APOD: The Meteor of 1860 (2010 Jul 22)

[APOD Robot]

The Meteor of 1860

Explanation: Frederic Church (1826-1900), American landscape painter of the Hudson River School, painted what he saw in nature. And on July 20th, 1860, he saw a spectacular string of fireball meteors cross the Catskill evening sky, an extremely rare Earth-grazing meteor procession. From New York City, poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892) also wrote of the "... strange huge meteor procession, dazzling and clear, shooting over our heads" in his poem Year of Meteors (1859-60). But the inspiration for Whitman's words was forgotten. His astronomical reference became a mystery, the subject of scholarly debate until Texas State University physicists Donald Olson and Russell Doescher, English professor Marilynn Olson, and Honors Program student Ava Pope, located reports documenting the date and timing of the spectacular meteor procession. The breakthrough was spotting the connection with Church's relatively little-known painting. Fittingly, the forensic astronomy team's work was just published, on the 150th anniversary of the cosmic event that inspired both poet and painter.

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[/b]

[bystander]

TSU: Walt Whitman meteor mystery solved
http://asterisk.apod.com/vie ... 31&t=19633

[Beyond]

According to the song - breaking up is hard to do. According to the painting - it's not. All you have to do is to hit this atmosphere at a terrific speed and wa-la! (I'm not French) you're break-dancing across the sky amid the gasps of people going -- WOW! look at that!!
This must be the oldest Apod ever??

[neufer]

This must be the oldest Apod ever??

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090619.html

[herta]

How do we know these are grazers and not an object breaking up and falling down?

[bystander]

How do we know these are grazers and not an object breaking up and falling down?

TSU Astronomers solve Walt Whitman meteor mystery

Armed with this intriguing new date, the Texas State researchers began poring through newspapers of the time for verification. What they found surprised even them. A large Earth-grazing meteor broke apart on the evening of July 20, 1860, creating a spectacular procession of multiple fireballs visible from the Great Lakes to New York State as it burned through the atmosphere and continued out over the Atlantic Ocean.

http://asterisk.apod.com/vie ... 31&t=19633

[Beyond]

This must be the oldest Apod ever??

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090619.html

Ooooo-k, This must be the second oldest Apod ever??

[owlice]

Ooooo-k, This must be the second oldest Apod ever??

Hiya, beyond!

There's this one: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100131.html

And this one: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090417.html

And (*cough*) this one: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960616.html
<g>

And likely a few others that are older than today's.

I like today's a lot; it's got everything!

[geckzilla]

The artist did a great job of making the meteor look all fiery and glowing. We take it for granted since there are thousands of pictures out there with spectacular fire or magical effects because it's so easy to do digitally but it's quite difficult to do with traditional media.

[orin stepanek]

The artist did a great job of making the meteor look all fiery and glowing. We take it for granted since there are thousands of pictures out there with spectacular fire or magical effects because it's so easy to do digitally but it's quite difficult to do with traditional media.

I was going to say something like that. I think he did a great job of capturing the event on canvas. Beautiful!!!

[neufer]

The artist did a great job of making the meteor look all fiery and glowing. We take it for granted since there are thousands of pictures out there with spectacular fire or magical effects because it's so easy to do digitally but it's quite difficult to do with traditional media.

I was going to say something like that. I think he did a great job of capturing the event on canvas. Beautiful!!!

http://asterisk.apod.com/vie ... ic#p122381

[DenisR53]

Church was not the only witness who recorded what was seen then:

http://nishi.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejour ... -080a.html

[Chris Peterson]

How do we know these are grazers and not an object breaking up and falling down?

It isn't clear to me that we do know this. From what I've read about this event, it was more likely a typical fireball, not an Earth-grazer. It isn't particularly uncommon for a fireball in a shallow trajectory to break into pieces as it crosses the sky, visible for 30 seconds or longer and over 1000 miles of ground. In fact, the described breakup is a better match to a fireball that descended and broke up than it is to an Earth-grazer.

[Chris Peterson]

Church was not the only witness who recorded what was seen then:
http://nishi.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejour ... -080a.html

Nice find. Different meteor, though.

[neufer]

<<John Brown (May 9, 1800 – December 2, 1859) was an American abolitionist, who advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to end all slavery. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas and made his name in the unsuccessful raid at Harpers Ferry in 1859.

On November 2, 1859, after a week-long trial and 45 minutes of deliberation, the Charles Town jury found Brown guilty. Brown was sentenced to be hanged in public on December 2. In response to the sentence, Ralph Waldo Emerson remarked that "[John Brown] will make the gallows glorious like the Cross." Victor Hugo, from exile on Guernsey, tried to obtain pardon for John Brown: he sent an open letter that was published by the press on both sides of the Atlantic (cf. Actes et paroles). This text, written at Hauteville-House on December 2, 1859, warned of a possible civil war:

• Victor Hugo's letter to the London News: "[...] Politically speaking, the murder of John Brown would be an uncorrectable sin. It would create in the Union a latent fissure that would in the long run dislocate it. Brown's agony might perhaps consolidate slavery in Virginia, but it would certainly shake the whole American democracy. You save your shame, but you kill your glory. Morally speaking, it seems a part of the human light would put itself out, that the very notion of justice and injustice would hide itself in darkness, on that day where one would see the assassination of Emancipation by Liberty itself. [...] Let America know and ponder on this: there is something more frightening than Cain killing Abel, and that is Washington killing Spartacus."

On the morning of December 2, Brown read his Bible and wrote a final letter to his wife, which included his will. At 11:00 he was escorted from the county jail through a crowd of 2,000 soldiers a few blocks away to a small field where the gallows were. Among the soldiers in the crowd were future Confederate general Stonewall Jackson and John Wilkes Booth, who borrowed a militia uniform to gain admission to the execution. The poet Walt Whitman, in "Year of Meteors," claims to have viewed the execution. On the day of his death he wrote "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done." Brown was hanged at 11:15 a.m. and pronounced dead at 11:50 a.m., and his body was placed in a wooden coffin with the noose still around his neck.

On December 22, 1859, John Greenleaf Whittier published a poem praising him, "Brown of Ossawatomie". John Brown is buried on the John Brown Farm in North Elba, in the Adirondacks on the outskirts of Lake Placid. The farm and grave are located near Old Military Road.>>

--------------------------------------------------------

The Last Moments of John Brown, by Thomas Hovenden

---

Leaves of Grass (1867) YEAR OF METEORS. (1859-60.)

YEAR of meteors! brooding year!
I would bind in words retrospective, some of your deeds
. and signs;
I would sing your contest for the 19th Presidentiad;
I would sing how an old man, tall, with white hair,
. mounted the scaffold in Virginia;
(I was at hand—silent I stood, with teeth shut close—I
. watch'd;
I stood very near you, old man, when cool and indiffer-
. ent, but trembling with age and your unheal'd
. wounds, you mounted the scaffold;)
I would sing in my copious song your census returns of
. The States,
The tables of population and products—I would sing of
. your ships and their cargoes,
The proud black ships of Manhattan, arriving, some
. fill'd with immigrants, some from the isthmus
. with cargoes of gold;
Songs thereof would I sing—to all that hitherward
. comes would I welcome give;
And you would I sing, fair stripling! welcome to you
. from me, sweet boy of England!
Remember you surging Manhattan's crowds, as you
. passed with your cortege of nobles?
There in the crowds stood I, and singled you out with
. attachment;
I know not why, but I loved you…(and so go forth
. little song,
Far over sea speed like an arrow, carrying my love all
. folded,
And find in his palace the youth I love, and drop these
. lines at his feet;)
—Nor forget I to sing of the wonder, the ship as she
. swam up my bay,
Well-shaped and stately the Great Eastern swam up my
. bay, she was 600 feet long,
Her moving swiftly, surrounded by myriads of small
. craft, I forget not to sing;
Nor the comet that came unannounced, out of the north,
. flaring in heaven,
Nor the strange huge meteor procession, dazzling and
. clear, shooting over our heads,
(A moment, a moment long, it sail'd its balls of unearth-
. ly light over our heads,
Then departed, dropt in the night, and was gone;)
—Of such, and fitful as they, I sing—with gleams from
. them would I gleam and patch these chants;
Your chants, O year all mottled with evil and good!
. year of forebodings! year of the youth I love!
Year of comets and meteors transient and strange!—lo!
. even here, one equally transient and strange!
As I flit through you hastily, soon to fall and be gone,
. what is this book,
What am I myself but one of your meteors?

[Beyond]

Ooooo-k, This must be the second oldest Apod ever??

Hiya, beyond!

There's this one: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100131.html

And this one: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090417.html

And (*cough*) this one: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960616.html
<g>

And likely a few others that are older than today's.

I like today's a lot; it's got everything!

OK, i give up on this must be the oldest Apod thing. I find that i am toooo young to know.
Owlice -- your links MUST be the oldest. I could not get them to work the first time around. The second time i tried the first link i gave up and went scrolling down the page and all of a sudden the link kicked in. I figured i didn't want to wait for the other two, so i just assumed they were older also.
I know it wasn't just my computer, as when i clicked on one of neufer's links right after, it popped up quick.

[neufer]

OK, i give up on this must be the oldest Apod thing.
I find that i am toooo young to know.

That's why it is good to check with Owlice on these matters.

[owlice]

lol, you two!!

[biddie67]

You folks are fun .... wish I had found this bb years ago ....

[logmark]

My geologist son just related to me his witnessing of the recent Pennsylvania fireball falling directly down on his position while driving on the PA Turnpike. Except for the absence of arcing in his case and no rendering of the terminal explosion, this painting relays to the eye the aura of the event. As an artist I can tell you that is quite a task.

[Hobo]

This painting reminds me of the breakup of Columbia... so similar..