vintage – Page 2 – Shop Finds

Certificate of Quality

Posted on August 15, 2023August 14, 2023 by Brian Garthwaite

This was a quality instrument, we’re supposing. Currently it’s a steel door, with its associated cabinet, apparatus, and everything else unaccounted for and presumed long gone. Any details associated with it have disappeared as well.

But check out that sticker! The Nuclear-Chicago Corporation made a variety of devices for nuclear radiation detection, although a cursory internet search reveals mostly hand-held items rather than cabinet-mounted equipment. Still, have a look through that fantastic mid-century aesthetic! Back in the days when uranium prospecting was what all the cool kids were doing.

They put out the model 2586 “Cutie Pie” in 1954. The Cutie Pie.

At any rate, Abbott Laboratories bought them out in 1964, so whatever device this accompanied goes back to sometime between 1954 – the name change to Nuclear-Chicago – and the 1964 sale. Should we ever stumble across the remains of it, rest assured we’ll make note of it.

Telescope Calibration

Posted on August 3, 2023August 2, 2023 by Brian Garthwaite

Notes from 1887 — *Checking out the new equipment.*

Some years ago, back in 1887, the University received a lovely Clark & Sons refracting telescope, complete with a clock drive to track the stars against the Earth’s rotation. When a shiny new ~~toy~~ scientific apparatus arrives on your doorstep, it’s very important to confirm that it works as intended. Here, in an old notebook, we see the original data on the clock drive’s variance from the ideal sidereal tracking rate.

“Observations for Determining Sidereal Clock’s Rate Nov. 8, 1889”

Then follows a table of stars with known right ascension and declination, then a repeated set of measurements 20 days later. “Rate of Loss per day .268 sec.” Considering the frequency with which proper polar alignment and tracking proves a nuisance more than a century later, that seems pretty good. The clock drive is long gone, of course, so we can only guess at how accurate it was and stayed throughout the decades.

It looks like these entries were by a J. D. Minick, Class of ’88. Best guess is a John David Minick, graduate of Bucknell in 1888, listed as Prof. John D. Minick of Lenoir, N.C. in the Memorials of Bucknell University, 1846 – 1896. Astronomer, apparently. Mathematician? Physicist? At this point, we’re content with the mystery.

Around the same time, Bucknell was also the home of one Jacob Henry Minick, Class of 1891. He’s listed in the link above as from Orrstown, PA, in Franklin County. Any relation?

His name lives on at the university in the form of an endowed scholarship:

“The Jacob H. Minick Fund was established by a bequest from Jacob H. Minick, Class of 1891, the income of which is to be given each year to students who, because of some physical difficulty, are forced to use crutches during all of their college work.”

There’s a story there, no doubt.

Oscilloscope

Posted on July 7, 2023 by Brian Garthwaite

It’s a regular occurrence that we run across old objects which just aren’t useful anymore, at least not as they were originally intended. Sometimes they’re junk. Sometimes they work well enough, and it’s nice to have a backup around, just in case. And sometimes?

Sometimes it’s old enough that it’s got a little bit of cool going on. Like this 1960 Tektronix 503 oscilloscope. It shouts SPACE AGE! from all angles. (Our good friend Matt likened the round display screen to a porthole into a sea of electrons. Of course!)

Oscilloscope front — *Belongs on a rocketship or a submarine. Or, in a Venture Brothers world, both*!

It might not work anymore – probably depends on whether the capacitors are still in good shape – but we haven’t tried. It’s not like we’re going to use this in place of any of the other, more modern, higher-frequency, smaller-footprint ‘scopes we’ve got in numerous labs. This stays around because it looks amazing.

Oscillosocpe interior — *Look at those resistors!*

Even the insides are fantastic! Big honkin’ resistors, induction coils, capacitors, all widely spaced for effective heat dissipation. You can trace how each knob turns and switches circuit components in each of those cylindrical arrays. As a kid, this is probably the mental image of what it looks like inside a giant robot. Giant robots are the best robots.

Oscilloscope interior. — *Look at those tubes!*

On the other side, we can check out all of the vacuum tubes that made this sucker hum. Plus a big ol’ transformer and a wonderfully stylish CRT for the display. Vacuum tubes don’t show up many places anymore, having been replaced with miniaturized circuit components, but we still have use for them in special cases. (Photomultiplier tubes in our wave-particle duality lab, for example.) Despite their rarity, you can’t deny that they look awesome.

Oscilloscope manual. — *Check the cutout!*

We even have a pair of manuals. A pair. Does that mean there were once a set of 503s around? Could we possibly stumble across another, gathering dust beneath a workbench in a dark corner someplace?

After all, that’s where this one popped up, undisturbed for decades. Never know what you’ll uncover.

Spyglass

Posted on June 21, 2023 by Brian Garthwaite

It’s not just telescopes at the Observatory. We also have a spyglass. What’s the difference?

There are a variety of potential optics for a telescope, using reflectors to reflect and focus light, using refractive lenses to bend and focus light, using mirrors to turn a beam around corners, using these in combination. Each has its pros and cons, and careful optical design and precise manufacturing work to gather lots of light, to provide good resolution and magnification, and to correct for optical aberrations.

And in doing all of that, the image reaching your eye or the camera sensor gets flipped upside down. Also in reverse, if you’ve got a mirror in your optical train. When looking at stars and deep sky objects, that’s not a big deal. “Up” is arbitrary in space. For terrestrial viewing, however, up matters. Seeing that incoming pirate ship upside down is disorienting. So a good spyglass keeps up as up.

It does so by using a Galilean refractor design, which has a concave lens in the optical assembly to avoid the upside-down flip. The resulting telescope is necessarily longer than a comparable refractor with convex lenses, and thus heavier. That weight tends to limit the possible objective aperture size, and the practical magnification limits are low. Still: very effective for spotting Edward Teach at a distance, or for identifying the four largest moons of Jupiter.

Binoculars, incidentally, manage to keep the world upright thanks to a set of prisms between the objective lenses and the eyepieces. Yet another handy trick in the optical design toolkit.

Spyglass case label — *Number 36409. Matches!*

Dynamometer Voltmeter

Posted on June 15, 2023 by Brian Garthwaite

Voltmeter label. — *Accuracy Guarantee!*

Sometimes you just have to love the directness of the manufacturers of scientific apparatus and equipment. “Sensitive Research Instrument Corporation” is not, by any standards, snappy. But it is clear about their product line.

An accuracy guarantee of 0.25%, standardized by Louis Miller on 10/29/62. Charmingly hand-written on this label affixed inside the case. (Sadly, no one marked this one with the price.)

RS232 Gender Changer

Posted on June 5, 2023 by Brian Garthwaite

Not presented entirely without comment, as it’s hard to contain the urge toward snark. Yes, we know what this is and why it’s useful; yes, we know what they mean by “gender” and how F/F looks the same but changes things. Yes, yes.

At any rate: the cables which once needed this adapter are gone, as is the equipment it carried electronic messages to and from. Now we just have a block of metal and plastic and the opportunity to squint and say, “I’m not sure that’s how that’s supposed to work.”

Invoice

Posted on May 30, 2023 by Brian Garthwaite

*Always keep your receipts for tax records.*

In 1963, one could purchase a Standard Astro-Dome with a 17′ inside diameter for the low, low price of $14,667. It must have been a worthwhile investment, because we’re still using it 60+ years later with no plans to update or replace it anytime soon.

Adjusted cost in 2023 dollars: $144,932.41.

Astronomical Photography, 1895 edition

Posted on May 19, 2023May 19, 2023 by Brian Garthwaite

1895 text on Astronomical Photography — *Do not untie.*

Among the stacks and stacks of old records and books at the Observatory, we have a substantial text discussing best practices for astrophotography from…

1895. Sweet.

You may read a scanned version online if so inclined. Fun to note that, broadly speaking, the difficulties remain. With every improvement in technology comes an increased ability to explore and a growing expectation of quality, so there’s always opportunity to do better. From page 2:

“In order to appreciate the accuracy with which the mechanical adjustments
must be made, and the care with which they must be used, we should recollect
that in a telescope of sixteen feet focal length, a second of arc is rather less than
.001 of an inch, — a quantity quite invisible to the naked eye. We are required,
therefore, to keep a mass of metal weighing several hundred pounds following the
star with such accuracy, for perhaps an hour, that it shall not for any length of time
shift to one side of the other from its true position by this amount.“

Stacks of books. — *So much. So delicate.*

Repurposed Boxes

Posted on May 16, 2023 by Brian Garthwaite

Schrafft's box, top — *What’s “Belmont” flavor?*

No one expects an antique box of chocolate bars – a Boston-based brand which went out of business in 1981 – to contain those candies anymore. We reuse boxes all the time, and the key factors are size and durability. D-cell battery boxes are in relatively high demand, for example; good size and sturdy. Chocolates boxes, it seems, were once just right for storing lots of glass plates. This was so long ago, though, that the original use has become somewhat obscure. (The glass plates. No one’s confused about the eventual fate of the chocolate bars.) Now the boxes are more intriguing than their contents.

Schrafft's box, side — *Five cents seems reasonable.*

Idle thoughts bubble:

What an interesting array of flavors! Belmont? Mallowfudge? Creole Nut? Presumably Caramallow is a caramel-marshmallow hybrid, whatever that meant in practice.
Why is it Coconut Cream, but all of the others are ordered as Cream Almond or Cream Walnut? (Cream Brazil Nut?)
“Pure = Wholesome” feels appropriately late-19^th-century and kind of creepy.
“Rich In Food Value” feels appropriately early-20^th-century and definitely creepy. Or possibly written by ChatGPT; still creepy.

Old Books

Posted on May 9, 2023 by Brian Garthwaite

It’s not uncommon for any place to collect things and never quite discard them, and it only grows worse when there’s no single person in charge of them. On some old shelves at the Observatory, we have no shortage of 19^th-century astronomical observations from all around the world. A few select favorites recently spotted: Havana, Cuba; Hyderabad, India; Tachkent (now Tashkent), Uzbekistan.

Oldest so far spotted: Washington Astronomical Observations, 1848.

Part of the library collection since 1856. Wonder if the library knows? (We’ve put in a call to the proper folks, so no worries.)

“Library of University Lewisb^g. Dec. 1856″

Neat!

Tag: vintage