Allegheny Observatory

Posted by on Sep 12, 2022 in | Comments Off on Allegheny Observatory The mysteries of space and time itself have been explored at the Allegheny Observatory in Pittsburgh, ever since it was built to satisfy the celestial curiosity of the Allegheny Telescope Association, a group of amateur astronomy enthusiasts. In 1859 the group selected a site on the hills of North Side (at that time part of Allegheny City), an area free of city lights, providing a perfect spot...
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Aeronauts to Aviators: Pennsylvanians and Flight, 1784-1950

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Aeronauts to Aviators: Pennsylvanians and Flight, 1784-1950 Millions of us have used the airplane to earn a living, to travel from place to place or simply to amuse ourselves. Among twentieth-century innovations, the airplane has most dramatically changed the way we think about time and distance; people now consider transcontinental or transoceanic journeys in terms of hours rather than days or weeks. The airplane is a familiar technology. Yet historians...
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John A. Brashear (1840-1920)

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on John A. Brashear (1840-1920) Somewhere beneath the stars is work which you alone were meant to do. Never rest until you have found it,” proclaims a plaque at a small museum on Pittsburgh’s South Side. For the author, John Alfred Bras­hear (1840-1920), the stars were his life’s work. At the age of nine, encouraged by his grandfather, Brashear peered through a telescope with a lens ground from fire­hardened...
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