Astronomy in the 1930s

[mike.brightmore]

A friend and neighbour of mine called Gilbert (now in his eighties) had an uncle called William Thomas Hay who was a keen amateur astronomer. Gilbert recalls visiting his uncle in Mill Hill, London as a child and seeing his telescopes. His main one, a 12 inch reflector, resembled a cannon on a battleship. Mr Hay was a naval officer and even painted his telescopes a battleship grey. This one had a seat attached to the mount so that the observer could revolve with the scope. William Hay was a fellow of the Royal Astrononomical Society and was the first to discover a mysterious white spot that appeared on the surface of Saturn. In 1935 he published a small book titled 'Through my Telescope - Astronomy for All' which Gilbert has loaned me a copy of. It gives a fascinating insight into astronomy, particularly amongst amateur observers, at that time.

All that was known about the Solar System was what could be observed from Earth and Pluto had only been discovered a few years earlier. Charon had yet to make an appearance. Edwin Hubble's work on the distance and distribution of galaxies and redshift calculations was still new cutting-edge science and extra-galactic nebulae were sill thought to be made mainly of gigantic swirls of star forming gases. Giant red stars were also believed to be new stars yet to go through the white and yellow phases to end their lives as red dwarves. Thermonuclear reactions, dark matter and Solar wind were future concepts yet to be understood. I would love to know what recollections Sir Patrick has of William Hay.

As far as the amateur observers were concerned they were looking at exactly the same objects as we do now and doing a remarkable job.

William T Hay was an amazing and inspirational character. In addition to observing he also built a variety of astronomy related scientific instruments and was an accomplished sailor and pilot. He reputedly gave flying lessons to Amy Johnson and he taught astronomy and navigation to Royal Navy cadets. Despite this he was far better known as Will Hay the music hall comedian and comic actor star of over 50 films. I thought members might like to have a glance at some of these old photographs....

[Jarndyce]

My in-laws have ancient Will Hay records - particularly school master sketches.

Never realised he was so eminent in astronomy.

Thanks for that!

[omneferuss]

I came across this pic the other day.. in a similar vein. Pity it's poor quality jpg, from a webpage.. but it does make you think how different it all was back then.

[Brass n glass]

Didn't Will Hay make some important discovery to do with Saturn? I loved his film Oh Mr Porter - I don't know if there's anything of his on YouTube. You've got some marvellous old material there - Hugh

[David Galvin]

'..............and was the first to discover a mysterious white spot that appeared on the surface of Saturn.'

As it says in the text, I loved his films when I was a kid and I remember one where one of the college boys is fiddling around with a 6" Newtonian reflector. I thought that one day I would get a big scope like it and I did!

[Jeff RV]

Didn't know he was a well known astronomer, you learn something every day.

Thanks for the insight Mike.

Jeff.

[mike.brightmore]

He apparantly was the first person to observe a large white spot that mysteriously appeared on Saturn. According to Wikipedia this happens every 28.5 years.....

• 1876 - Observed by Asaph Hall. He used the white spots to determine the planet's period of rotation.
  
• 1903 - Observed by Edward Barnard.
  
• 1933 - Observed by Will Hay, comic actor and amateur astronomer. Until recent times the most celebrated.
  
• 1960 - Observed by JH Botham (South Africa).
  
• 1990 - Observed by Stuart Wilber, from 24 September through November.
  
• 1994 - Studied by ground-based observers and the Hubble Space Telescope.[1]
  
• 2006 - Observed by Erick Bondoux and Jean-Luc Dauvergne.
  

[Izar]

There is an excellent article about Will Hay in the April journal of the BAA.

Patrick Moore has a sketch of Saturn that was drawn by Will Hay.

After his death, his 6 inch Cooke refractor dissappeared, and to this day,

people are still searching for its whereabouts.

[JohnWC]

There is an excellent article about Will Hay in the April journal of the BAA

I would absolutely recommend this article as well

[Izar]

I should also mention that a brand new book about Hay is due out about now.

Will Hay.Comic Genius