Archives West Finding Aid

The collection consists entirely of star charts acquired or used by Paul W. Hodge for his studies relating to the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are the visible evidence of the two closest galaxies to our own. They were first recorded during Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe in the sixteenth century and are only visible from the southern hemisphere. Images in the collection fall into three categories: (1) Large Magellanic Cloud prints generated from glass plates made with the A.D.H. Schmidt telescope at the Boyden Observatory in South Africa from 1958-1959, (2) Small Magellanic Cloud prints shot using the telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile from 1968-1975, and (3) a Small Magellanic Cloud print shot by Harvard University researchers in the 1890s at Arequipa, Peru. The collection includes one series of Large Magellanic Cloud prints and one series containing the Peruvian Small Magellanic Cloud print, but the Chilean Small Magellanic Cloud prints have been arranged into five (5) series according to magnification and wavelength.

Images of the stars in the clouds are recorded visually on prints that are keyed to a master chart of the entire cloud. In addition, the clouds are viewed at different light wavelengths so there are several similar views at different wavelengths (i.e. B or V). Prints are identified by wavelength letter and chart number, and many have plate numbers which refer to the original photographic glass plates from which they were printed. The charts are also differentiated by high and regular magnification. Charts keyed in two digits (i.e. 48) denote regular magnification and charts keyed in three digits (i.e. 101) denote high magnification.

Apparently, numerous plates and prints at Harvard were discarded. Professor Hodge indicates that many of the existing prints may now be unique. His co-author, Harvard's Frances W. Wright ( The Small Magellanic Cloud , UW Press, 1977) notated these charts from what she remembered of data notebooks that also no longer exist at Harvard. He notes that these records are important because variable stars or identification errors may only appear in these records.