Printed Matter, 1980

              Aggie Panorama / March 1980
They came from as far away as Hawaii, Canada,
and England and from as nearby as next door.
They included the nation's top professional
astronomers. They included serious amateur astronomers—one of these, an elderly gentleman,
came all the way from Los Angeles. They included co-workers from 10, 20, 50 years ago.
They included fellow academics, former students,
and just plain friends as well as members of the
press from such places as London, New York,
Chicago and Milwaukee.
There were more than 400 of them. And they
all came to pay tribute to a very special man who
had done a very rare thing—something only two
other men had ever done and something no one
else in this century has done.
Many know Clyde Tombaugh discovered
Pluto—the last major planet to be found in our
solar system. But few realize the impact this
small, white-haired man with the cherub's grin—
a retired-but-still-working NMSU astronomy professor—still has on the international astronomy
community, or the fondness and loyalty he engenders in his friends and associates.
For the 50th anniversary Feb. 18 of his astonishing discovery—which Associated Press voted
among the top 10 news stories of 1930—each
group, each individual, gave the best "gift" available to him.
The NMSU astronomy department, headed by
Herbert A. Beebe, gave a whole year of careful
planning and preparation for the event, which included hosting an important scientific meeting,
the attending press, and a huge commemorative
banquet.
At the banquet, the university administration,
represented by the Board of Regents Chairman
W.R. Humphries, awarded Tombaugh its highest
and most prestigious honor: the Regents Medal.
Tombaugh was the fifth recipient of the medal.
The International Astronomical Union, after
several transoceanic telephone calls, made him
the extraordinary "gift" of a minor planet. Asteroid No. 1604, which Tombaugh himself was the
first to note and mark on a photographic plate
the year after Pluto's discovery, now bears the
name "Tombaugh."
Tombaugh, a renowned punster, responded to
the surprise presentation with, "Now I have a
piece of real estate no one can touch."
Astronomers—most of the nation's experts on
Pluto—gave the very best they had to offer—a
serious, major technical meeting. The meeting,
the only one of its kind ever held, was devoted
to the planet Pluto. Because little is known about
Pluto even today, much of the work presented
was controversial. The scientists discussed their
theories of Pluto's composition and mass, the
planet's atmosphere, its newly discovered moon,
and its possible origins.
With 18 research papers presented, the meeting—and the celebratory banquet-made international news. The BBC, the New York Times,
People magazine and many other members of the
media gave the event direct coverage.
Banquet speakers, including Tombaugh himself, told the story of the man and the series of
seemingly unrelated events which came together
to result in his singular discovery.
Tombaugh was no scientist in 1929, when he
went to work at Lowell Observatory. He was
fresh off a Kansas farm, where he had spent the
days cutting wheat and the nights pursuing his
hobby: studying the skies.
It was the Depression. Lowell Observatory had
nearly lost faith and exhausted available funds in
its nearly quarter-of-a-century search for the planet theorized by the observatory's founder Percival Lowell. Lowell's widow fought to break
His Name
Among
The Stars
Lowell's will, which provided funds for the
search. Funds finally came from Lowell's brother
Lawrence, then president of Harvard University,
to buy a much-needed, more-powerful sky camera.
But another major telescope for the observatory
required someone to operate it. Lack of funds
ruled out hiring another highly trained astronomer. They decided to seek an experienced amateur. About that time Tombaugh, weary of the
farm and Depression-desperate for a job, submitted drawings of Mars and Jupiter made at the
eyepiece of his home-made telescope.
Tombaugh brought a good deal of self-taught
knowledge to the job. But he brought something else as well, something that proved to be
perhaps even more important: a special temperament, patience, and an ability to be extraordinarily thorough in extremely tedious work. The
unknown planet—if it did, indeed, exist—could
only be a faint, slow-moving body that would
have to be singled out from hundreds of thousands of stars. He took the photographic plates,
some of which contained as many as 400,000
stars, and painstakingly examined each and
every image. After the discovery, Tombaugh
spent another 13 years at Lowell—a total of
7,000 hours at the tedious work of examining
plates with a blink microscope.
In the end, Clyde Tombaugh examined nearly
all of the skies visible from this hemisphere and
his findings have rarely been disputed.
At NMSU, Tombaugh helped found and develop the astronomy department which now has
an excellent observatory and one of the world's
largest collections of planetary photography. Although the department grants only the master's
and doctor's degrees, the basic undergraduate
astronomy courses are attended by about 500
students each year, and special public programs
reached some 3,000 people in 1979.
The planetary research effort initiated by
Tombaugh continues today. Through faculty
member Reta F. Beebe, member of the Voyager
Imaging Science Team and one of the nation's
leading authorities on the planet Jupiter, the
NMSU astronomy department plays an important role in the U.S. space program
Former student Dennis Dawson, now teaching at Alma College (Michigan), unable to attend
the celebration, wrote: ".. .1 wantedto do something special for Clyde, in honor of the occasion
and in honor of him as a person.. .Clyde was
always available, cheerful.. .willing to talk about
a variety of things.. .he set an example for us all
of perserverance.. .dedication to his work and
the love of astronomy for which I have always
admired and respected him...."
It was not surprising that spontaneous, on-the-
feet applause three times delayed the day's events.
HIS    SMALL    STATURE may have called