Sky Writer : Robert Burnham Jr.

January 28, 2008 1:39 PM

Over 30 years ago, Robert Burnham Jr. struggled to get his astronomical (in more ways than one) three volume work published. Burnham's Celestial Handbook: An Observer's Guide to the Universe Beyond the Solar System "remains a sort of real-life hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, a compendium with something to say about nearly every cosmic destination worth visiting. . . It is rarely compared to other books because there simply is none other like it." It remains a beloved and relevant book among star-gazers today. Yet few know much about the life of the author, or of his sad and lonely demise: Sky Writer.
posted by spock (20 comments total)

Thanks for this post. Really interesting and very sad. For some reason there is something morbidly captivating about stories like this- of brilliant minds who can create amazing work, but seemingly pay for their gift with a currency we might associate with comfort and happiness. Perhaps it makes the great minds even greater, and our mediocrity seem like a fair bargain.
posted by farishta at 1:54 PM on January 28, 2008

Great post.
posted by Skygazer at 2:32 PM on January 28, 2008

Fascinating story. Thanks for that.
posted by infinitywaltz at 2:35 PM on January 28, 2008

Fascinating read, thanks.

As a Brit who knows not very much, this caught my eye:

"We had a great English amateur that published books and stuff, but the stuff he had in it was wrong. His name was Patrick Moore. In later years, he learned enough to at least try to put the facts down straight. But Burnham quoted Moore as many times as he quoted Henry Norris Russell or some other famous astronomer, you know. And that was the trouble; Burnham didn't know the difference between someone who knew something and someone who didn't."

Patrick Moore is synonymous with astronomy for many in the UK.
posted by vbfg at 2:37 PM on January 28, 2008

Whoa! I love my Burnham's!

I always assumed Burnham to be some well-to-do astronomer, like some wealthy guy who hung out at the Royal Observatory or something.

This was deeply shocking to read.
posted by vacapinta at 2:39 PM on January 28, 2008

After years of on and off perusing, I've decided it's worth $5 to say:
Nice post, these books were on my father's bookshelf, and they inspired an 11 year old to sit down and design a (surprisingly reasonable) spaceship. Sad what becomes of so many visionaries.
hello mefi
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 2:41 PM on January 28, 2008

I was searching for images of his book but found a photo of Burnham in his cabin.
posted by D.C. at 5:52 PM on January 28, 2008

While I love to hear about 'obsessive' creators and cataloguers like Robert Burnham, it's sad to see how many of them turn out poorly. His story reminded me a little of William Chester Minor.
posted by Paragon at 6:00 PM on January 28, 2008

For something or other... just saying.
posted by Huplescat at 6:15 PM on January 28, 2008

Amazing story. Agonizing and sad and disappointing but the achievement is so remarkable, nonetheless.

Thank you Robert Burnham, wherever you may (or may not) be!
posted by humannaire at 6:35 PM on January 28, 2008

Great post indeed, and a very sad story. Fuck Lowell Observatory for not doing more to help this man who they must have realized couldn't make his own way in the world.

"There was a building resistance between Burnham and Lowell [Observatory], partly because they felt he was using their resources for his Handbook. As it became more popular and people talked about it, Henry Giclas got more standoffish about it. There was a big lack of communication about the use of Lowell's resources. Perhaps if Bob had been a better communicator he could have convinced the observatory that it was a positive thing for it.

"As the years went on, he was fighting with Lowell. He wanted to add to the public tour. He wanted a sound system and a choreographed slide show. He wanted a gift shop. But Giclas and others felt that it was a research institute that didn't need to give tours."

Thomas says Burnham wanted to take on more of those responsibilities, and hoped that he could make it a full-time job.

"Burnham brought his own stereo system. He brought blinds for the rotunda so a slide show could be put on, all on his own time and money. He felt, as the years went on, that Lowell didn't care about that. Yet, ironically, 10 years after he had left, they adopted all those ideas."

One minor quibble: the post starts off "Over 30 years ago..." but it should read "Over 40 years ago," because the linked story is dated September 25, 1997 (the first edition of the book came out in 1966).

Thanks for the post, spock!
posted by languagehat at 7:17 AM on January 29, 2008

I was searching for images of his book but found a photo of Burnham in his cabin.

Nice find, and there are a bunch of other pictures of him there, but the comment on that photo says:

Actually, this picture is not inside the cabin at Lowell. This picture was taken inside the back room of the Burnham family home in Prescott. Picture was taken in the time period between his discharge from the Air Force and his employment at Lowell. The picture of Saturn in the middle of the photograph is a pencil drawing done by him.
posted by languagehat at 7:21 AM on January 29, 2008

Wonderful post, thank you! I just ordered the book, it sounds like a fascinating read. It's such a shame that he had nowhere to go in the end...
posted by vorfeed at 9:53 AM on January 29, 2008

Thinking back over this, the problem is that he chose to isolate himself. If people in the astronomy community had been aware of his plight they undoubtedly would have come to his aid, even if just to offer him a job as a research assistant somewhere. I mean, he was Robert Burnham, author of the Celestial Handbook! Damn him.
posted by vacapinta at 10:13 AM on January 29, 2008

The people at Lowell Observatory were aware of his plight, and their reaction was irritation. They chose to isolate him before he chose to isolate himself.
posted by languagehat at 10:56 AM on January 29, 2008

It sounds to me like he lost the plot. These are the excerpts which struck me:


Michael Bartlett: "Everyone could see Robert's potential except for Robert."
Bruce Thomas: "He was a very different Bob than the one I had first met. The one who had been optimistic about creativity and the world."
...
"In some of the final years that I knew him, he would say things like, 'If I get evicted, I don't know what I'm going to do. Become a bum, I guess, and lose all of this stuff.'

"For a year, I gave him 20 dollars a week to help him with groceries," Thomas says, and he knew that two other sons of Lowell astronomers gave Burnham money as well.
...
One writer, Louis Lyell of Jackson, Mississippi, wrote Burnham about an observatory he had helped build at a private school, and about the school's need for an astronomy teacher. The job seemed custom-made for Burnham, who enjoyed talking to young people about science more than anything else.

Lyell says he never got a reply.
Instead, Burnham sank further into bitterness and obsession about money.
Then, in July 1985, he vanished.


So yes maybe Lowell gave him the initial push but it seems like he hadn't the skills to recover from it - something he should have been more than capable of doing.
posted by vacapinta at 11:17 AM on January 29, 2008

If you are not a star-gazer, I'm not sure you will find the books a "good read" in the traditional sense. The good news is, if you have ordered them and aren't happy with them, you can probably get back most of what you paid (or they would make a wonderful gift for anyone who is into astronomy but does not yet have these classics). They were available in both paperback and hardback editions.
posted by spock at 11:54 AM on January 29, 2008

So yes maybe Lowell gave him the initial push but it seems like he hadn't the skills to recover from it - something he should have been more than capable of doing.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. Yeah, if he had been a normal person with normal skills he should have been capable of taking care of himself. If Helen Keller had been a normal person with normal vision, she wouldn't have needed a helper. So? It seems clear from the article that no one who spent any time around him—let alone the years that the Lowell people spent around him—could have been under any illusion that he was capable of taking care of himself. Lowell was his lifeline; he finished the project he'd been working on and tried desperately to find another way of making himself useful to them; they said "fuck it, go away" and cut him loose. You might say "Well, his suggestion was impractical," except that they then adopted it themselves. Fuck them, I say.
posted by languagehat at 3:49 PM on January 29, 2008

This post jogged an old memory of this book, First Light, by Richard Preston. Highly recommended if you have an interest in astronomy. Or beautifully written books.
posted by vronsky at 6:12 PM on January 29, 2008

And for those of you with the Complete New Yorker dvd's -- look up “A Reporter at Large: DARK TIME,” The New Yorker, Oct. 26, 1987. Excerpted from the book First Light , by Richard Preston.
posted by vronsky at 10:05 PM on January 29, 2008