Naval observatory of the United States - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

The naval observatory of the United States ( United States Naval Observatory or USNO ) is one of the oldest agencies Scientifique S of the the United States. Located at Northwest Washington, D.C, it one of rare the observatories is located in an urban area; at the time of its construction, it was far from the luminous Pollution generated by the small downtown area of the time.

History

Created into 1830 as a Deposit off Charts and Instruments , it was transformed into national observatory in 1842 by a federal law. James Melville Gilliss was in load of the project.

The first mission of the observatory was to maintain the Chronomètre S, charts and other materials of navigation of the US Navy. It calibrated the marine chronometers by measuring the transit star S with the passage of the meridian . Located initially at the center town with Foggy Bottom (close to the Kennedy Center), the observatory was moved on its current site in 1893, at the top of Observatory Hill dominating Massachusetts Avenue, in the middle of perfectly circular gardens.

The superintendant first was Navy Commander Matthew Fontaine Maury. Maury laid out of the time first Boule vulcanized of the world, created according to its specifications by Charles Goodyear for the U.S. Observatory. It was the first time ball of the United States and 12th of the world. Maury preserved exact time thanks to stars and with planets. When the time ball fell, a flag was hoisted automatically, allowing all the ships and civilians of knowing the exact hour. Therefore, time was preserved not only at Washington, D.C., but also, thanks to the use of the Télégraphe, in all the states of the Union. Time was also " vendu" with the railroad companies and was used jointly with the stop watches of railroad to plan the American railway system. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Arlington Time Signal diffused this service with the receiving radio operator.

The names National Observatory and Naval Observatory were both used during 10 years, until an ordinance is enacted, asking to use only the term Navy Observatory . The former president John Quincy Adams had wished that it be called the National Observatory . John Quincy Adams spent many nights to the observatory with Maury, observing and raising the positions the stars, because the study of stars had always been one of the leisures favorits of Adam - another reason for which it put forth a private bill for the creation of an national observatory right before leaving the presidential station.

In November 1913, the Observatory of Paris, using the Eiffel Tower like antenna, exchanged signals (radio) without wire with the Naval U.S. Observatory , which used an antenna located at Arlington to determine precisely the difference of Longitude between the two observatories.

Today and as in the past, current U.S. Naval Observatory continues to be a major actor in the fields of the conservation of time and the celestial observation. In collaboration with the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Great Britain, it determines time and the astronomical data necessary for a precise Navigation and the fundamental Astronomie, and disseminates this information in the Astronomical Almanac . It is perhaps better known general public for its very precise atomic clocks and the reinstallation of a time ball in the year 2000.

Since 1974, Number One Observatory Circle, a house located on the ground of the observatory (in the past residence of superintendant then that of the chief of the naval operations), is the official residence of the Vice-président of the United States of America.

In September 2006, the air sight of the site was floutée on Google Earth and Google Maps, while the air sights of the remainder of Washington were visible of high-resolution. At the same date, the competitor Yahoo Maps did not floutait this place.

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