoemaker and David H. Levy. More on this when we "hit" the July anniversary of its impacts with Jupiter.

March 24, 1893 – Walter Baade’s birthday. I'll post some info on Baade later, but in the meantime check out the link or, better yet, read Walter Baade A Life in Astrophysics by Donald E. Osterbrock.