Maria Mitchell Association

The Astronomy Department of the Maria  Mitchell Association was established over 100 years ago. Today, the department operates two observatories and conducts research and public educational programming. The Maria Mitchell Observatory is recognized as a national model for the National Science Foundation's Research Experience for Undergraduates program.

Check our calendar for upcoming programs!

Keep up with what's happening in Nantucket's night sky by reading This Month's Sky, containing information specially prepared by the Director of Astronomy, Dr. Vladimir Strelnitski. Click here to read This Month's Sky, or click the image of the moon below.

 

New Telescope Pictures:

The major task of the Maria Mitchell Observatory is to do astronomical research, in particular, supervised research for talented, carefully selected astronomy undergraduate students from all over the country (this highly successful Presidential Award winning program is funded by the National Science Foundation). 

However the MMO astronomers work much with the public at large too and do not miss an opportunity to take a nice picture of celestial object with a research or public telescope just for fun. Here we show two pictures taken recently: (1) the Comet Garradd (2009 P1) photographed by Garry Walker and Meredith Muller on October 25^th, 2011, with our 24-inch research telescope and (2) Jupiter with its four “Galilean” moons. This last picture was taken by Paul Valleli onOctober 21^st , 2011 using our public 8-inch Clark refractor and a Cannon EOC 20D camera, with a quickly improvised interface between them. Even with this simple setting and without any additional work on improving  the picture electronically, one sees well the two equatorial bands in the planet’s atmosphere. The moons, from the left to the right are Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa.

 

Breaking News:

 

           

 

Six 2010 summer research students-astronomers of the Maria Mitchell Association presented their research posters at the January 2011 meeting of the American Astronomical Society. One of them, Alexa Villaume, won the highly prestigious Chambliss Award and Medal for her poster prepared in co-authorship with Megan Bedell, another 2010 student.  It is the second Chambliss Award won by our small astronomy team in the last three years (see the Medal of the former winner here).

Take a look at their poster.

Meridian Stone Plaque Dedication

On October 2, 2009, an important event took place on the corner of Main and Fair Street – the unveiling of a memorial plaque explaining the purpose and the significance of two marble obelisks located in downtown Nantucket, on Main and Fair streets and known as “Meridian Stones.” The plaque is on display on the wall of the Pacific Bank, next to the Northern Meridian Stone.

The purpose of the two stone monuments has long been one of Nantucket’s great historical mysteries. It was known that the stones had been erected by the Town in 1840, on a proposal of William Mitchell (1791-1868), the most prominent astronomer and surveyor on the island at that time and the father of the first American woman professional astronomer, Maria Mitchell (1818-1889).  However, the exact reason these stones were cut and placed was unknown until recently.

In 2002, a group of enthusiasts led by the Maria Mitchell Association (MMA), set out to solve the enigma. The project took several years. Two MMA summer students participated in the project and one of them, Lucy Amory, the history major from Vassar College, finally found in archives decisive materials that clarified the purpose of the stones. They were erected by Mitchell, using precise astronomical methods, to represent the true geographic meridian (north-south line) and use it for monitoring the variations of the angle between the true North and the magnetic North (the so called “magnetic declination”). The direction to the magnetic North was the working reference direction for the surveyors of that epoch who used a compass to measure bearings. An accurate correction for the magnetic declination was necessary to present the results of the survey on a geographic map, where the reference direction is the true (not magnetic) North.

The investigation showed further that the Mitchell Meridian Line was one of the first of this kind in the country. Mitchell preceded by three decades the mandatory installation of similar constructs elsewhere in Massachusetts and other states. Only in 1870 the Massachusetts General Court passed a resolve that demanded the installation of “true meridian lines” in every county of the state.

The plaque will immortalize the memory of two most distinguished residents of our island – William and Maria Mitchell who brought to Nantucket one of the important flavors of its fame – to be an “Astronomical Island.”

 

 

MMA Mentoring Program Receives Award

MMA recognized for its mentoring program by President Obama! Read more about this exciting news.