Abstract
The Markowitz Moon camera program, originated at the U. S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. in 1952 for the determination of “ephemeris” time, was transformed a few years later into one of the many programs of the International Geophysical Year (IGY). The Moon camera’s stated IGY goal was to improve geodesy—the study of the gravity field, shape, and size of the Earth. Geodetic positions are related to time through longitude; 360° of longitude is 24 h of time, so 1° at the equator is equal to 4 min of time, 69 statute miles or 60 nautical miles. Although in the end the Moon camera program failed in its ambitious geodetic goals, the history of this particular program emphasizes that not all IGY programs were successful. Moreover, the Moon camera highlights an important aspect of making science global that historians usually ignore—the determination and dissemination of time worldwide. Without accurate timing and synchronization of observations on a global scale, much of the data from the IGY would have been compromised or useless. The Moon camera program was undertaken in the midst of rapid changes in timekeeping and time dissemination, events in which the eponymous William Markowitz played an important role.
Given the lack of historical treatment of this program compared to the Smithsonian’s Moonwatch/Baker-Nunn program with its similar aims, in this paper I will answer several questions: Who was William Markowitz and what was the context in which the Markowitz Moon camera program emerged? What were the results of the Markowitz Moon camera program? Where does the program fit in the context and history of the IGY? The answers to these questions will help us assess the broader social and intellectual significance of the program. And along the way we will come to appreciate the importance of time measurement and synchronization for IGY global observations.
First published in Globalizing Polar Science: Reconsidering the Social and Intellectual Implications of the International Polar and Geophysical Years, edited by Roger D. Launius, James R. Fleming, and David H. DeVorkin (Palgrave MacMillan: New York, 2010)
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Geodesy is a huge area in need of a critical history. Some of the general history is given along with the scientific concepts in Smith (1997).
- 2.
The first Washington-Paris radio determinations of longitude were in 1913.
- 3.
John Cloud, one of the few historians of geodesy , describes the development and work of perhaps the most significant early geodetic sciences group during the first period, that at Ohio State University, in ( Cloud , 2000).
- 4.
For a list of “Geodetic Reference Spheroids” preceding the WGS 84, and the current context in which WGS 84 is used, see U. S. Naval Observatory (2004).
- 5.
These concepts are defined, with diagrams, in Smith (1997), especially pp. 85–87. For a succinct discussion of the relationship between geocentric and geodetic coordinates, see any edition of the U. S. Naval Observatory ’s Astronomical Almanac, for example, the 2006 edition, “Reduction of Terrestrial Coordinates,” pp. K11–K13.
- 6.
On Markowitz’s work at the USNO see Dick (2003), pp. 480–85.
- 7.
As Paul Forman (1985, 1182) has written, “The seasonal variations in the rate of the earth’s rotation, which the pendulum was barely able to detect, were made fully apparent by quartz oscillators in the years before the Second World War. Still, the evidence tended rather to be overlooked by both astronomers and horologists unready for the conceptual revolution which it implied.” It was only in the 1950s that they took action.
- 8.
Values of Delta T are tabulated in the Astronomical Almanac, for example on pp. K8–K9 of the 2006 edition.
- 9.
Paul Forman (1985, 1182) states: “In the mid 1950s, astronomers remained disinclined to cede primacy in time determination to physicists and engineers. The steady improvement of quartz oscillators and the advent of the first atomic frequency standards pushed astronomers to try to reestablish uniformity in astronomical time by shifting from the earth’s daily rotation to its annual revolution to define the second; ‘Ephemeris Time ,’ as it was called was formally adopted in 1960 by the General Conference of Weights and Measures.”
- 10.
- 11.
The document is undated, but internal evidence indicates late 1953 or early 1954; it preceded publication of the technique in the March 1954 Astronomical Journal (Markowitz 1954b). On the use of solar eclipses and occultations for geodesy, see (Mueller, 1954). As mentioned above, the Moon had been used for three centuries to determine geographical longitude through the famous “lunar distances” method. But the results were of low precision.
- 12.
This stated accuracy, or at least the conversion from arcseconds to feet also quoted in the IGY Annals, vol. IIA, p. 142 (Annals 1959), does not make sense. 0.15 arcseconds is about 15 feet on the surface of the Earth. 0.15 arcminutes (9 arcseconds) is 900 feet, but accuracies should have been better than that. Other descriptions (e.g. Chapman 1959, pp. 18–19) state distances on the Earth’s surface will be measured “with errors of the order of no more than 100 to 200 feet.
- 13.
The IGY Moon camera proposal was one part of the plans for USNO participation in IGY. The first program was the Moon camera, which would produce geocentric latitude and longitude, and changes in the rate of rotation of the Earth. A second program was the determination of astronomical latitudes and longitudes using the prismatic astrolabe invented by Danjon. The third program was observation of solar activity, already long underway at USNO. Total cost was estimated at $165,000, of which the Office of Naval Research had already funded $49,200 for FY 1954 and 1955.
- 14.
Markowitz (1954b), p. 73, references this Brussels meeting.
- 15.
The best contemporary overview of the PZT is Markowitz (1960).
- 16.
This volume was not published until 1959, but shortly after the Rome meeting Markowitz wrote Odishaw of these results, Markowitz to Odishaw, October, 29, 1954, National Academy of Sciences (NAS) IGY archives, Washington, DC, series 5.8. Odishaw was the Executive Secretary of the U. S. National Committee of the IGY; this was the first letter in a series of correspondence on this subject between them. Appendix B describing the Moon camera program was originally written by Markowitz and dated 10 September, 1954, with copies both at the National Academy and USNO archives. Andre Danjon was the president of the Latitude-Longitude group in 1954, and circulated the adopted resolutions and Markowitz’s appendix B shortly after the meeting.
- 17.
Minutes of the First Meeting, NAS IGY archives, series 4. Rice was the Chief of the Gravity and Astronomy branch of the Coast and Geodetic Survey. The Survey had participated in the two previous world longitude campaigns, operating the station in Hawaii in both 1926 and 1933. It would now operate the Hawaii station (known as NIU longitude, nine miles east of Honolulu) for both IGY programs, astronomical and geodetic latitude and longitude. The Survey also operated two of the five permanent observatories for determining variation of latitude under the International Latitude Service. See NAS IGY archives, series 8.1, folder on latitude and longitude, project 7.1, 1956–57.
- 18.
Hugh Odishaw to Captain Charles Freeman, Superintendent USNO, Nov. 20, 1956, USNO on-site archives, Moon camera files, and NAS archives, IGY records, series 8.1, World Data Centers, USNO, 1956–1959.
- 19.
Markowitz , Letter Circular No. 1, Moon Position Program of the IGY, 1 May, 1957, NAS IGY archives.
- 20.
Markowitz to Odishaw, 4 January, 1958, NAS IGY archives, series 8.1.
- 21.
C. L. Freeman, Superintendent USNO, to U.S. National Committee for IGY, Feb 13, 1957, NAS archives, series 8.1. E. O. Hulbert, senior scientist for USNC-IGY to Chairman and Executive Committee, USNC-IGY, Feb 14, 1957. See also IGY Annals, vol. VII, Parts I, II, and III (London, 1959), p. 283, where the USNO also hoped to discuss results in its Publications. A full list of latitude and longitude observatories is given on pp. 286–288, broken down by astronomical vs. geodetic observations.
- 22.
Interim Catalogue of Data in IGY World Data Center A, IGY General Report Series, Number 7, Nov. 30, 1959, 78. Results are reported for 1 July, 1957–30 September, 1959. Also Seventh 6-monthly Catalogue of Data in IGY World Data Center A, IGY General Report, Number 13, January, 1961, pl. 98. And eighth catalogue, July 1961. The final Catalogue of Data in the World Data Centers was published (Pergamon Press, 1963).
- 23.
Markowitz (1958a, b). Markowitz wrote that “Although much has been published which describes the various techniques it is not clear to geodesists just how the Moon is to be used to determine the size and shape of the earth. Prof. P. Tardi requested that at Toronto specific details be given to show just how this was to be done. Accordingly, I invited several of my colleagues to prepare reports covering eclipses, occultations, and the earth satellite, while I undertook to describe the lunar photographic method” (Markowitz 1958a). The reports Markowitz refers to were Goldstein et al. (1958), Markowitz (1958b), O’Keefe (1958), and Whipple and Hynek (1958). Markowitz further noted that these reports would concentrate on their respective programs because “It would be assumed in each case that observations could be made to the degree of precision anticipated” (Markowitz 1958a, 34).
- 24.
Steven J. Dick OHI with David K. Scott, 26 Feb, 1988, p. 19, 27–33, USNO library.
- 25.
“For Markowitz by Whipple,” July 25, 1960, USNO on-site archives, Moon camera files. The manuscript letter is erroneously dated “July 25, 190,” but internal evidence makes it clear that the year is 1960.
- 26.
Fred L. Whipple to Wm. Markowitz, January 19, 1961, Unit 7431, Fred Lawrence Whipple papers, series 1 (General Correspondence), Box 3, Accession 98–132, Smithsonian Institution Archives. There are 10 pages of Whipple/Markowitz correspondence from 1956–1961 in box 3.
- 27.
SAO results are given in National Geodetic Satellite Program (NASA: Washington, DC, 1977), Pt. II, p. 885. NASA SP-365.
- 28.
Pembroke Hart to Markowitz, August 7, 1959, NAS IGY archives, series 8.1.
- 29.
Markowitz to Odishaw, Dec 4, 1958, NAS IGY archives, series 5, latitude and longitude, 1954–60.
- 30.
Markowitz to Hart, 25 March, 1960, “Data Center A Longitude and Latitude,” NAS IGY archives, series 8.1, folder WDC project 45.10, 1960.”
- 31.
On the history of the ILS and BIH see Dick, McCarthy and Luzum (2000), especially Part II.
- 32.
“Historians of science, principally those interested in the development of ideas, have often insisted that any historical reconstruction that ignores what seems in retrospect to be erroneous will be an inadequate account” (Galison 1987, 5). Galison cites Alexandre Koyré and Thomas Kuhn in this regard, noting that when they refer to historically held beliefs as “mistaken,” is not to judge past theories anachronistically, but rather to appreciate forgotten frames of mind that may reveal precepts were held to be of central importance in their time. With regard to experiments and observations being superseded, I was involved in one such situation at the U. S. Naval Observatory when a 10-year transit circle program to produce fundamental positions for Southern Hemisphere stars at the level of a few hundredths of an arcsecond was superseded even before publication by the Hipparcos satellite, which produced positions at the milliarcsecond level, ten to a hundred times better accuracy. The satellite almost failed to achieve orbit, however, and if it had not worked the transit circle results, using new electronic “image dissector” technology, would have been considered cutting edge science. See Dick (2003, 239–41).
- 33.
While the Moon program was only a small part of the IGY, it would be interesting to know how many other IGY programs did not fully attain their goals.
- 34.
Report of the Moon Program, 1 January, 1957 to 1 January, 1970, R. Glenn Hall to Richard Y. Dow, 6 February, 1970, USNO on-site archives, Moon camera files.
- 35.
For a real-life story of the effect of the failure to take into account polar motion in spacecraft navigation see Muller (2000) in Dick, McCarthy (2000)
- 36.
Fred L. Whipple to Wm. Markowitz, January 19, 1961, Unit 7431, Fred Lawrence Whipple papers, series 1 (General Correspondence), Box 3, Accession 98–132, Smithsonian Institution Archives.
References
Annals of the International Geophysical Year. 1957. vol. IV, parts I, II and III. London
Annals of the International Geophysical Year, A H. Shapley et al., eds. 1959, vol. IIA. London: Pergamon Press
Annals of the International Geophysical Year. 1964. vol. XXXVI. Oxford. Pergamon Press
Chapman, Sydney. 1959. IGY: Year of Discovery. The Story of the International Geophysical Year (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press [1959], 926–931: 929.
Cloud, John. 2000. “Crossing the Olentangy River: The Figure of the Earth and the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex, 1947-1972,” Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, vol. 31, no. 3, pp. 371–404.
Cloud, John. 2002. “American Cartographic Transformations during the Cold War,” Cartography and Geographic Information Science, vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 261–282.
Cloud, John. 2010. “World Geodetic System,” in Stephen B. Johnson, General Editor, Space Exploration and Humanity: A Historical Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, ABC-Clio, vol. 1.
Dick, Steven J. 2003. Sky and Ocean Joined: The U.S. Naval Observatory, 1830-2000 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 472–73.
Dick, Steven J. and Dennis D. McCarthy. 1999. "William Markowitz, 1907-1998," Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society; vol. 31, no. 4 (1999), p. 1605
Dick, Steven J., Dennis McCarthy and Brian Luzum, eds., 2000. Polar Motion: Historical and Scientific Problems. San Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacific
Dunnington, G. Waldo. 1955. Gauss: Titan of Science. New York, 1955, reprinted 2004, especially 113–138.
Forman, Paul. 1985. “Atomichron: The Atomic Clock from Concept to Commercial Product,” Proc. IEEE, 73, 1181–1204. http://ieeemilestones.ethw.org/images/8/8d/Forman_Proc_IEEE_1985.pdf
Galison, Peter. 1987. How Experiments End. University of Chicago Press: Chicago and London.
Goldstein, A., O.F. Mattingly and F.J. Heyden, S.J. 1958. “On the Geodetic Application of a Solar Eclipse,” Bulletin Geodesique, 49
Kaplan, Joseph. 1954. “The Scientific Program of the International Geophysical Year,” in Symposium on Scientific Aspects of the International Geophysical Year, 1957-1958, PNAS, vol. 40 (1954), pp. 926–931: 929.
Launius, Roger D. et al. eds. 2010. Globalizing Polar Science: Reconsidering the Social and Intellectual Implications of the International Polar and Geophysical Years. Palgrave MacMillan: New York
McCray, W. Patrick. 2006. “Amateur Scientists, the International Geophysical Year, and the Ambitions of Fred Whipple,” Isis, 97, 4, 634–658.
Markowitz, William. 1945. “Redeterminations of Latitude and Longitude,” Transactions of the AGU, 26, no. 2 (October, 1945), 197.
Markowitz, William. 1954a. “Proposal for the consideration of the USA National Committee on the Third Geophysical Year, 1957-58.” USNO archives on-site, Moon Camera files.
Markowitz, William. 1954b. “Photographic Determination of the Moon’s Position, and Applications to the Measure of Time, Rotation of the Earth, and Geodesy,” Astronomical Journal, 59 (1954), 69–73: 70.
Markowitz, William. 1958a. “Use in Geodesy of the Results of Lunar Observations and Eventual Observations of Artificial Satellites,” Bulletin Geodesique, 49, 33–40.
Markowitz, William. 1958b. “Geocentric Co-Ordinates from Lunar and Satellite Observations,” Bulletin Geodesique, 49, 41–49.
Markowitz, William. 1960. “The Photographic Zenith Tube and the Dual-Rate Moon-Position Camera,” in Gerard P. Kuiper and Barbara M. Middlehurst, eds., Telescopes. University of Chicago Press: Chicago, pp. 88–114, vol. 1 of Stars and Stellar Systems, G. Kuiper, General Editor.
Markowitz, William. 1986. “Reminiscences of the U.S. Naval Observatory, 21 October, 1986,” oral history interview by Dennis McCarthy. U. S. Naval Observatory Library.
Markowitz, William. 1987. Oral history interview by Steven J. Dick, 18 August, 1987. U. S. Naval Observatory library.
Markowitz, William, R. Glenn Hall, L. Essen and J. V. L. Parry. 1958. “Frequency of Cesium in Terms of Ephemeris Time,” Physical Review Letters, 1 (August 1, 1958), 204L, 1-2 and 105–106.
Mueller, Ivan. 1964. Introduction to Satellite Geodesy. Frederick Ungar: New York. Part I.
Muller, Paul M. 2000. “Time and Polar Motion in Early NASA Spacecraft Navigation,” in Dick, McCarthy and Luzum (2000), pp. 215–19.
O’Keefe, J. A.. 1958. “The Occultation Method of Line Measurements,” Bulletin Geodesique, 49
Rafferty, Theodore J. 1981. “Refurbishing the US Naval Observatory’s 1892 Saegmuller 12-inch Refractor,” Telescope Making, 15, pp. 24–29.
Roberts, Elliott B. 1959. “The IGY in Retrospect,” Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1959, p. 282.
Smith, James R. 1997. Introduction to Geodesy: The History and Concepts of Modern Geodesy. New York, John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
Stephenson, F. R. 1997. Historical Eclipses and Earth’s Rotation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Stephenson, F. R. 2007. "Variations in the Earth’s Clock Error Delta T Between AD 300 and 800 as Deduced from Observations of Solar and Lunar Eclipses, Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, vol. 10, 211–220
Sullivan, Walter. 1961. Assault on the Unknown: The International Geophysical Year. McGraw Hill, New York, 395.
U. S. Naval Observatory. 2004. The Astronomical Almanac for the Year 2006. U.S. Government Printing Office, “Reduction of Terrestrial Coordinates,” p. K13.
Warner, Deborah Jean. 2000a. “Political Geodesy: The Army, the Air Force and the World Geodetic System of 1960,” Annals of Science, 59, 363-89
Warner, Deborah Jean. 2000b. “From Tallahassee to Timbuktu: Cold War Efforts to Measure Intercontinental Distances, Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, vol. 30: 2, 393–415.
Whipple, F. L. and J.A. Hynek. 1958. “The IGY Optical Satellite Tracking Program as a Source of Geodetic Information,” Bulletin Geodesique, 49
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank Dennis McCarthy (U. S. Naval Observatory), Brent Archinal (Astrogeology Research Program of the U. S. Geological Survey), Patrick McCray (University of California Santa Barbara) and David Devorkin (National Air and Space Museum) for their very useful comments, as well as Sally Bosken and Gregory Shelton at the U. S. Naval Observatory Library, Janice Goldblum at the National Academy of Sciences archives, and Mary Markey at Smithsonian Institution archives in Washington, D.C.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dick, S.J. (2020). Geodesy, Time, and the Markowitz Moon Camera Program: An Interwoven International Geophysical Year Story. In: Space, Time, and Aliens. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41614-0_29
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41614-0_29
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-41613-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-41614-0
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)