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Summer Thyme Travel
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summerthymetravel.bsky.social
I Am That I Am
October 5, 2025 at 12:35 AM
summerthymetravel.bsky.social
In memory of EE Barnard, my 4th generation grandfather’s apprentice. Joseph Van Stavoren invented the Jupiter Solar Camera and operated it out of his establishment in Nashville, TN during the civil war era. Bernard passed away 102 years ago today. He went on to become a renowned astronomer.
My 4th Gen Grandfather, Joseph Van Stavoren owned a photography studio in Nashville, TN during the Civil War era. His friend Reuben Barnard, died 3 months before his son Edward was born, and Ed's mother Elizabeth Jane wasn't able to care for him after.Joseph took in Edward Emerson Barnard as his apprentice & adopted him due to his unfortunate circumstances. My grandfather was a renowned Renaissance man, portrait painter, inventor, photographer, & music composer. Joseph engineered a giant camera which he named Jupiter and It sat high atop his studio in Nashville. Barnard recounted Van Stavoren's reasons for choosing that name which was afterwards to be so fateful in his own life. "There are coincidences in every person's life some of which are ordinary & attract no attention and others that have an important bearing upon one's future. To those who are familiar with my astronomical work, the name that had been bestowed upon this instrument by its owner will have a peculiar influence" at the age of 9 EE learned to operate this solar camera, designed to make life-sized enlargements on silvered paper from negatives. It had to be directed exactly on the sun to avoid setting fire to the building. Because of his influence through apprenticeship he went on to became a brilliant amateur astronomer, discovering 10 comets before the age of 30. After Albert Einstein (1879-1955) published his theory of relativity, a number of observatories attempted to prove the theory based on Einstein's calculations which predicted the gravitational bending of light passing a large body such as the Sun. Einstein visited a number of observatories which attempted to prove the theory. This photograph with the staff of the Yerkes Observatory was taken in 1921, the same year he won the Nobel Prize in Physics. During the 1880s, a wealthy patron of astronomy in Rochester, NY, awarded $200 each time a new comet was found so that Barnard soon earned enough to build a "comet house". His discoveries & brilliance as an observer drew the attention of other amateur astronomers in Nashville who raised enough money for Barnard to attend Vanderbilt Uni. In 1887 he joined the staff of Lick Observatory & used the new 36" Lick refractor to discover Jupiter's 5th moon Amalthea & the first comet to be found by photography, both in 1892. In 1910 he photograph Halley's Comet & Andromeda Galaxy. In 1921 Albert Einstein visited w/ the Yerkes Observatory staff after discovering the theory of relativity. He was one of the greatest observational astronomers of his time. Barnard died Feb 6th 1923 in Wisconsin. Serendipitous timing I thought of him today. Edward Barnard was one of the greatest observational astronomers of his time, and discoverer of Jupiter's moon Amalthea (the last satellite to be found without photographic aid) and the nearby star that now bears his name (see Barnard's Star). Born into poverty in Nashville, Tennessee, Barnard began work in a photographic studio when he was only nine. He became a brilliant amateur astronomer, discovering 10 comets before the age of 30. During the 1880s, a wealthy patron of astronomy in Rochester, New York, awarded $200 each time a new comet was found so that Barnard soon earned enough to build a "comet house" for his bride. His discoveries and brilliance as an observer drew the attention of other amateur astronomers in Nashville who raised enough money for Barnard to attend Vanderbilt University. In 1887, Barnard joined the staff of Lick Observatory and used the new 36-inch Lick refractor to discover Amalthea and the first comet to be found by photography, both in 1892. In 1895 he moved to the University of Chicago's not-yet-completed Yerkes Observatory and helped test the great 40-inch refractor following its installation. On May 29, 1897, Barnard narrowly escaped death when, just hours after he had left the observatory's dome, the 37-ton elevating floor, used to lift observers to the level of the telescope's eyepiece, collapsed after a supporting cable broke.
February 7, 2025 at 2:59 AM