History & Nostalgia

Hardy on History: Reaching for the Stars in the High Country!

By Michael C. Hardy

We have some amazing skies in the High Country of western North Carolina. Getting away from the hustle and bustle of Boone and other populated areas, it is easy to spot the Milky Way, and in certain seasons, planets, star clusters, and maybe even a different galaxy.

Looking at the night skies in western North Carolina has garnered some interest for a long time. When the Burnsville High School opened in 1853, it was advertised as having “a planetarium and tellurium.” That early planetarium might also be called an orrery, or a mechanical model of the solar system. It had gears, and someone could crank it and move the models of the planets and moons around in their individual orbits. The principal of the school, S.D. Adams, actually traveled to various locations, giving astronomy lectures to interested parties.

Following the Civil War, the educational system in the U.S. was in shambles. It took time to rebuild. That is not to say that there was not an interest. Doctor Wiley Gentry, who operated a store in the Watauga Falls community, traveled and gave lectures on astronomy in the 1890s.

The area attracted the attention of outside scholars as well. In 1917, the Smithsonian was in the process of shipping the equipment for an astrophysical observatory to Chile. That same year, the U.S. entered World War I. With German submarines plying the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, the Smithsonian did not feel comfortable loading the equipment on a ship for the voyage. Looking for an alternative, they settled on Hump Mountain in Avery County. Property was leased from Huff Brothers and Reynolds; a local contractor, W.H. Shores, was hired to construct two frame buildings. One building was built for observation, with a level platform on top of the building, while the other included living quarters. The equipment was installed and calibrated, and observations began on June 15. The weather, however, was against the scientists. The Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institute for 1917 reported that,

“Unfortunately the most cloudy and rainy summer in the recollection of the old residents” hampered their work. It was not until August 1 that observations began, and even then, they were hindered by “changes in atmospheric transparency.” During the winter months of 1917-1918, the equipment was sent to the Smithsonian to undergo an overhaul, but it was back in place by March 1918. “The work includes measures of the solar constant of radiation, measures of the brightness of the sky, measures of nocturnal radiation, and experiments bearing on frost prediction.”

It appears that by the summer of 1918, the equipment at the observatory on Hump Mountain had been boxed up and transported to the East Tennessee and Western North Carolina Depot at Elk Park to continue on its journey to Chile. What was the outcome of the research? The scientists at the Smithsonian believed that the “temperature of the earth is materially affected by the variation of the sun’s output of radiation; that is, the daily change in the radiations from the sun, which become heat when they reach and penetrate our atmosphere, indicates forthcoming changes in the temperature of the year for the next few days.” They believed that monitoring these solar changes could help with accurate meteorological predictions.

Almost two decades later, the High Country made a greater impact on the world of astronomy. The quartz for the mirror in the Hale Telescope was mined at the Chestnut Flat Mine in Ledger, Mitchell County. In 1934, after being hand-inspected for any flaws, four boxcars of Toe River Valley quartz from that mine were loaded onto a Clinchfield train and first transported to Consolidated Feldspar Corporation in Erwin, TN, to be ground into a fine mesh. The quartz was shipped to the Corning Glass Works in New York where it was poured into a mold and heated to 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit. The heating process fused the quartz into the large mirror. It took a year for the almost-fifteen-ton mirror to cool. World War II delayed the installation of the mirror until 1948. The Hale Telescope was the largest in the world until 1976, and the second largest until 1993. It is still used in research, with the quartz mirror from Mitchell County.

The oldest observatory in continuous operation in North Carolina is the Rankin Science Observatory, which opened at Appalachian State Teachers’ College in 1963. There had been an observatory at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in the 1830s and 1840s, but it fell into disuse for many decades after the Civil War. The Morehead Observatory in Chapel Hill was opened in 1973.

Summer camps in the area, like the Mount Mitchell Camp for Girls in Yancey County, offered astronomy in the 1930s. In November 1944, an astronomy club was organized in Boone. Members included Almarea Greene, Harry Clay, Harold Steelman, Kathleen Miller, and Ada Belle Moretz. This club appears to have been attached to Appalachian Hill School. Members gave reports on various stars, planets, and constellations, and in 1949, visited the Morehead Planetarium.

Today, the High Country boasts some amazing stargazing opportunities. A simple drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway will produce some marvelous dark sky vistas. A simple free app on a phone, like SkyView Free or Stellarium, will allow viewers to understand what they are seeing. Appalachian State University’s Dark Sky Observatory, with a 32-inch telescope, is open once a month for public viewing (ticketed event). Mayland Community College’s Earth to Sky Park, with its Bare Dark Sky Observatory, an International Dark Sky Association certified park with a 34-inch telescope, is open just about every weekend for public viewing (also a ticketed event). There is also the recently created Earth to Sky Park Astronomy club, located in the Toe River Valley, a group ready to help people with new telescopes. For more information, please check out Appalachian State’s web site at dso.appstate.edu or the Earth to Sky Park website at mayland.edu/esp.


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