The New Zealand Time Service commenced in Wellington in early 1864 with two Moore pendulum clocks and a transit telescope for astronomical time control. A noon time ball system was used to transmit time to ships in Wellington Harbour. With the advent of electric telegraphy in the late 1860s a national time service was established along with a national New Zealand Mean Time. The clocks were upgraded in the 1880s with two more accurate Dent pendulum regulator clocks and these were the major time control until the use of radio time signals from 1915. Seismological recording probably started in about 1880 but no records or details exist of that instrument. The first known instruments were two 1898 Milne horizontal beam seismographs (part of the global network), one was located at Magnetic Observatory in Christchurch, the other privately in Wellington until 1913 when it was moved to be part of the Time Service. The latter was later renamed NZ Seismological Observatory. A major expansion of the seismological network occurred in 1930s. The New Zealand Magnetic Observatory was set up in Christchurch in 1901 to support the 1899-1909 Magnetic Survey of all New Zealand. Initial observatory instruments were an Adie 3 component magnetograph and a Kew (Dover) magnetometer. Both the seismological and geomagnetic networks expanded in the early 20th century to include stations on the South Pacific Islands. Most of the instruments and more recent upgrades to about 1970 are being conserved in a national geophysical instrument collection at GNS Science.

During recent renovation works at the Regional Archaeological Museum “Antonino Salinas” in Palermo, a few instruments have been discovered inside some wooden boxes in storage. Most of them, though being quite well preserved, are lacking parts, so that their identification is uncertain. The only one that has been certainly identified is a telescope diopter made in Florence around 1880 by the Officine Galileo. It was probably used with a Praetorian tablet (not found) for mapping archaeological sites during the excavation campaigns held in Sicily by archaeologist Antonino Salinas (director of Museum from 1873 to 1914) and fine connoisseur of the most up-to-date research methods then circulating in Europe.
In this talk, this instrument and its history will be illustrated also with reference to the evolution of technical tools applied in the field of archaeological topography.
Some hypotheses about the other instruments will be also presented: suggestions from Congress participants will be very welcome.

Maria Lucia Ferruzza
Costanza Polizzi
Elena Pezzini
Alessandra Merra

In 1935, Francis Whipple, Superintendent of Britain’s Kew Observatory, received a letter from a correspondent in Ceylon frustrated with the performance of Colombo Observatory’s Milne-Shaw seismograph: ‘If this seismograph is not supposed to be able to register the earth-quakes which occur in various parts of this small island, I fail to understand its use!’. This sentiment was not unique. Whipple and his staff answered a steady stream of enquiries from people in Britain who had – or believed they had – experienced an earthquake, tremor or shock; many were nonplussed with the explanation that Kew’s seismographic apparatus was designed to detect vibrations from distant earthquakes and not local disturbances.

The early decades of the 20th century, when sensitive seismographs were distributed around the world, have sometimes been described as a triumphant moment when seismology emerged as a ‘global’ discipline, rather than one concerned with the – implied – lesser concerns around local earthquake phenomena. In contrast, Kew’s correspondence reveals a persistent, or even burgeoning, scientific, public, and commercial interests in local earth movements, even in Britain – a place with negligible seismic hazard. Himself believing that his observatory’s remit ought to include the study of local earthquakes, Whipple supplemented Kew’s Golitsyn seismograph with instruments intended for this purpose.

This paper explores this case study within a broader discussion of the influence of local experiences of earthquakes and earth motion, even as seismologists aspired to build a global discipline.

Borrowed or re-purposed instruments were the fate of Australian professional astronomers who were charged to observe the 1922 total solar eclipse which swept right across the continent. This illustrated presentation will focus on the expedition organised to trek to a remote sheep station called Cordillo Downs by South Australian government astronomer, George Dodwell, and the Goondiwindi racecourse expeditions organised by NSW government astronomer, William Ernest Cooke, both charged with testing Einstein's theory of general relativity. I will reveal how the political and economic climate of the time imposed restrictions on instrumentation, and the networks that resolved critical issues but in some instance created them. This presentation will examine selected instruments and follow the fate of these instruments where known. Australian idioms of 'making do' and 'mateship' through the enlistment of enthusiastic amateur astronomers and expert volunteers, will be themes explored throughout.

At the conclusion we will time travel to 2028 and the upcoming total solar eclipse which will again cross Australia and excite New Zealanders with almost 3 minutes of totality in Dunedin.

Supported by the Donovan Astronomical Trust