1.201931 Huson Star Globe

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Dorner Telescope Museum

telling the story of the telescope in Canada

On 09 Mar, 2020 By rosenfel@chass....
  1. catalogue number: 1.201931;
  2. name of artifact: Huson Star Globe;
  3. date of production: 1975;
  4. materials of manufacture: lacquered printed paper gores on papier mâché and wood support, copper alloy, and hardwood box;
  5. maker: H. Hughes & Son Ltd., London;
  6. provenance:
    1. said to be from the navigational equipment of a battleship of the Canadian Armed Forces (oral information from donor 2019 March 1). According to the online catalogue entry for London, National Maritime Museum, NMM ZBA4838, “the Admiralty required that every serving ship should have two [of these] globes” for “back up for their electronic systems”, and that “star globes were needed by the Royal Navy during the Falklands War[!]”;
    2. collection of Rudolph Dorner;
  7. condition: Globe, interior fittings, and hardware are in good condition, the leather handles are worn, and the coloured pencils for inscribing notes on the globe are missing;
  8. notes:
    1. DTM 1.201931 example lacks Canadian ordnance marks.
    2. The RASC Archives has an older production Huson Star Globe, which is virtually identical to this one (see Rosenfeld 2009). By custom the older example was in the possession of the current editor of the RASC Observer's Handbook (OH), for use as a spherical chalkboard. Peter Broughton, FRASC, a past National President of the RASC, recalls that the globe "was used by those preparing the OH - particularly "The Sky Month by Month" section. In pre-digital days, it provided an almost instantaneous way to check the visibility or altitude and azimuth of planets, for instance" (private communication 2020 April 4). And Dr. Roy Bishop, FRASC, another past National President of the RASC, and editor of the OH (1982-2000), noted that the globe "resided in my home for a Saros period while I was editor of the Observer’s Handbook. I made use of it occasionally in the early pre-digital years. As I recall, on February 1, 1981 John Percy gave it to me along with his Handbook files. On that day it left Toronto and arrived in Avonport, Nova Scotia" (private communication 2020 April 4);
  9. comparanda: London, National Maritime Museum, NMM ZBA4838; & NMM ZBA0092
  10. literature:
    • London, National Maritime Museum, online catalogue entries for NMM ZBA4838; & NMM ZBA0092;
    • Canadian War Museum, online catalogue entry for 19730035-001.1, a German made analogue by Nautische Werkstatten G.m.b.H. Kiel W7180, taken from a U-Boat U-190, installed ca. 1942;
    • Admiralty Manual of Navigation, I (London: His Majesty's Stationary Office, 1938), p. 398; ibid., II (London: His Majesty's Stationary Office, 1938), p.214;
    • Elly Dekker et al., Globes at Greenwich: a Catalogue of the Globes and Armillary Spheres in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (Oxford New York: Oxford University Press and the National Maritime Museum, 1999), pp. 300-303, 354, 366-368, 379-381;
    • R.A. Rosenfeld, "A Tale of Two Globes", JRASC 103, 1 (2009 February), 28-31.

 

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DTM_1.201931
Type: 
Globe
Description: 
description here
Exhibit Number: 
0001.201931
Exhibit Name: 
Huson Star Globe
Production Circa: 
Production Year: 
1975
Exhibit Thumbnail: 
Huson Star Globe