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NASA Space

Instrument and Sensing Technology

Museum Guide

Several locations have nice tours that include GIF images of historic scientific instruments. In addition, I have included a few sites that have a space or more general science or technology theme. There are a number of nice tours of university campuses which I have not included. Please let me know of any sites that should be added to this list (Gordon.Johnston@hq.nasa.gov).

Other Lists

• I have found so many pages on different observatories that I have created a separate Ground-based Observatory Guide.
• History of Science: Museums
• History of Astronomy: Museums and Exhibits

Museum Guide

• Early instruments at the Museum of the Institute of Physics of Naples. The collection of the early instruments of the Department of Physics of the University of Naples includes about 400 pieces. They may be ascribed to the years beginning from 1820, with the exception of the very antique lens made in Florence by Evangelista Torricelli around 1645 and of the portable sundial made in Naples in 1769. At least 250 instruments were manufactured in the last century. The Museum of the Department of Physics started in 1983. Since then, over 400 instruments have been collected, studied and catalogued.

• The Astronomical Museum in Bologna was created in 1979, when a first group of instruments was restored on the occasion of the exhibition " I materiali dell'Istituto delle Scienze" . In the following years, further restorations have interested both instruments and rooms. At present the museum is located in the same rooms which were devoted to observations in the ancient tower, i.e. the meridian room (sala meridiana) and the turret room (sala della torretta), and also the recently created globe room (sala dei globi). The instruments used by the Bolognese astronomers from the early 18th century to mid-19th, at first in the " Specola marsiliana" and later in the " Specola" of the " Istituto delle Scienze" , have been brought back to these rooms, with their original placing in mind.

• The Astronomical Museum of the Observatory of Rome was originally assembled in 1873 as a Copernican Museum on the occasion of the fourth Centenary of Nicholas Copernicus' birth. The Polish historian Arthur Wolinsky was given the task of collecting all the available Copernican relics. Later on the decision was taken to broaden the initial program in order to collect, in addition to the Copernican items proper, also everything else which referred to Italian Astronomy of all times and to create a complete Astronomical Museum: its location was devised to be in the Observatory of the Collegio Romano. In the following years, the original material was supplemented by donations and purchases of ancient instruments and of other material of historical value (globes, astrolabes, sundials and nocturnals, telescopes, microscopes, sextants, drawing and calculating instruments, compasses, levels, repeating circles, books). The endowment was also continuously growing as old instruments were being replaced by new ones (lenses, spectroscopes, pendulum clocks, wall quadrants, theodolites, telescopes and so on). In this way, the Museum started acquiring the feature of a historical collection for observational Astronomy: still today, it can be considered one of the largest collections of astronomical instruments in the world. In 1923, as the Collegio Romano was closed, the Museum was moved to the Astronomical Observatory, on the Campidoglio and subsequently on Monte Mario. The entire instrumentation available at the Museum has then been catalogued firstly on cards containing all the relevant information of morphological, historical, technical, administrative and legal interest in such a way that any further data could be added easily. Secondly, as a natural evolution, all this work has been transferred on the computer, to allow the fast retrieval of the information of a data base.

• The History of Science Museum, Florence, Italy has an experimental on-line Multimedia Catalogue.

• Pisa: Domus Galileana, including Strumenti Scientifici.

• The Musˇe des arts et mˇtiers's World Wide Web page, 292, rue Saint-Martin - 75003 PARIS - FRANCE. See especially l'album: l'instrument scientifique and l'album: la Communication (for early cameras, etc.).

• The World Wide Web server for the Smithsonian Institution's National Air & Space Museum (alternate link includes some exterior photos and a tour of the galleries and some of the artifacts. I have also found an FTP server containing images from and of museum collections in various formats from the Smithsonian Institution.

• The home page for the Mount Wilson Observatory, which is located just outside of Pasadena California in the San Gabriel Mountains, includes historical images and a link to a virtual walking tour of the observatory (under " tourist information" ). The tour includes the 60-Foot Solar Tower Telescope, constructed in 1908, which was the telescope on which George Ellery Hale discovered the existence of magnetic fields on the Sun from the Zeeman splitting of spectral lines. Also at the observatory is the site used in 1926 by Albert Abraham Michelson to measure the velocity of light by means of a beam of light transmitted to Mount San Antonio and reflected back to Mt. Wilson. The 60-inch telescope at Mount Wilson was built in 1908 by George Ellery Hale and until the 100-inch telescope came online in 1917, was the largest telescope in the world. The 100-inch Hooker telescope is named after John D. Hooker who provided most of the finances for its construction. It was the largest telescope in the world until the 200-inch telescope was built at Mount Palomar, approximately 90 miles from Mount Wilson.

• The Physics Museum at the University of Queensland includes a Tour of the Museum, etc.

• Visit Mauna Kea in Hawaii, site of a number of observatories. This is part of a collection of Big Island of Hawaii Photos.

• The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics (UIHC) Medical Museum Presents an Exhibit of Historic Microscopes.

• The World Wide Web server for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) includes links to images and information on three observatories operated by CfA, the Whipple Observatory, the Multiple Mirror Observatory, and the Oak Ridge Observatory. These are individual images and not virtual tours of the sites (but they are nice enough that I decided to include them). The CfA combines the resources and research facilities of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory under a single director to pursue studies of those basic physical processes that determine the nature and evolution of the universe.

• The Dominion Astrophysical Observatory Facilities Manual for the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Victoria, B.C., Canada, includes images and descriptions of the telescopes, instruments, and detectors, as well as information for public and professional visitors to the facility. Also available through this page is information on off-shore facilities the DAO is involved in.

• The Major Projects at UMASS Astronomy page includes information on the Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory, the Infrared and Optical Telescope Array, the Large Millimeter Wavelength Telescope, the Whately Observatory, etc.

• Poker Flat Research Range is the world's only scientific rocket launching facility owned by a university. Poker Flat is located approximately 30 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska and is operated by the University of Alaska's Geophysical Institute under contract to NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, which is part of the Goddard Space Flight Center. In addition to launching sounding rockets, Poker Flat is home to many scientific instruments designed to study the arctic atmosphere and ionosphere. A brief virtual tour is available through this link.

• The Exploratorium is located in the Palace Of Fine Arts in the Marina district of San Francisco, U.S.A. Although it doesn't really contain much information on scientific instrumentation, it does include some fundamentals on light and optics.

• The Franklin Institute Science Museum.

• The History of Kodak from Kodak provides background on Kodak cameras, film, and imaging technologies.

• beta.LAB. A reader suggested I add this to the list. It appears to be more art than artifact. Last time I checked, this page had stopped making any sense at all. If you like this sort of thing, you may also want to check Gadget Guru.

• Library of Congress Vatican Exhibit: An exhibit of materials from the Vatican Library. These are mostly documents of interest rather than actual instruments.

• Radcliffe Science Library & Bodleian Library WWW Server in Oxford, England. These are mostly documents of interest rather than actual instruments.

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