RARE "Mendel Lunar Crater" Donald Menzel Hand Signed 3X5 Card For Sale

Up for sale a RARE! "Astrophysicists" Donald Menzel Hand Signed 3X5 Card. 

ES-5160E

Donald

Howard Menzel (April 11, 1901 –

December 14, 1976) was one of the first the United States. He discovered the

physical properties of the solar chromosphere, the chemistry of stars, the atmosphere of Mars,

and the nature of gaseous nebulae. The minor planet 1967 Menzel was named in his honor, as well as a

small lunar crater located

in the southeast of Mare Tranquilitatis, the Sea of Tranquility. Born in Florence, Colorado in

1901 and raised in Leadville, he learned to

read very early, and soon could send and receive messages in Morse code, taught by his father. He loved science and

mathematics, collected ore and rock specimens, and as a teenager he built a

large chemistry laboratory in the cellar. He made a radio transmitter at a time

when kits were rarely available and qualified as a radio ham. He was an Eagle Scout,

specializing in cryptanalysis, as well as

an outdoorsman, hiking and fly fishing throughout much of his life. He married

Florence Elizabeth Kreager on June 17, 1926 and had two daughters (Suzanne Kay

and Elizabeth Ina). At 16, he enrolled in the University of Denver to

study chemistry. His interest in astronomy was aroused through a

boyhood friend (Edgar Kettering), through observing the solar eclipse of June 8,

1918, and through observing the eruption of Nova Aquilae 1918 (V603 Aquilae). He graduated from the University of Denver in

1920 with a degree in chemistry and a master's degree in chemistry and

mathematics in 1921. He also found summer positions in 1922, 1923, and 1924 as

research assistant to Harlow Shapley at the Harvard College

Observatory. At Princeton University he

acquired a second master's degree in astronomy in 1923, and in 1924 a Ph.D. in

astrophysics for which his advisor was Henry Norris Russell, who

inspired his interest in theoretical astronomy. After teaching two years at

the University of Iowa and Ohio State University, in

1926 he was appointed assistant Professor at Lick Observatory in San Jose CA, where he worked for

several years. In 1932 he moved to Harvard. During World War II Menzel was asked to join to head a division of intelligence, where he used his

many-sided talents, including deciphering enemy codes. Even until 1955, he

worked with the Navy improving radio-wave propagation by tracking the Sun's

emissions and studying the effect of the aurora on radio propagation for the

Department of Defense (Menzel & Boyd, p. 60). Returning to Harvard after the war, he was

appointed acting director of the Harvard Observatory in

1952, and was the full director from 1954 to 1966. The term "Menzel

Gap" was used to refer to the absence of astronomical photographic plates during

a brief period in the 1950s when plate-making operations were temporarily

halted by Menzel as a cost-cutting measure. He retired from Harvard in 1971. From 1964 to

his death, Menzel was a U.S. State Department consultant

for Latin American affairs.

He received honorary A.M. and Sc.D. degrees from Harvard University in 1942 and

the University of Denver in 1954 respectively. From 1946-1948 he was the Vice

President of the American Astronomical

Society, becoming their President from 1954-1956. In 1965, Menzel

was given the John Evans Award of the University of Denver. In May 2001,

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics hosted "Donald H. Menzel:

Scientist, Educator, Builder," a symposium in honor of the 100th

anniversary of the birth of Donald H. Menzel. Menzel travelled with several

expeditions to view solar eclipses to

obtain scientific data. On 19 June 1936, he led the Harvard-MIT expedition to

the steppes of Russia (at Ak Bulak in southwestern Siberia) to observe a total

eclipse. For the 9 July 1945 eclipse, he directed the Joint U.S.-Canadian

expedition to Saskatchewan, although they were clouded out. Menzel observed

many total solar eclipses, often leading the expeditions, including Catalina, California (10

September 1923, cloudy), Camptonville, California (28

April 1930), Fryeburg, Maine (31

August 1932), Minneapolis-St. Paul,

Minnesota (30 June 1954), the Atlantic coast of Massachusetts (2 October 1959), northern Italy (15

February 1951), Orono, Maine (20 July

1963, cloudy), Athens/Sunion Road, Greece (20 May 1966), Arequipa, Peru (12 November 1966), Miahuatlan, south of Oaxaca, Mexico (7 March 1970), Prince Edward Island Canada (10 July 1972), and western Mauritania (30 June 1973), in addition to the other three

mentioned above. He proudly held the informal record for

greatest number of observed solar eclipses, a "title" later broken by

his student, colleague, and co-author Jay Pasachoff. In the late 1930s he built an observatory for

solar research at Climax, CO, using a

telescope that mimicked a total eclipse of the sun,

allowing him and his colleagues to study the solar corona and to film the spouting flames,

called prominences, emitted by

the Sun. Menzel initially performed solar research, but later concentrated on

studying gaseous nebulae. His work with Lawrence Aller and James Gilbert Baker defined

many of the fundamental principles of the study of planetary nebulae. He wrote the first edition (1964) of A

Field Guide to the Stars and Planets, part of the Peterson Field

Guides. In one of his last papers, Menzel concluded, based on his analysis of the

Schwarzschild equations, that black holes do not exist, and he declared them to be a

myth. He also believed in the EPH (exploded planet hypothesis), stating,

'Presque toutes ces petites planètes circulent entre les orbites de Mars et

Jupiter. On admet qu'elles représentent les fragments dispersés d'une grande

planète qui se serait désintégrée.' Menzel was a science fiction

author; his "Fin's Funeral" appeared in Galaxy Science Fiction in

1965. He was also an artist, creating watercolor

paintings of alien creatures and scenes which often featured 3-dimensional

"holes" though characters, clouds, and alien spaceships.