What better time than bonfire/fireworks night, to learn that Falvey Memorial Library at Villanova University have opened up their newly acquired notebook to find Lovecraft drawings of a comet…
The latest manuscript added to Villanova University’s Distinctive Collections is the rare astronomical observation notebook by the noted horror author H.P. Lovecraft from the years 1909-1915. Observing from his Providence, Rhode Island home, Lovecraft noted, and then drew, various celestial phenomena including passing comets.
Slated for digitization in November and full transcription by a notable Lovecraft scholar soon after.
It’s interesting that the young Lovecraft took binoculars, presumably on his bicycle, to good observing spots way out toward Rehoboth. Given that he notes his location (not necessarily his house roof or adjacent ground) with some precision, one could presumably recreate these observational moments in full. This could be done via the free Stellarium software and its ‘time-and-place travel’ function, or similar. Although, the last time I looked, Stellarium doesn’t do comets in graphical form.
It is wonderful to see this notebook reappear. As far as I am aware, only a few items from this notebook have ever appeared in print, and those have transcription errors. The drawing of Comet Halley for May 26, 1910 is delightful.
Pardon a second comment. Following your suggestion, I used Starry Nights software to reproduce the sky conditions for Lovecraft’s May 26, 1910 drawing of Comet Halley. Though the software only approximately reproduces the appearance of the comet itself, the position of the comet and the direction of the tail are an excellent match for the drawing. HPL was observing carefully when he made his sketch. — Horace Smith
Many thanks Horace. Did you have to manually add the comet to Celestron Starry Night? As I understand it the software doesn’t have a database of past comets, and can load only a list of 100 ‘current’ comets from an external comets.txt file?
Halley’s Comet was already in the historical database for the version of Starry Nights that I have (one several years old), so I did not have to add the orbital elements for the comet. Only a few historical comets are already in the database, however, and I do not know what comes preloaded with new editions of the software, — Horace
I’m pleased to report that your endeavours have led me to discover that the free open-source Stellarium software can indeed do comets, via a plugin that ships natively with it. There’s a good guide here… http://dslr-astrophotography.com/add-comets-stellarium/ and with it I imported… “Halley’s Comet or Comet Halley, officially designated 1P/Halley”. Then went back to 26th May 1910 9pm – Providence. However, the comet doesn’t show graphically with its glowing fanned tail. So adding comets is a finding-aid, it seems, and then Photoshop would be called on to imaginatively add the fanned tail to a screenshot.
I snipped the May 26, 1910 appearance of the comet as given by Starry Nights. I could send you a jpg if you want to see how it is depicted in that software. My email is smith@pa.msu.edu (but that probably doesn’t need to be made more public than it already is). Just let me know if you want the jpg, and how to send it.– Horace