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On 6 March 1901 the minutes record what was to be a most significant event. Mr Weir reported a meeting which he had with Mr R H Reynolds, director of the Manchester Technical Schools in which reference was made by Reynolds to the erection of an observatory on the roof of the new building in Whitworth Street and to the probable use that the society might have of the telescope, an 8" refractor telescope. Also, in the same building, a room would be available for meetings.
It is not clear exactly how the branch contributed to the erection of the observatory, which was to be a gift to the City of Manchester of Mr Francis Godlee of the firm Simpson and Godlee Ltd, cotton manufacturers and calico printers, a governor of the Technical Schools and a close friend of Mr Reynolds as described elsewhere in this history. By May 1901, a committee consisting of the president of the Branch, Professor Core, Mr Thomas Weir and Messrs Okell and Thorp, was appointed to confer, when required to do so, with the Technical Instruction Committee of the city on matters that might arise pertaining to the telescope and observatory under construction.
The choice of a refractor was undoubtedly for visual planetary work and the measurement of double stars. The 12" Newtonian reflector, counterbalancing the refractor on the same tall German equatorial mounting, is perhaps less obvious. The eyepiece would assume awkward positions and render visual observations difficult. However, as a deep sky instrument, the light collecting surface of the silvered mirror would equal if not surpass the refractor, particularly if used photographically. The precedent for this combination had been set 16 years earlier when Dr Isaac Roberts discussed with Sir Howard Grubb the particular requirements of a large astrographic reflector subsequently erected at Roberts's private observatory at Maghull near Liverpool in April 1885. Here, a 20" Newtonian designed for taking photographs at the prime focus was counterbalanced by a 7" refractor for visual use. On 10 October 1887 Dr Roberts became the first to photograph the spiral structure of the Andromeda nebula using this instrument. The observatory was later moved to Crowborough, Sussex, from where, in 1893, Roberts published his important 'Photographs of Stars, Star Clusters and Nebulae'. The Godlee telescopes could therefore be regarded as a tried and tested combination in which the City, members of the branch and, indeed, Sir Howard could have every confidence. The ancilliary 6" f/6 plate camera mounted on the refractor was an obvious choice for wide field photography, particularly for mapping starfields and for comets. Again there were precedents in the large number of short focal length astrographic lenses of similar aperture in use at the time in America, some of which had been supplied by Sir Howard after trial and error designs had been tested at Greenwich.
After the visit of the members to the Technical College on Saturday 2 November 1901, an expression of thanks was sent to the Lord Mayor and to Mr Reynolds, for their kindness. However, the room designated for use by the scientific societies was not ready even by the following April and plans to hold meetings in the new building were postponed until the 1902-3 session. On 5 November, 1902, a General Meeting of the branch took place at the new Manchester Technical College. As this was the first meeting of the session the president addressed the 20 members present with a few opening remarks and went on to inform them that forthcoming meetings would be held, it was hoped, in the room under the observatory which would be available on Thursday evenings. It was therefore proposed that the meetings should in future be held on the first Thursday in the month . After the lecture, entitled 'Comets', which was well illustrated with lantern slides, the lantern being operated by Thomas Thorp, the members adjourned to the observatory to inspect the telescopes.
Neither the observatory nor the telescopes were completed at this time, and even by March 1903 they were still in the hands of the contractors, but it was hoped that there would be further opportunities for the members to become conversant with the detail of the instruments. The Principal of the College, Mr Reynolds, in his meetings with Thomas Weir and the branch committee, had from the conception of the observatory shown that he fully intended that the society should have full access and use of the facilities. Indeed, there was considerable correspondence directly between the council of the society and Sir Howard Grubb in attempting to arrange a meeting with him at which he could personally instruct the use of the instruments. The meeting was delayed for various reasons and in April it was suggested that only the branch council would meet with Sir Howard and then disseminate the information at some later date to the main body of members.
Suddenly, after what has been described as a sort of rebellion against the BAA, at the council meeting of 28 April 1903 it was recorded that at every successive session the resources of the branch kept dropping. For this and other reasons, the BAA had been approached several times to no avail. A letter was read from Mr Maw of the BAA intimating that the branch subscription fee should be sufficient and that members got ample for their money. This opinion was not shared by the branch members or council. A resolution was formally proposed that an independent astronomical society for Manchester should be formed with a moderate fee for membership which would entirely contribute to the society's prosperity and necessities, but which would in no way prevent individual members from retaining their membership with the BAA if they so desired. The council was unanimous in the matter.
On 7 October the general meeting was preceded by a Provisional Committee meeting held in the Godlee Observatory. The Secretary read a list of fifteen names of persons who had applied to become members. It was proposed by Mr Okell seconded by Mr Thorp that Sir James Hay and Mr.J.H Reynolds be elected vice-presidents. The business concluded with Professor Core announcing the handing over of property presented to him by the late local branch to the new society. We may assume that this was the small collection of Journals, Memoirs and books that had accumulated. Afterwards, the president gave the first annual address to the Society on "The Solar Parallax" with an audience of 60 after which the meeting adjourned to the observatory to see the instruments. Typically, it was cloudy.
At the next meeting of the Provisional Committee on 28 October it was announced that Mr Godlee and the Rev W Sidgreaves had accepted the positions of the vice-presidents. Futhermore, a proposal was made and warmly approved that Thomas Weir should be made an Honorary Member in recognition of his services as secretary to the late branch of the BAA and in eclipse work. At this meeting one of the members elected was a young student of the College of Technology, Mr E Denton-Sherlock, later to become president and a famous amateur mirror and telescope maker. One of Mr Denton Sherlock's instruments is still available for loan to members.
The Manchester Astronomical Society flourished in those early years. The regular monthly meetings during each session, from October through to April, were well attended and brought speakers from afar. In April 1904, E W Maunder lectured on "Mars and its Canals" and it would appear that at other meetings demonstrations of 3D images were shown long before the recent photographic experiments carried out by present-day members. Regular correspondence with other local astronomical societies was encouraged. In particular, the societies at Liverpool and Leeds were visited by MAS members and this was reciprocated in a general climate of exchanging ideas in furtherance of the science. Membership, which at the start of the first session had stood at 76, increased to 95 later in 1903-04 and then remained at a little over 100 until the 1909-10 session when a dramatic increase took place. This was the year in which W T Hesketh FRAS became president following John Watson (1907-10) and E T Whitelow (1904-7). In 1910 membership rose to 130 and remained at about the same level until the start of the First World War.
From 1911 until 1925 the presidency was held by the Rev Father A L Cortie, SJ, FRAS, of Stoneyhurst College Observatory, Blackburn. Well equipped with a 15" refractor, magnetic and seismological laboratories, Stoneyhurst was internationally famous for studies of solar phenomena and the associated terrestrial effects. "Stoneyhurst Disks" are still used by the amateur to determine the latitude and longitude of sunspots. Father Cortie was a well liked person who did much for the society and promoted the interests of the science with numerous lectures to the MAS meetings and throughout the North West. As a solar observer of international repute he took part in many expeditions abroad to witness total eclipses, including the British Government Eclipse Expedition to observe the eclipse of 21 August 1914 from Hernosand, Sweden. Being a Jesuit, Cortie was refused permission by the Russian Government to go to Kiev as part of the official expedition of the Joint Permanent Eclipse Committee of the Royal Astronomical and Royal Societies and so the expedition was split with Father Cortie leading the party to Hernosand. The objective was to photograph the corona during totality and for this, three instruments were taken including a lens of 4" aperture, belonging to the Royal Irish Academy, in a tube 20 feet long. Next in size was a camera with a lens of 4" aperture of 30" focal length and lastly one belonging to Mr Whitelow, with an aperture of 3.5" and 14 inch focus. These instruments were mounted horizontally in parallel and fed with light via a 16" diameter heliostat mirror. Although the weather forecast for Sweden was not as good as that for the Kiev site, the expedition results were a success.
In the same year as the solar eclipse, on 13 October 1914, an exceedingly brilliant meteor was observed to fall to earth at Appley Bridge near Wigan. This was later exhibited at a meeting of the society in two pieces, evidently fractured by the impact. The dimensions when fitted together were 9.65" long, 6.62" wide and 9.13" deep whilst the longest diagonal was 10.76".It weighed 28 pounds 13 ounces. The surface showed thumb marks due to the heating as it passed through the atmosphere. An examination of the meteorite by Mr E L Rhead, Lecturer in Metallurgy at the Technical School, showed that the stony mass consisted of the usual earthy silicates of which olivine was in greatest amount. A considerable proportion was triolite, iron sulphide, and there was a small amount of metallic iron. The specific gravity was 3.36. At the time this was the second largest meteorite known to have fallen in the British Isles.
The total solar eclipse of 29 June 1927 was the last such event visible from the British Isles. The path of totality was ideally located for the MAS although, as might be expected the weather was far from good, being mainly overcast and drizzly. The moon's shadow came onto land at Criccieth, Carnarvonshire and passed directly across the Snowdonian mountains to leave the North Wales coast at Pensar. Having crossed Liverpool Bay, landfall was again made between Ainsdale and Formby from where, at Southport, several of our members observed. The track then continued in a north-easterly direction, passing over Preston, coming close to Stoneyhurst and several towns such as Giggleswick, from where most of the UK observations were made, Richmond and Darlington before leaving our shores at the Hartlepools. The eclipse was an early morning event, totality lasting less than half a minute. The shadow was nowhere wider than 35 miles and Manchester was not within the path of totality although it is possible that given favourable skies a sort of long duration 'diamond ring' effect would have been seen from here. The nearest place, which was just in the zone of totality, was Horwich. Liverpool, however, was mostly within the path except for the very southernmost part of the city.
From Snowdonia the shadow was seen sweeping towards the mountains in a most spectacular way as this eye-witness account recently retold by Mr Llewelyn Evans, the father-in-law of one of our members, Dr M.Bhattacharyya, recalls.
Map of North West England,
showing 1927 Eclipse Track
"I was 14 at the time and recall that we were going to see something which probably we would never see in this country again in our life time. We were up early in the morning and climbed a hill of about 2000 feet, at the back of the village (Dollgarrog, situated in the Conwy valley, midway between Conwy and Betwys-y-Coed) with our smoked glass (made by holding a piece of glass over the kitchen fire) and waited for it all to happen. It was a weird experience. It went very quiet as the birds stopped twittering and then we could see this dark shadow coming quite fast over the hills. It went very dark and then you could see the sun peeping round the moon, as it were. The birds started singing again and it got a lot warmer. I will never forget this dark shadow passing over and most of us there came to the conclusion that there must be a God somewhere. I can see from the map (taken from the Manchester Guardian of 28 June 1927) that we were right in the middle of the track."
As an aside, it has been pointed out by Dr Brenda Bhattacharyya that the awesome spectacle of the solar eclipse followed close on the heels of a far more traumatic experience. In 1926, having been to the cinema some miles from Dolgarrog, the young Llewelyn Evans found to his horror that in his short absence the village had been struck by disaster. The reservoir above the village had burst its banks and flooded the village with the loss of his mother, three young sisters and his home. Perhaps, after witnessing the eclipse, here was evidence of the God he doubted the previous year.
Many more observations of the shadow were made, but no reports of the shadow bands, probably because of the prevalence of cloud. Messrs Porthouse and Hindle did record that the edge of the shadow seemed to leap past them in a series of huge vibrations or flickers. A similar flickering effect was also noted by another observer at Southport, when the following end of the shadow passed.
Of the corona, Mr Porthouse later reported that no long coronal streamers nor any plumes were observed, the corona being distinctly of a type characteristic of sunspot maximum. Some short extensions of the corona were seen, but at no point reaching a full diameter from the limb. The colour of the inner corona was whitish yellow, and the outer corona had a greenish tinge. These colours were also confirmed by a son of Mr Porthouse.
Another member, Mr E Denton-Sherlock, noted that the air temperature showed very little change throughout the eclipse, possibly due to the great amount of cloud present and the early hour at which it took place. At Southport he recorded a 2 deg(F) drop during totality.
Not until 11 August 1999 will it be possible to witness this rare phenomenon again from our shores - at the tip of Cornwall.
After the 1926-27 session, less access seems to have been available to the Godlee Observatory as a visit was only made annually. In 1928 a close connection with the Liverpool Astronomical Society was established, representatives from each society attending two meetings of the other society each session.
Another well known member of this period was Professor William H Pickering of Manderville, Jamaica, who made very fine photographic lunar maps and, before the discovery by Clyde Tombaugh of Pluto in 1930, had produced no fewer than seven predictions for orbits of trans-Neptunian planets.
In 1935, the strong ties between the Manchester Astronomical Society and Stonyhurst were continued with the election of the Rev Father J P Rowlands, SJ, to the presidency. Regrettably, after the death of Father Rowlands, astronomical work at Stonyhurst College declined and apart from the occasional visits by students of the college, the link with the MAS ended. Also in 1935 the society moved its meeting place to the Central Library.
At about this time, a young man who had already spent some years as a member of the Bristol Astronomical Society returned to his native city and joined the MAS. Ken Brierly was one of the society's longest serving members at the time of his death in 1989 and will be remembered with great affection by present members for his friendliness and untiring work to encourage new members with his detailed knowledge of astronomical instruments and observing techniques. Ken was a very fine craftsman and taught silver-smithing at evening class workshops. He had a keen interest in antique instruments and owned two fine reflecting telescopes by the Scottish instrument maker, James Short, one of which, made in Edinburgh in 1734, is the earliest known telescope made by Short and is only the fourteenth he constructed. This 6" focus 1.5" aperture Gregorian was evidently made by Short whilst still an apprentice and before he started to make telescopes commercially. Ken once showed this little brass telescope to the present writer recalling that it was purchased in Bristol from a junk shop for just a few pounds, the shopkeeper thinking that it was part of a model steam engine.
Mr E Denton-Sherlock became president in 1945 and held office until 1948, when Mr J C Farrer took over until 1958, the longest presidency so far apart from that of the Rev Cortie. Mr Farrer is remembered for his records of sunspot activity contained in bound volumes in the library. These observations were made every day in which the weather permitted use of the Godlee refractor and are a first class example of how observations should be recorded.
The tradition of solar observing was continued in the 1960s and 70s with the work of Messrs Bispham, Ettenfield and Rustige who contributed a great number of observations of polar faculae. Later, Mr Maudsley made an advancement by observing prominences and faculae through Hydrogen alpha filters. Indeed, during the mid-1970s, the MAS could pride itself in having Messrs Rustige and Maudsley as members, two of the most productive solar observers in the UK, who contributed regularly to the BAA Solar Section.