A6
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, JANuARY 21, 2019
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND
Editor
Founded in 1873
JEREMY FELDMAN
Circulation Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN
Production Manager
CARL EARL
Systems Manager
SOUTHERN EXPOSURE
James Young
Rare shooting of a bright fireball during the Leonid meteor shower, Nov. 17, 1966.
James Young
A bright meteor captured during the Perseid Meteor Shower on Aug. 13, 2010.
The art of discovery
J
ames Whitney Young was born in
Portland in 1941. He is an American
astronomer who worked in the field
of asteroid research. He retired in 2009
after nearly 47 years with the Jet Propul-
sion Laboratory at their Table Mountain
Facility near Wrightwood, California.
With the advent of powerful lasers,
Young became involved with several
projects that aimed them successfully,
first at the Surveyor VII spacecraft on the
moon in 1968, later as two laser-rang-
ing programs developed
at JPL in the 1990s found
their marks on low and
high earth-orbiting satel-
lites, as well as the Gal-
ileo spacecraft some 6
million kilometers away.
As astronomy team
R.J.
leader, he maintained the
MARX
optical performance of
the telescopes and cam-
eras. His main focus before retirement
was the discovery, recovery and confir-
mation of newly discovered asteroids and
comets. He is credited with more than
250 asteroid discoveries, including two
near-earth asteroids.
Q: How long have you been coming
to Seaside?
Young: My grandfather was an attor-
ney in Portland and he liked to vaca-
tion on the beach. He built a house here
on South Prom in 1943. I’ve been here
almost every year. My wife Karen and I
now have a house on Ninth Street. She’s
also interested in astronomy.
Q: How did you get interested in
the field?
Young: Bob and Hazel Sealy lived on
Ocean Vista Drive. My brother and I met
them in 1958. He (Sealy) had a telescope.
Although I was already into astronomy,
he was a key ingredient in my establish-
ing my astronomy career. We started the
Seaside Amateur Astronomers group.
Q: Is the North Coast a good place
for astronomy?
Young: No, it’s a horrible place. It’s
the moisture and clouds. You need clear
skies without moisture. Humidity is ter-
rible. You will find that observatories
around the world are located in high ele-
vations, away from light pollution and
at dry facilities. We did astronomy here
when we had the chance because it was
fun!
Q: Did you study science in college?
Young: I went to school, but I didn’t
finish. My dad had gotten me a job at the
bank, which I wasn’t interested in, but
it was a job. Then along came the Seat-
tle World’s Fair in 1962. I got a job offer
as the lead guide at the Seattle World’s
Fair NASA Exhibit and took the job offer
at 21.
Q: That was huge!
Young: I quit the bank job and my
dad was pretty mad with me. He said,
“You know, in six months when the fair
is over, you’re through.”
I became the lead guide for the astron-
omy exhibit because of my astron-
DISCOVERING ASTEROIDS
Young is credited with more than 250 asteroid discoveries, including
two near-earth asteroids.
omy background. We had 32 guides
I’m sorry, that doesn’t fly with me.
and I taught them astronomy. Ten mil-
Q: But there was something going
lion people went through that exhibit in
on?
six months. We had NASA, astronauts,
Young: I was just standing outside
a cosmonaut from Russia came through.
the observatory one night when I saw
John Glenn was there. It was a big thing
something go by too fast, too high, too
— it was so inspiring to be able to do
odd-shaped to make any other sense. We
that and continue to
never found out what
learn.
it was.
Q: How did you
Q: You are
get the job with
known for iden-
tifying asteroids.
the Jet Propul-
sion Laboratory in
What’s the dif-
ference between
Pasadena?
an asteroid and a
Young: One of the
planet?
gentlemen who came
Young: Planets
through the exhibit
are pretty good size.
was (senior engineer)
An asteroid is rela-
Tom Bickler from
tively small. Most
JPL, who said: “By
of them are found
the way, we’re build-
ing an observatory.
between Mars and
Why don’t you apply
Jupiter as they rotate
for a job?”
the sun. They are lit-
tle pieces of material
Q: You were
only in your 20s.
R.J .Marx/Seaside Signal that can be 20, 40 or
What distinguished James Young, photographer and 80 miles in diame-
ter or smaller. They
you from other
longtime Seaside visitor and resident.
have permanent
candidates?
orbits. I’ve discov-
Young: They flew
ered a lot of them.
me down for an interview. I was picked
Q: Are they barren objects?
up and taken to the observatory on a VIP
Young: That’s right. Rock of some
tour: the laboratory director, his wife and
sort, maybe ice, some metals. Mining
quite a few of the mucky mucks — the
asteroids might be a feasible thing to do.
highfalutin people.
Q: Harnessing them? Aren’t they
I was green behind the ears but I knew
moving fast?
astronomy.
Young: So are we. We’re going
When it got dark that evening, they
66,000 mph around the sun. We’ve
turned the telescope on, we started view-
ing, and it broke. Nobody knew what to
already had several spacecraft go to
do. I said, “Have you got a toolbox?”
asteroids. They’ve gone to comets.
In 30 minutes I had the telescope
Q: Could an asteroid come into our
running again. I was hired without an
atmosphere?
interview.
Young: It could, if it came close to
Q: What was your job?
earth. There are about 1,600 near-earth
Young: I was hired as a darkroom
asteroids that have a potential to get
technician. To be a little technical we did
pretty close to the earth.
synoptic patrols of Venus, Mars, Jupiter
Q: Are we at risk?
and Saturn by taking spectroscopic plates
Young: It would take a fairly big
— photographs — of these planets to
asteroid to destroy the earth. We think the
investigate their cloud covers in different
earth was hit by an asteroid 65 million
wavelengths of light.
years ago, which demised the dinosaurs.
We observed comets and aster-
That’s a pretty reasonable theory. It is a
oids. We had star parties. It was an out-
theory, not a fact.
reach for the community. One thing led
Back in 2010 an extremely small
to another, and we eventually got a big-
asteroid hit the earth and we found evi-
dence of that. But something a mile in
ger telescope. I started doing real science
diameter hitting the earth would create
with an astronomer at JPL and things
serious problems.
started rolling.
Q: Are people concerned about
Q: UFOs — is there any evidence?
that?
Young: It came up with me once,
Young: Some are. I’m not.
when I was pretty young. I’m not say-
ing yay or nay … I have no evidence, but
Q: Why not?
when you see something that you can’t
Young: You’re going to get hit by
really account for in normal things, you
lightning 1,000 times before an asteroid
call it an unidentified flying object.
is going to hit the earth. You don’t need
However, my feeling is little green
to worry about it. It’s a waste of time.
monsters that are sticky with one eye —
When you drive out of this driveway,
you’re going to get hit by a car before
you are hit by an asteroid.
Q: When did you get serious about
landscape photography?
Young: I got my start back in about
1980. I ran into some New York-based
photographers down in Cannon Beach. I
learned a lot from them in the span of the
Christmas holidays — how to shoot sun-
set photography, the waves. That gave
me a boost. I was doing astronomy, then
I realized I could really move into this.
Q: Your photos of the lighthouse,
Terrible Tilly, off the coast are incred-
ible. How long have you been shooting
there?
Young: Close to 40 years. Every time
I’m up here, when I hear the waves at
night, I know the winds are coming, I
know it’s the back side. If the road is
open I go to Ecola State Park.
Q: Can you get closer?
Young: Hikers can. You can drive
to Indian Beach and walk up the trail,
which is a mile and a half. You’re a quar-
ter-mile closer and looking down. I’m
77 and it’s getting a little hard to hike
that, and if you’re lugging a big lens, a
13-pound lens, tripod. The last time I was
up there was two years ago.
Q: Are you a student of Terrible
Tilly?
Young: A couple of years ago I took
the Ironwood boat out of Tongue Point.
We went around the lighthouse four
times for the event with people from
Oregon Public Broadcasting. I know the
owner, Mimi Morrissette. I was allowed
to be one of the photographers to help
document the event. I’ve flown over in a
helicopter, and later flown in a plane with
the door off of it so I could do photogra-
phy in 2015.
Q: Do you continue to use tele-
scopes here?
Young: I do astronomy here when I
can. We looked at a comet when we first
got here early in December. Last summer
I brought both my trackers so both my
wife and I could do astronomy here. We
did quite a bit of it this past summer. If
we get a clear sky, we go down to south
of Tolovana Park where there’s a big
turnout on the highway. It’s not bad.
We set up our trackers there in the
middle of the night — and we do good
photography.
We normally do our best photogra-
phy at Big Bend National Park in Texas,
because it’s further south, really dark,
and higher elevation.
If we can add everything — no
humidity, no lights, no elevation — then
we get our best images.
Q: Do you have any secrets to
share?
Young: Most of the best pictures
aren’t planned hours or days in advance.
You have to be there at the right time —
and guess what: “Click!”
R.J. Marx is editor of the Seaside
Signal and Cannon Beach Gazette,
and covers South County for The Daily
Astorian.