%0 Journal Article
%T Revealing observatory networks through object stories: Instrumental networks
%A Emily Akkermans
%A Kelley Wilder
%A Samantha Thompson
%D 2023
%V 
%N Autumn 2023
%K astronomy
%K astrophotography
%K chemistry
%K electrical circuits
%K failure
%K maintainers
%K networks
%K object stories
%K observatories
%K photography
%K physics
%K scientific expeditions
%K scientific instruments
%K time signal system
%K timekeeping
%K transit of Venus
%K user and builder networks
%X This paper presents three pieces that use objects, or object types, to reveal the material, personal, institutional and commercial networks that surrounded the introduction and successful use of instruments, systems and techniques. The objects explored are: the Hourly Signal Relay, used within the time signal system of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, from the mid-nineteenth century; photographic glass plates from the British 1874 transit of Venus expeditions; and an electronic imaging tube, Lallemand’s camera, developed in Paris and used at the Lick Observatory in California in the 1960s. Each story uses examples of failure as a means of highlighting a lack of robustness in or effort required to maintain these networks. Once created, however, such networks could, as the second two stories note, go on to develop and support alternative approaches, helping to create success from apparent failure. Nevertheless, complexity, failure and fragility have also led to the underrepresentation or obscurity of these objects in museum collections, until given focused attention in these studies. The paper forms part of a collection of articles: Revealing observatory networks through object stories. The other papers in the collection are ‘Object itineraries’, and ‘Observatory audiences’ and the genesis of the collection is discussed in the ‘Introduction’.
%Z The other object is a chronometer that ran sympathetically with the mean solar clock, ZAA0532.
%Z The acquisition files suggest that it was obtained in 1922 by Chatham Dockyards and transferred to the National Maritime Museum in 1953.
%Z Time balls helped navigators using chronometers in navigation to check how well they were keeping time. They would observe the drop of the ball which occurred at exactly 1pm and compare this with their chronometer. If the chronometer showed a different time, they would note the error and use it in any navigational calculations.
%Z ‘The Shepherd Gate Clock’, Royal Museums Greenwich website, https://www.rmg.co.uk/royal-observatory/attractions/shepherd-gate-clock, (accessed 20 March 2023)  
%Z Normal Clock ZAA0531; sympathetic dials ZAA0535, ZAA0536, ZAA0540; Time Ball, ZAA2245; Gate Clock ZAA0533
%Z Airy Transit Circle, AST0991; sidereal standard Dent 1906 ZAA0601; chronograph ZAA0889.
%Z William Morris was a watchmaker and Henry Mapple a former telegraph engineer for the Electric Telegraph Company. Together they held a patent for electric timekeeping (A. D. 1860, 22 June, No. 1515 ‘Electric Clocks and Telegraphs’). 
%Z Ellis, ‘Description of the Galvanic Connexions, Apparatus, and Methods of Action, as Existing at or in Connexion with the Royal Observatory, Greenwich’, April 1862, ‘Correspondence with Telegraph Companies, 1860 – 1866’, RGO 6/630, 526–560 (Royal Greenwich Observatory Archives, Cambridge University Library)
%Z An eight-day astronomical regulator by Dent, number 2012, circa 1874. ZBA1292 
%Z Memo Ellis to the Astronomer Royal, 23 March 1871, ‘Papers on galvanism and electric clocks, 1864 – 1872’, RGO 6/631, 351 
%Z Note from Airy to Ellis, 3 December 1866, ‘Papers on galvanism and electric clocks, 1864 – 1872’, ref. RGO 6/631, 339
%Z Letter from Ellis to Varley, 14 November 1863, ‘Correspondence with telegraph companies, 1860 – 1866’, ref. RGO 6/630, f 52 
%Z Ellis ‘Galvanic Connexion with Great Equatorial’, 3 October 1865, RGO 6/630, f 521 
%Z Ellis ‘Cleaning of Clock Batteries’, 25 September 1865, RGO 6/630, f 520
%Z Note from Airy to Ellis, 5 October 1861, RGO 6/630, f 513
%Z Jessica Ratcliff discusses the financial overspend of the British programme, estimating the equipment, including photography to be £10,570 (Ratcliff, 2008, p 131).
%Z Note that Waterhouse discounts two plates that were ‘useless’ in his account.
%Z Tupman Home Journal 2, Cambridge University Libraries, Royal Greenwich Observatory Archive, RGO 59/56/2, available online at Cambridge Digital Library, https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-RGO-00059-00056-00002/1 (accessed 24 March 2023). Ratcliff also writes an excellent account.
%Z De La Rue’s lunar photographs are widely dispersed and consequently difficult to count, but even the various known collections hold more than twenty original negatives or enlarged positives, possibly making him the most prolific lunar photographer of the nineteenth century.
%Z See the copyright records at the National Archives, London: COPY 1/4/435; COPY 1/1/163; 1/4/436; 1/1/203. 
%Z The relationship soured and eventually the Committee worked with Hinton & Co instead. Minutes of the meetings of the Photographic Committee, Royal Astronomical Society.
%Z It was enough income to generate some dispute between the RAS and the Committee as to who should keep it. Royal Astronomical Society, Photographic Committee papers.
%Z 16 January 1874, Tupman Home Journal 2, RGO 59/56/2, https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-RGO-00059-00056-00002/18 (accessed 31 March 2023)
%Z Three advertisements from Grace's Guide
%Z Katharina Bick, personal communication, 2023.
%Z Merle Walker interview with author.
%Z Merle Tuve to Leo Goldberg, 5 December 1958, Carnegie Telescope Image Tube Converter papers, Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (Washington, DC)
%I The Science Museum Group
%@ 2054-5770
%B eng
%U https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/article/revealing-observatory-networks-through-object-stories-instrumental-networks/
%J Science Museum Group Journal