Wednesday, December 9, 2020

Since it' snowed in Coopville today....

(earlier)

Thought you might find this interesting:

Wilson Bentley

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wilson A. Bentley
Bentley at work
Born	Wilson Alwyn Bentley February 9, 1865 Jericho, Vermont, United States
Died	December 23, 1931 (aged 66) Jericho, Vermont, United States
Nationality	American
Known for	Pioneering the study of atmospheric ice crystal formation and snowflake photography

Wilson Alwyn Bentley (February 9, 1865 – December 23, 1931), also known as Snowflake Bentley, was an American meteorologist and photographer, who was the first known person to take detailed photographs of snowflakes and record their features. He perfected a process of catching flakes on black velvet in such a way that their images could be captured before they either melted or sublimated.

Kenneth G. Libbrecht notes that the techniques used by Bentley to photograph snowflakes are essentially the same as those used today, and that while the quality of his photographs reflects the technical limitations of the equipment of the era, "he did it so well that hardly anybody bothered to photograph snowflakes for almost 100 years". The broadest collection of Bentley's photographs is held by the Jericho Historical Society in his home town, Jericho, Vermont.

Bentley donated his collection of original glass-plate photomicrographs of snow crystals to the Buffalo Museum of Science. A portion of this collection has been digitized and organized into a digital library.

Snowflake photos by Bentley, circa 1902

Bentley snowflake micrograph, 1890

Bentley was born on February 9, 1865, in Jericho, Vermont. He first became interested in snow crystals as a teenager on his family farm. “Always, right from the beginning it was the snowflakes that fascinated me most,” he said. “The farm folks up in this country dread the winter, but I was supremely happy.” He tried to draw what he saw through an old microscope given to him by his mother when he was fifteen. The snowflakes were too complex to record before they melted, so he attached a bellows camera to a compound microscope and, after much experimentation, photographed his first snowflake on January 15, 1885. He captured more than 5,000 images of crystals in his lifetime. Each crystal was caught on a blackboard and transferred rapidly to a microscope slide. Even at subzero temperatures, snowflakes are ephemeral because they sublimate.

Bentley described snowflakes as "tiny miracles of beauty" and snow crystals as "ice flowers." Despite these poetic descriptions, Bentley brought an empirical method to his work. In collaboration with George Henry Perkins, professor of natural history at the University of Vermont, Bentley published an article in which he argued that no two snow crystals were alike. This concept caught the public imagination and he published other articles in magazines, including National Geographic, Nature, Popular Science, and Scientific American. His photographs have been requested by academic institutions worldwide.

In 1931 Bentley worked with William J. Humphreys of the U.S. Weather Bureau to publish Snow Crystals, a monograph illustrated with 2,500 photographs. His other publications include the entry on "snow" in the fourteenth edition of Encyclopædia Britannica. Bentley also photographed all forms of ice and natural water formations including clouds and fog. He was the first American to record raindrop sizes, and was one of the first cloud physicists.

He died of pneumonia at his farm on December 23, 1931. Bentley was memorialized in the naming of a science center in his memory at Johnson State College in Johnson, Vermont. His book Snow Crystals was published by McGraw-Hill shortly before his death, and is still in print today. Bentley's lifelong home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Legacy

The Caldecott Medal winner in 1999 for the best-illustrated children's book was Snowflake Bentley, which remembers Bentley's life.

At the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium, a noted meteorological observation center in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, there is an exhibit about atmospheric ice crystal formation featuring several of Bentley’s photos and a short biography. Bentley was a friend of naturalist, industrialist, and collector Franklin Fairbanks.

:o)

Today'sfunny :o)

:o)

R.I.P.

Poor Louise! She passed away yesterday morning.

She was the very last of Charlie's girls and was the hen that had spurs on her legs.

Only Benji, Beulah, Chipper, Spot and No Name are left.

My flock is dwindling....

:o(

Monday, December 7, 2020

A bit of.....

...... history. (From The History Guy)

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USS Ward Destroyer at Pearl Harbor

June 8, 2015 By: Bruce D.

USS Ward (DD-139) is the most talked about destroyer from the Pearl Harbor attack. Not because the ship is incredibly impressive, but because she fired the first shots of WWII in the Pacific. This was disputed until 2002 when a University of Hawaii submarine found the wreckage of a Japanese submarine at the bottom of the ocean floor. This confirmed not only did USS Ward fire the first shot, but she sunk a submarine as well.

Ward was an old ship in WWII. She was launched and commissioned in 1918 and was decommissioned just a few years later in 1921. In 1941, after the outbreak of WWII in Europe, USS Ward was recommissioned.

On December 7, 1941 at 0358, minesweeper Condor signaled to Ward that an object looking like a submarine was spotted. The skipper of Ward, Lt. William Outerbridge, had taken command of the ward just that weekend. He immediately called general quarters and began “pinging”. The “pinging was useless and Ward could not find the submarine that Condor had seen.

Finally, at about 0630 a submarine was spotted by a PBY plane. It was targeting repair ship, USS Antares, which also spotted the submarine. The Ward spotted it and began bearing down on the sub at 25 knots. As she reached within 500 yards, she was firing a had a direct hit on the Japanese midget submarine.

The submarine heeled over and began sinking. Four depth charges were dropped from Ward. Visible from both Ward and Antares was the oil from the submarine leaking to the surface.

At 0653 Outerbridge sent a message to shore: “We have attacked, fired upon, and dropped depth charges upon submarine operating in defensive sea area.” The message was passed on and passed on eventually to reach Admiral kimmel by 0730.

There were many similar reports in the recent past that turned out to be false attacks. The men who passed the message to Kimmel and Kimmel himself, were not sure that this report was any different. The Pearl Harbor attack started at 0755. The Navy was not at full alert after Ward sunk the midget submarine. The Army was never even notified of the attack.

Without proof, the sailors on board the Ward, had many disbelievers when they claimed to have sunk a submarine. It wasn’t until 2002, 61 years later, when the sunked submarine was discovered. Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory sent two exploratory subs down 1,200 feet to look at an object that showed up on sonar.

A crew member of the USS Ward, Willett Lehner, helped in the search. It has been called the most significant find since the War.

Ward continued to fight in WWII and was hit by a Kamikaze plane in the Philippines in 1944. Her crew abandoned ship and that was the end of the USS Ward.