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 Fri, 29 May 2009 12:57:51 -0700 |
| O. Richard Norton 1937 - 2009 |
O. Richard Norton passed away at Hospice House in Bend, Oregon, on May 17 after a long illness. A life-long educator and the author of popular books and articles about meteorites, astronomy and planetariums, Richard discovered his life’s passion when he built his first telescope at 14. His love for the sky and all things astronomical led him from an after-school job at Cave Optical Company in Long Beach, California, to a career in public science education.
While studying astronomy and meteoritics at UCLA, he was a lecturer at Griffith Observatory and Planetarium in Los Angeles. In 1957 he worked at the Nevada Test Site as a field researcher for the Atomic Energy Commission. There he witnessed the last 10 above-ground nuclear explosions and conducted research at the test site on the ecological effects of radiation. After graduation in 1960, he worked briefly as an optical engineer at Northrop Corporation and Tinsley Laboratories.
But he soon returned to his beloved planetariums. After 2 years at Morrison Planetarium in San Francisco, in 1963 he became Director of the University of Nevada’s Fleischmann Planetarium in Reno, where he also taught astronomy. There Richard designed the world’s first 35mm fisheye motion picture system, called the Atmospherium, which was used to project realistic time-lapse motion pictures of developing weather systems onto the interior of a planetarium dome. His first book, The Planetarium and Atmospherium, An Indoor Universe, was published in 1969. He was a planetarium design engineer and consultant for Minolta Camera Company in Osaka, Japan. Richard became the founding director of the University of Arizona’s Flandrau Planetarium in 1973, where he continued teaching and co-designed a fisheye projection camera system which flew on the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1984, producing the first full sky motion pictures from space. In 1978 he started Science Graphics, a company that manufactured sets of teaching slides in astronomy and other sciences for use in college level courses.
Richard loved teaching and sharing his enthusiasm for astronomy, the space program, photography, geology and telescope making. He gave public lectures and taught community education classes, even venturing into the Arizona State Penitentiary to teach in maximum security and protective custody. He led field trips to Cape Canaveral, where he had his fisheye cameras at most Apollo launches, and on solar eclipse trips around the world, from Mexico to Romania.
In 1986 he moved to Bend, where he taught astronomy at Central Oregon Community College for 7 years. In Bend he rediscovered his early passion for meteorites. His book Rocks From Space was published in 1994, followed by The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Meteorites in 2002. His wife Dorothy Sigler Norton, who is a scientific illustrator, produced the illustrations and cover designs. The Field Guide to Meteors and Meteorites, published in 2008, was co-authored with Bend geologist Lawrence Chitwood. Many of Richard’s meteorites are on display at the Sunriver Nature Center in Sunriver, Oregon.
Richard loved classical music and had studied piano since the age of 7. In Bend he started a series of concerts called the Four Seasons, which were held for more than 10 years at the Norton home on the equinoxes and solstices.
Richard is survived by his wife Dorothy, his sister Gloria Berg, three children from previous marriages and a granddaughter.
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| Mon, 4 May 2009 17:23:08 -0700 |
| METEORITE MEN |
SCIENCE CHANNEL’S METEORITE MEN TAKES VIEWERS ON
QUEST FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL TREASURE
-- New One-Hour Special World Premieres Sunday, May 10, 2009 at 9 PM (ET/PT) --
(Silver Spring, Md.) – For thousands of years meteorites have slammed into the earth’s surface,
each one carrying an invaluable record of the very beginnings of the solar system. But finding
meteorites, some buried over centuries by thick layers of dirt and sediment, is no easy task.
SCIENCE CHANNEL’S METEORITE MEN TAKES VIEWERS ON
QUEST FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL TREASURE
-- New One-Hour Special World Premieres Sunday, May 10, 2009 at 9 PM (ET/PT) --
(Silver Spring, Md.) – For thousands of years meteorites have slammed into the earth’s surface,
each one carrying an invaluable record of the very beginnings of the solar system. But finding
meteorites, some buried over centuries by thick layers of dirt and sediment, is no easy task.
Now, Science Channel is bringing viewers on a search for these alien treasures and revealing
these lost pieces of our universe for the first time in METEORITE MEN, world premiering
Sunday, May 10 at 9 PM (ET/PT).
Modern day treasure hunters Geoff Notkin and Steve Arnold have travelled the world for years
to search as a team for remnants of ancient meteorites. In METEORITE MEN, viewers find
the pair in Brenham, Kansas where for more than a century pieces of a large meteorite that fell
thousands of years ago have been unearthed.
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| Wed, 6 May 2009 09:46:14 -0700 |
| GIA Helps Science Channel - Meteorite Men |
Science Channel treasure hunters Geoff Notkin and Steve Arnold travel the world searching for meteorites, including fragments of one particular variety that needed the expert analysis of gemologists at the Gemological Institute of America (GIA).
The fragments in question, according to John Koivula, GIA’s chief gemologist and an expert on extraterrestrial and terrestrial gems, are from a rare stony-iron meteorite known as a pallasite, which contains glassy-looking crystalline fragments of transparent to translucent olivine. These were captured as inclusions in a massive network of two solid elemental metals, nickel and iron.
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| Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:13:45 -0700 |
| University, museum looking for meteorites in Ontario. |
NEWMARKET, Ont. - People north of Toronto are being asked to lend a helping hand in tracking meteorite fragments that are suspected to have landed in the Newmarket area over the weekend.
The University of Western Ontario and the Royal Ontario Museum are looking for meteorites that likely fell from a fireball in the sky just after 8:30 p.m. Sunday.
The university's southern Ontario Meteor Network has five cameras that captured the fireball as it crossed the night sky. Fragments are believed to have fallen between Newmarket and Lake Simcoe.
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| Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:13:07 -0700 |
| The meteorite hunt is on |
TORONTO — The hunt is on for meteorites that blazed to Earth last month and landed on rural land north of Newmarket, Ont.
The Royal Ontario Museum and University of Western Ontario have identified a 100-square-kilometre zone as the most likely debris range, stretching south-east of Mt. Albert to the edge of South Wynhurst, on the shores of Lake Simcoe.
Now, researchers have issued a call for meteorite-hunters and interested locals to start scouring the ground.
"Any time there's a fireball that looks like it's producing meteorites, we get quite excited because there's material to be recovered," said Royal Ontario Museum associate curator of mineralogy Kim Tait.
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| Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:12:19 -0700 |
| Search on for Toronto-area meteorite bits |
TORONTO, April 29 (UPI) -- Canadians living north and northeast of Toronto are being asked to help search for meteorite fragments from a fireball last month.
In a release, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto and the University of Western Ontario in London said analysis of a network of sky camera footage shows a slow-moving fireball swept eastward on March 15 at 8:37 p.m. near the small city of Newmarket.
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| Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:11:59 -0700 |
| Scientists on lookout for meteorites south of Lake Simcoe |
Ontario scientists are looking for help in tracking down meteorite fragments they believe fell to Earth last month in an area just south of Lake Simcoe.
Five cameras from the University of Western Ontario's Southern Ontario Meteor Network recorded a fireball in the evening sky on March 15 at 8:37 p.m. ET.
Scientists at Western and the Royal Ontario Museum said Tuesday its modest brightness and slow descent suggest it may have dropped small meteorites in a region between Lake Simcoe and Newmarket, Ont., north of Toronto.
These meteorites may have a total mass of as much as a few hundred grams
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| Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:10:52 -0700 |
| Public asked to help find meteorite that fell in Newmarket, Ont., area March 15 |
TORONTO — Small meteorites may have been dropped on southern Ontario by a fireball that streaked through the sky north of Toronto.
Researchers are anxious to retrieve any possible fragments of what's believed to have been a meteorite that appeared over Newmarket, Ont., just after 8:30 p.m. ET on March 15. The Royal Ontario Museum and The University of Western Ontario are now asking residents in the area for their help in finding the space debris.
Five cameras recorded a slow fireball which may have dropped small meteorites in a region between Newmarket and Lake Simcoe.
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| Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:09:36 -0700 |
| Do you have a meteorite in your backyard? |
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The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) and The University of Western Ontario are looking for help from local residents in recovering a meteorite that fell to earth in the Newmarket, Ont. area
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| Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:38:45 -0700 |
| Texas Dog Finds Rock From Outer Space - March 11, 2009 |
The call was from meteorite hunter Ruben Garcia who was seeking permission to hunt the land behind the Alligood/Bynum home when his hunting companion, Sonny Clary saw a two ounce meteorite sitting on the porch. With a little work they reached Alligood by phone at the car dealership where she works. “Did you know you have a meteorite on your porch?” said Garcia. “You mean the rock that Hopper found” replied Alligood.
“Ruben found the meteorite on the porch and the rest is history” Pauline Alligood
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