Alachua Astronomy Club: In Memory of George Russell

	Alachua Astronomy Club, Inc.	Member Astronomical League	Member International Dark-Sky Association
	George H. Russell	Member Astronomical League	Member International Dark-Sky Association
	29°39' N, 82°21' W Altitude: 50 Meters (more or less)		Updated Dec. 28, 1998
(Click logo for home page)	Founded: September 1987		(Developed with Netscape 4.x)

Click Above For Info On Above Items

In Memory of George H. Russell

George H. Russell Prize George H. Russell was one of the original members of the Alachua Astronomy Club. He died in 1995. The AAC now occasionally awards the George H. Russell Prize to the best astronomy science projects at the Alachua County regional science fair. The following tribute to one of our club's most devoted members is reproduced from a previous issue of the clubs' newsletter, FirstLight.

George H. Russell (1919-1995)

Howard Cohen (FirstLight, July 1995)
George H. Russell, long time devoted member of the Alachua Astronomy Club, died Sunday, 1995 June 4, at his home after a long illness. As soon as our astronomy club formed in September 1987, George became one of its first and most active members. When Chuck Broward issued a plea for contributions to the club's newsletter (FirstLight) in its preliminary and first issues (December 1987 and January 1988 respectively), George quickly responded. And he never stopped. Over the past eight years, George contributed more material for FirstLight than any other member. He gathered information from journals for articles, reviewed current events in the literature, wrote about simple topics in astronomy, philosophized about the heavens, and used his technical knowledge as a professional engineer to write about telescopes and instrumentation. Old time readers of FirstLight may remember his early articles about Dobsonian telescopes and the Vernal Equinox (1988 May) or Comet Halley (1988 September).

George was also a past president of the Gainesville Radio Society and brought his love of radio to astronomy. His education and experience enabled him to combine his talents for electronics, radio and astronomy. George was a graduate of the Newark College of Engineering in New Jersey, spent his professional life as an engineer for Westinghouse (he retired in 1981), and served both in the National Guard and U.S. Army Signal Corp. He was already contributing articles to FirstLight about radio telescopes in 1988 (see "Radio Telescopes," 1988 August) and, ironically, one of his last FirstLight contributions again carried the same title, "Radio Astronomy" (1995 March)!

By late 1989, George was also writing about building your own telescope (December 1989), a passion he continued on and off until his health failed. (See George's long series of articles, "The 6-inch f/10," 1992 August through 1993 January including his first attempts to use his new instrument, "The 6"f/10, First Light: 3/29/93," 1993 April and May, and his attempts to remount his mirror, 1993 September). He included many, long detailed and very personal articles about grinding, polishing, testing, and mounting mirrors (e.g., "Rough Grinding," 1990 January, "Fine Grinding," 1990 February, modifying a Foucault tester, 1991 April, and "Foucault Stand Update," 1992 October). Additional articles continued but he also wrote about other scopes including the Hubble Telescope (e.g., 1990 May and 1994 February), "Giant Telescopes" (1992 January), and "Huge Telescopes" (1992 February)! Even as late as last October, George was still writing about his 6" f/10, as he called it, and how he visualized making it better and better (see "The 6" f/10 Dobsonian Telescope," 1994 October). Meanwhile George still found time to help judge and write about astronomy science projects at the Alachua Regional Science and Engineering Fair, something he continued to do until he was physically unable (e.g., see "Science Fair Project," 1990 March, 1991 October and 1992 and 1993 November). Thus, he personally performed the thankless job of coordinating club efforts to judge and award prizes for best astronomy science fair projects.

In addition, he filled the pages of FirstLight with many columns about interesting material he had discovered in assorted astronomy periodicals and books. Examples include "Planet X" (1991 September), "Eclipse of the Century," (1992 March), "Mars, The Legend Continues" (October 1992), and "Comet Shoemaker-Levy and Jupiter" (July 1994).

More recently, George became fascinated with CCDs and how they would revolutionize astronomy (e.g., 1992 May, 1994 February and 1994 November). He was always interested in electronic detection devices. Thus followed a long series of personal articles describing his own attempts to build his own CCD camera (e.g., 1994 June-July, 1994 October and November, etc.). Indeed, one of George's; last articles detailed some of his last efforts to finish this work (see "The CCD Camera," 1995 February).

George also wrote book reviews, including an early effort with a title bearing our own newsletter's name, "First Light—The Search for the End of the Universe" (1990 January)! In the same issue that George finally wrote his last article about instrumentation, he also wrote a brief note about Carl Sagan's new book, a gift from his daughter (see "Pale Blue Dot," February 1995). George was thoroughly fascinated by Sagan's book, a series of essays dealing with the author's concern with "humans reaching out into space." George added that he was about half way through and, when finished, intended to reread this fascinating story. I hope he had that chance.

George wrote no article for the 1995 April issue of FirstLight for his health was now deteriorating rapidly from heart problems. But he still took time to write a brief note apologizing for his inability to contribute to the April issue. He guessed this was the first time since the newsletter was initiated that he could not send in material! George wrote that he liked the new format of FirstLight and hoped to contribute to the next issue. To my surprise he did just that! It is fitting that George's last contribution to FirstLight (1995 May) bore the title, "The Vastness of Space." He pondered about the vastness of space, wondered if the vastness of space was a little too much for him to comprehend comfortably, and mentioned how advances in electronics would help us provide many new surprises about the universe. I'm sure George has now risen to a level where he no longer needs advanced human technology to provide, as he wrote, "new finds never heard or thought of before."

The next time you look into the eyepiece of a telescope, think about George and his 6"" f/10, a simple man who not only loved to contemplate the heavens but also unselfishly loved to share its beauty and mysteries with others.

	Return to AAC Home Page
	For comments and suggestions send e-mail to webmaster@floridastars.org © Copyright 2000-2003 Alachua Astronomy Club, Inc.