by Brad Franzella
On June 8th I made my way to the Paris observatory to view the transit of Venus. The observatory is located in a wonderful and historic location, a peaceful garden near the Latin quarter of Paris just south of the beautiful Luxembourg gardens. Upon arrival at the main gate I was greeted by the large statue of LeVerrier, but turned away by the grumpy guard who told me to walk around the back, enter through the garden and fight my way through the enormous mass of Parisiens waiting to see Venus. After a 10 minute hike around the exterior walls (big complex), I arrived and waited the long line too late to view the initial kiss between the Venus and our Sun... but I was there for the finish, and what a finish it was.
The transit was being shown from an old 18th century 19cm refractor in an old rusty dome... the carte du ciel dome, as it was especially commissioned by the navy to produce improved charts. The line was enormous, but well worth the wait. I saw Venus just inside the solar disc, a small round dark spot on a beautiful, nearly spotless sun.
After the initial view, I milled around the beautiful gardens and scrounged up the last free pair of solar viewing glasses being handed out by exhausted volunteers... I sat down and watched nature's show. Venus progressed across across the sun's disc quite slowly; well, what did I expect. I thought this was the appropriate time to view the observatory's exhibit on Venus which happened to contain the best live view of Venus being projected on a large screen from the observatory's main solar viewing instrument and piped down into the large marble room. There were artifacts from previous expeditions used to observe the transit in other locations, notably California. The original manuscripts and observing logs were on display alongside beautiful instruments and drawings. There was a wonderfully informative exhibit about the history of Venus and human understanding of the heavenly body... including about a half dozen original oil paintings that looks as if they were on loan from the Louvre. This complemented the wonderful portraits and busts of famous astronomers... Le Verrier, discoverer of Neptune being most prominent. Oddly, there is no portrait or bust of Messier (more on him later).
Back outside... I waited the line for a glimpse through a TeleVue 85 with Cornado Hydrogen Alpha filter. What a treat... transit of Venus, excellent granularity, gorgeous prominences. After being kicked off the TeleVue, I moved to the outside projection of the sun using a large lens and a mirror. Oddly, one of my favorite vies was through a simple pinhole projection! There were several amateurs spread about the vast observatory lawns... but unlike Tacos, they weren't interested in sharing views with the hordes milling nearby.
The transit concluded, slowly, to a massive row of applause from the crowd. It was over... I found it hard to believe that this historical event had actually came and gone.
Afterwords there were a series of talks given by resident astronomers and astrophysicists... I attended one on the history of astronomical distance measurements and part of another on Venus lore (both in French). There was an excellent demonstration of how to accurately compute the distance of the sun by making measurements from two locations on Earth of the transit. To top it all off... Soprano Anna Stefaniak gave a gorgeous concert of Italian songs and opera arias accompanied by the observatories beautiful old grand piano on the OObservatoryterrese (big enough to comfortably seat 50+ - the terrese, not the piano!).
The best, for me, was yet to come. On Friday the 11th, after a very fun and frightening scooter ride around Paris, I went back to the observatory and requested access to the library. I was given a badge and directed through the maze of doors to the library... after trying to follow the directions and finally finding the unlocked door on the 2nd floor, I winded my way there. I requested the list of manuscripts... filled out some forms and asked for Messiers notebook. The archivist returned after a few minutes to report that it was loaned to a museum in Metz for six months! :( However, they did have one of his notebooks entitled "Notice de mes Cometes" a journal Messier made of all his comet observations from 1758-1805. I awaited with glee... I was given a wonderful book which I didn't know existed, published in 2000 by author Jean Paul Philbert, "Le furet des cometes" is the best and most comprehensive book on Messier I've yet seen. It's in French... but still worth it if you are a Messier buff. After 20 minutes of reading that informative book, the archivist returned with a large box which he presented to me before walking away. No instructions, no white gloves... just myself and Messiers journal in a small corner of the quiet library. I opened the box to find a mmanilaenvelope... inside was the original manuscript in Messier's own hand. I couldn't believe I was actually touching and reading his own personal account of every comet he observed during this period.
Messier meticulously notes the date and weather conditions in a fluid yet scratchy penmanship. He gives time in the manner "7 heures 3/4 du matin" which I found most amusing and fitting for his epoch. In the 15 odd page manuscript were observations of his own comets as well as many other famous comets of the age, all properly attributed. I spent an hour and a half pouring over every inch... including the tattered and torn last few pages taped into the back. After carefully placing the sacred text back in it's stylish carton, I retrieved the information about the notebook of raw observations in Metz and wrote down the library catalog of his later observations now located at the Academy of Sciences in Paris. I left the beautiful old observatory feeling very content.
That night I went to see Puccini's opera "La Boheme" in an open air performance in front of the Chateau Sceaux... in itself an amazing experience. Paris was three weeks of organ concerts in cathedrals, violin concerts and operas intermixed with wonderful food and plenty of historical sights. I highly recommend it. For the past week I've been wandering Provence without access to e-mail... another experience I highly recommend. I plan to visit Galileo haunts in Florence and the Herschel museum in Bath amongst other astronomical and musical Venus.
Au revoir from Marseille, France on a gorgeous sunny day!
Posted on sf-bay-tac Jun 20, 2004 10:10:47 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Jan 01, 2005 17:09:26 PT