Favourite painting: The swing (1767)

This painting by Jean-Honoré Fragonard is a favourite for two reasons: its richness and the window it opens on the society and culture of France in the dying years of the Ancien Régime. The three participants are carefree, but for different reasons. The girl is central to the relationship-triangle here and to the composition (excepting the girl, in her cloud of pink silk and lace, the rest of the artist's palate is quite dark) and although on the swing she is in complete control of the situation.

To see the painting in more detail click on the image to enlarge it. The painting is in the Wallace Collection in London. A short article on the painting is at Wikipedia, where you will also find an article about the artist, Fragonard. To me Fragonard seems to be very much a trail-maker for artists such as Renior. In a future post I may write about another of his works which I like, A young girl reading.

Image: © The Wallace Collection, London.

Changes in the heavens, or new craters on the planet Mars

In recent years the planet Mars has been saturated with visiting spacecraft and a consequence of all this attention is that change in the martian landscape is becoming easier to spot. Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) was one of those machines; MGS was a NASA spacecraft operating in orbit about Mars from September 1997 to November 2006.

During early 2006 members of the MGS science team decided to look for signs of change:

"A year ago [2004/2005], it had not occurred to us, the MGS MOC science operations team, that we could find places on Mars where meteorites had impacted the surface during the course of the MGS mission. Such craters, if they were forming at all, would be a few meters to a few tens of meters across; much to small to notice (or so we thought) in our MOC wide angle camera coverage. But, on 9 January 2006, we began to realize that not only could we find such craters, we might also be able to characterize the present-day impact cratering rate on Mars. Surveying for fresh craters formed during the MGS mission would provide the first direct observation—for any body in the Solar System, including Earth and its Moon—of the present-day cratering rate, which in turn can help test models used all the time by members of the scientific community to estimate the age of features on planetary surfaces." (How we found the first of the fresh impact sites that formed during the Mars Global Surveyor Mission, MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-1611, 6 December 2006)

For me, aside from the excitement I feel about the science done and the thril of discovery, it shows that change occurs on places other than the Earth at time scales much less than the millions and billions of years we routinely hear of. In this case in a matter of months.

The image above (MOC2-1614-a) is of another fresh crater found by the MOC team on the slopes of the volcano Ulysses Patera in northern hemisphere of Mars, investigations determined that the impact occurred between 18 April 2003 and 7 February 2004. For further details follow this link.

A note on the sources used in this post: the image and information came from two sources, the database of Mars Orbiter Camera images at Malin Space Science Systems (the American corporation that built the camera that flew on the MGS) and from NASA's Planetary Photojournal. For convenience I given here a link to a number of pages at the Malin Space Sciences Systems web site, Present-Day Impact Cratering and Gully Activity on Mars MGS MOC Releases MOC2-1611 through MOC2-1622, 6 December 2006.

For those who want to read the actual science done here is the citation to the article from the journal Science (unfortunately the Science website only provides the abstract, i.e. summary, so check with your favourite library):

Present-day impact cratering rate and contemporary gully activity on Mars Michael C. Malin, Kenneth S. Edgett, Liliya V. Posiolova, Shawn M. McColley, Eldar Z. Noe Dobrea, Science 8 December, 2006, 314 (5085), p. 1573-1577.

Astronomical friends of mine will remember a less detailed version of this discussion and the image from an email of mine in December 2006, so this is old news for them.

Images: © NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems, 2006

Good and bad news from the Archives nationales, Paris

In my post for 18 March I mentioned that the records for the United Nations International Refugee Organisation (IRO) have been transferred to the French national archives, the Archives nationales in Paris (see The UNHCR Archives and Records Section responds). The Archives nationales in Paris has confirmed that there are records, however, the news is a mixed blessing as neither the records or the finding aids are available online.

This is the text of the reply from the Archives nationales, Paris - Service de la Recherche a écrit :

Dear Mr. N ... ,
In response to your e-mail of April 12th, I inform you that the Archives nationales-site de Paris [does] keep in AJ 43 (O.I.R.) records concerning camps for refugees in Italy (Bari and Bagnoli).
-AJ/43/140 : in particular, a study by J. Barth, historian, about Bagnoli's camp, and refugees in Trieste and Veneto region ;
-AJ/43/1036 : in particular, people arrested by [the] Italian police displaced to the transit camp in Bari, January 1948 ;
-AJ/43/1040 : competitive sport in Bagnoli's camp, September 1950.

Unfortunately, neither the finding aid for AJ 43, nor the records are available on line.

Yours sincerely.
Thierry Pin

In French the IRO is known as the Organisation Internationale pour les Rėfugiės (OIR).

So, in fact, to make any headway on this path I will have to go to Paris in person! I can't say I am much surprised. And I am uncertain from Mr. Pin's reply that they have the records I need. The question is not going, that's easy, but the issue is to make the visit worthwhile from the point of view of research - if I forget something later it's not as if I can just drop in casually again the week after I come home. In conclusion, Constant Reader, I am quickly finding out that there is only so much one can do through the Internet from the other side of the world.

Schola Pietatis Antonio Vivaldi (Vivaldi's Women)

This morning, quite by accident, I found the Schola Pietatis Antonio Vivaldi (SPAV or Vivaldi's Women), a U.K. based, all female choir and orchestra. This morning I was wanting to play some music, however, being at my parent's house for Easter I have to use the DVD and TV as they don't have a separate sound system; turning on the same a performance of the Schola Pietatis Antonio Vivaldi was airing on ABC 1 in Sydney (for non-Australians, the equivalent of the BBC or PBS). Much intrigued I checked the TV guide and then Googling the group's name I found their Internet site.

The documentary on the TV was painfully short, a real teaser - 30 minutes. The music and the setting were rich, a performance of Vivaldi's Gloria, filmed in 2005 on location at the Santa Maria della Pieta in Venice. A great discovery, and if you like Baroque music its well worth a listen and a look!

The next step, of course, is to see if I can get any of their music or see the full documentary. I'll try the BBC, the ABC here, and my favourite record shop, and the SPAV - they of course will know where their music has been published. For information about the SPAV go to their site. There you will find excerpts from a performance, and from the documentary Vivaldi's women. If you are in the U.K. or Europe keep your eyes and ears for any concerts the SPAV may give.

If you want to know more about Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), Wikipedia has a good non-specialist article.

Image: © SPAV (used without permission), 2009.

Star trails over Linda Rock, Blue Mountains, N.S.W.

Last night during Earth Hour, Ted Dobosz, a good friend, took this lovely image of star trails circling the south celestial pole. In an email to his various astronomical-minded friends, Ted remarked that he took images of the Sydney sky glow during and after Earth Hour (local time: 8:30-9:30 pm) and found that there was no noticeable reduction in Sydney's light pollution. In asking for Ted's permission to use this image to liven up my blog, he supplied some additional information: "Hi Pete, ... It was taken from the rock looking south. It was taken with a Canon 40D at 400ASA for 30 mins at F4.5. The lens was a Tamron 17-55mm and it was taken at 17mm. ... Conditions last night ordinary with a brown haze and 30% reduction on brightness of all objects. ... Ted."

The rock is Linda Rock in the Blue Mountains to the west of Sydney, Australia; Sydney is about 100 kms (62 miles) distant. In the image the star trails have obvious colour, and the two pieces of 'fog' at two and five o'clock are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, satellite galaxies of the Milky Way.

If you enlarge the image the star colours show more clearly, as does the pale blue of the LMC; the colours are real and indicate the temperature of the star making the trail (red through orange 3-5,000 deg C.; white: 8-11,000; blue: 16-50,000). For the LMC the pale blue indicates that the majority of its stars are young and have temperatures above 16,000 degrees centigrade. As a comparison our sun is yellow indicating that the disk we see has a temperature of 5,900 degrees centigrade. The yellow glow at the bottom left (south-east) is from the Sydney metropolitan area, the fainter glow at bottom (south) originates in the suburbs making up the Campbelltown area.

Unlike the north celestial pole there is no bright pole star. To see an untrailed image at similar scale look at this August 2006 image from Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Image (used with permission): © Ted Doboz, 2009.

Photographs of the Department of Immigration Reception and Training Centre, Bathurst in the National Archives of Australia (Part 2)

A continuation of my earlier post of the camp and its residents in 1950 and 1951. In the first post you will find the images I have labeled as 1-6. A brief discussion is found in the first post.

Image 7: Portrait in progress, 1951 (NAA A12111, 1/1951/22/33; barcode: 7427682)

Image 8: Paintings & art work (NAA A12111, 1/1951/22/25; barcode: 7427674)

Image 9: Crèche storytelling with Aboriginal mural, 1951 (NAA A12111, 1/1951/22/27; barcode: 7427676)

Image 10: Ukraine woman displays clothing at New Australian's Handicrafts exhibition at Bathurst - CU1247-5, 1950 (NAA A8139, Volume 8, CU1247-5; barcode: 8286606)

Image 11: New Australians stage Tosca at Bathurst migrant centre - CU1250-1, 1950 (NAA A8139, Volume 8, CU1250-1; barcode: 8286616)

Image 12: Bathurst Camp Post Office, 1951 (NAA C4076, C4076/1, HN6013 part B; Barcode: 3037290)

Image 13: Bathurst Camp Post Office, 1951 (NAA C4076, C4076/1, HN6013 part A; barcode: 3037289)

For details of NAA series A12111 (see, part 1 of this post). The originals photographs for images 10 and 11 are from NAA series A8139, Photograph albums of prints in 'L' series and 'CU' series [produced by the Australian News and Information Bureau, Canberra]. The originals for images 12 and 13 are in NAA series C4076, Photographic negatives, single number series with HN (Historical, New South Wales) prefix [produced by the Postmaster-General's Department, State Administration, New South Wales].

Images: © Commonwealth of Australia, 1950 and 1951.

Photographs of the Department of Immigration Reception and Training Centre, Bathurst in the National Archives of Australia (Part 1)

Constant Reader, I am attempting, as I have said several times, to locate evidence of my dad through the trail of records; to that end I have been interrogating the records database at the National Archives of Australia (NAA). I am looking for any and all records of the Department of Immigration Reception and Training Centre, Bathurst and I have found a series of photographs (part of NAA series A8139, A12111 & C4076) of the camp and its residents from 1950 and 1951.

The photographs, which are quite formal, were most likely taken for publicity purposes and give some indication of the spartan nature of the place (the site and all the buildings were ex-Army and so were light on creature comforts) and of the life there for the "New Australians" as they were often called at the time. Its also useful to remember that a person's stay here was always intended to be short - long enough to learn basic Australian English, some basic skills, and to acclimatise to the new country and its people.

Image 1: Children at gate, 1951 (NAA A12111, 1/1951/22/26; barcode: 7427675).

Image 2: Family room, 1951 (NAA A12111, 1/1951/22/29; barcode: 7427678).

Image 3: English class, 1951 (NAA A12111, 1/1951/22/34; barcode: 7427683)

Image 4: Carpenters at work, 1951 (NAA A12111, 1/1951/22/32; barcode: 7427681)

Image 5: Children at play in front of Centre, 1951 (NAA A12111, 1/1951/22/31; barcode: 7427680)

Image 6: Family walk, accommodation in back, 1951 (NAA A12111, 1/1951/22/30; barcode: 7427679)

These image and associated information are viewable through the NAA database,see the link at the top of this post. The image captions are taken from the NAA record for the photograph. The originals are part of NAA series A12111, Immigration Photographic Archive 1946 - Today.

Images: © Commonwealth of Australia, 1950 and 1951.