Scope and Contents The papers of David Thomas cover the years 1956-1979. They include correspondence files, draft articles for publication, administrative papers, and a selection of digitised slides. The administrative papers date from Thomas’s time as Chairman of the RGO section of SRC branch of IPCS. They give an important insight into RGO staff concerns about the future of the organisation and of British Astronomy in general. Particularly significant are the files on the separation of the posts of...

Scope and Contents A set of press cuttings on the subjects of astronomy, the RGO, its move to Herstmonceux Castle and later to Cambridge, and its subsequent closure. Significant cuttings include coverage of the Moon landings (1968), the Space Race, the Apollo 13 disaster (1970), Halley's Comet (1986), images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, Comet Shoemaker-Levi’s collision with Jupiter (1994), Comet Hale-Bopp (1997), and the Galileo mission to Jupiter.Early coverage is sporadic, with cuttings...

Scope and Contents This class consists of requests for astronomical information sent to the Royal Greenwich Observatory between 1968 and 1975. It includes letters from the public, both in the UK and worldwide. Both incoming letters and carbon copies of official responses are preserved, with replies generally signed by Humphry Smith or William (Bill) Nicholson who were joint Press Officers from 1968.The first nine files are letters from the UK, deemed ‘general’ or ‘special’, and each organised in...

Scope and Contents RGO 50 is the product of a solar observation programme begun in 1873 at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich and continued, from 1953 to 1979, at Royal Greenwich Observatory, Herstmonceux. It primarily consists of a sequence of glass plate negatives of daily observations. Where no plate was produced at Greenwich or Herstmonceux the gap has been filled by sourcing plates from observatories elsewhere around the world, particularly the Indian observatories at Kodaikanal and Dehra Dūn. Observation...

Scope and Contents The 1873-1917 prints in this class were made from glass plate negatives which are no longer extant. The plates were the product of a solar observation programme begun in 1873 at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich but are thought to have been destroyed in the First World War. The sequence of images is a continuation of RGO 67: Kew Observatory solar photographs (1858-72) and is itself continued by RGO 50: Royal Observatory Greenwich and Royal Greenwich Observatory, Herstmonceux Solar Plates...