David L. Block – författare

The Milky Way has captivated the mind of multitudes ever since the beginning of time. Particularly striking are its apparent dusty gaping voids. With the advent of near-infrared technology, astronomers have discovered an awesome new view of its structure, and of the structure of other galaxies around us. Galaxies are encased within Shrouds of the Night: shrouds or veils of cosmic dust, which have given us a totally incomplete picture of what our majestic Universe actually looks like. In this book, we feature some of the remarkable early photographic work of masters such as Isaac Roberts and Edward Barnard, before presenting to the reader the unmasked (dust penetrated) view of our cosmos, using some of the world’s largest ground and space-based telescopes.

Traditional galaxy morphology has been mask-oriented, focusing on masks of dust and gas which may constitute only 5 per cent of the dynamical mass of a galaxy. Astronomers addressed morphologically related issues at an International Conference, the proceedings of which are contained in this volume. This volume contains over 80 refereed contributions (including 18 in-depth keynote review articles), 40 pages of questions and answers, and a panel discussion transcribed from tape.

THE EDITORS: DAVID L. BLOCK AND KENNETH C. FREEMAN (SOC CO-CHAIRS), IVANIO PUERARI, ROBERT GROESS AND LIZ K. BLOCK 1. Harvard College Observatory, 1958 The past century has truly brought about an explosive period of growth and discovery for the physical sciences as a whole, and for astronomy in particular. Galaxy morphology has reached a renaissance . . The year: 1958. The date: October 1. The venue: Harvard College Observatory. The lecturer: Walter Baade. With amazing foresight, Baade penned these words: "Young stars, supergiants and so on, make a terrific splash - lots of light. The total mass of these can be very small compared to the total mass of the system". Dr Layzer then asked the key question: " . . . the discussion raises the point of what this classification would look like if you were to ignore completely all the Population I, and just focus attention on the Population II . . . " We stand on the shoulders of giants. The great observer E. E. Barnard, in his pioneering efforts to photograph the Milky Way, devoted the major part of his life to identifying and numbering dusty "holes" and dust lanes in our Milky Way. No one could have dreamt that the pervasiveness of these cosmic dust masks (not only in our Galaxy but also in galaxies at high redshift) is so great, that their "penetration" is truly one of the pioneering challenges from both space-borne telescopes and from the ground.

The year: 1660. The date: November 28. Present: The Lord Brouncker, Mr Boyle, Mr Bruce, Sir Robert Moray, Sir Paule Neile, Dr Wilkins, Dr Goddard, Dr Petty, Mr Ball, Mr Hooke, Mr Wren, and Mr Hill. Occasion: A lecture by Mr Wren at Gresham College, United Kingdom. AfterChristopherWrenhaddeliveredhislectureatGreshamCollegeonthathistoric occasion in November 1660, "they did according to the usual manner, withdraw for mutual converse." It was in 1660 that the Royal Society was founded, with 12 persons present. This year, 2010, is thus a special year for scientists worldwide: it celebrates the 350th anniversary of the founding of the Royal Society, whose current President is Martin Rees. One of the enormous challenges facing scientists in the 1600s was the great need fortheclassi cationofobjectstheywerestudying,particularlyinthe eldofbotany.The seeds for classi cation lie in the works of the British naturalist John Ray (1628-1705), who commencing in 1660 with hisCatalogusplantarumcirca Cantabrigiamnascentium (Catalogue of Cambridge Plants) - published in the year in which the Royal Society was founded - and ending with the posthumous publi- tion ofSynopsisMethodicaAviumetPiscium in 1713, pioneered systematic studies on plants, birds, mammals, sh, and insects.

South Africa - a land of paradigm shifts. A land where we are willing to leave behind the old, to bravely accept the new. What do we need to exit the dark ages in the morphology of galaxies? How prevalent is the cherishing of old concepts? Traditional morphology has been `mask-oriented', focusing on masks of dust and gas which may constitute only 5 percent of the dynamical mass of a galaxy. Some of the world's foremost astronomers flew to South Africa to address morphologically related issues at an International Conference, the proceedings of which are contained in this volume. Examine predicted extinction curves for primordial dust at high redshift. Stars evolve; why not dust? Read about the breakdown of the Hubble sequence at a redshift of one. Explore the morphology of rings; the mysteries of metal-rich globular clusters; vigorous star-formation in the Large Magellanic Cloud; the world of secular evolution, where galaxies change their shapes within one Hubble time. And much more. Examine a new kinematical classification scheme of the unmasked, dust-penetrated near-infrared images of spiral galaxies. This volume contains over 80 refereed contributions (including 18 in-depth keynote review articles), 40 pages of questions and answers, a panel discussion transcribed from tape and 24 colour plates. The volume is unique in that contributions from both high and low redshift experts are represented at a level readily accessible to postdoctoral students entering the exciting world of morphology - whether it be of the local, or more distant, Universe.

The date: September 30, 1880 The place: A private observatory in Hastings-on-Hudson Profession of the observer: A medical doctor The instrument: An l1-inch Clark refractor. The significance of that night marked one of the truly great turning points in the development of astronomical techniques: Dr Henry Draper, a wealthy New York medical doctor, had secured the first photograph of a nebula: a 51-minute exposure on a dry gelatinobromide plate showing the wispy nebulosity of the Orion Nebula. By March 1882, Draper had secured an exposure of 137 minutes, showing far richer detail of both bright and dark features. The rest is histapy. The photographic era heralded in a universe where hints of the presence of cosmic dust were strongly alluded to: from star-forming regions such as Messier 17, to the Horsehead Nebula in Orion, to the striking dark finger in the Cone Nebula, to the magnificent dark bands in the plane of our Milky Way. "Historically, astromomers from the very beginning have been afraid of dust.