Sun-Chaser: Marvin J. Vann, an American Life

Invention, Philanthropy, Darkness at Noon

At first from necessity and later to accommodate and finance his many interests, throughout his years in California Marvin always kept a sharp eye out for entrepreneurial opportunities. In the early 60s he formed a small corporation, Los Altos Technical Vectors, Inc., to provide a platform for marketing and for channeling any spare income that might come his way. Early on, Marvin and a partner ran Technical Vectors principally as a television repair shop. Later, after the partnership had dissolved and Marvin had become sole proprietor, he used the corporation to market his inventions: the thermistor thermometer, the solar prominence telescope, and later still, the optical disc scanner elsewhere discussed.

The thermistor thermometer arose from Marvin's notion that, because in certain semi-conducting materials called "thermistors" electrical resistance decreases as temperature rises, a thermometer could be built that would display patient temperatures at specified levels of resistance. Moreover, he thought the device would be sufficiently sensitive to enable women to identify the time of their ovulation and assist in conception. With this in objective in view, he built and manufactured his device, which worked as expected. The mercury column thermometer became a technological relic.

The solar prominence telescope that Marvin labeled "The New Realm Telescope" (since superseded by other technologies) resulted when Marvin imagined a hydrogen alpha filter that would only admit to a viewing lens light at 6562.9, the wavelength of the hydrogen alpha line on the spectrum. Page  110

He described what he wanted to a manufacturer who was able to build the filter to Marv's specifications. The filter, which was tunable by tilting, worked beautifully. Together with an occulting disk that completely masked the sun's center, Marv's scope made possible for the first time the direct and exclusive observation of the sun's chromosphere and solar prominences. In other words, Marvin's solar prominence telescope made possible viewing either the sun's surface or only the edge of the sun's circumference through a system of lenses, mask, and filter. Later improvements, using what Marvin calls "stagger tuning" of two filters, made it possible to view the entire disc of the sun without masking the sun's surface with the occulting disk. This innovation was incorporated into the final model that Marvin manufactured, "Model SPT." At one time Marv got so many orders for the telescope from Japan that he became suspicious of his customers' motives. Since the optics he used were Japanese to begin with, he realized that the Japanese must have been studying the filter with a view to building it themselves.Page  111

Beyond the enterprises associated with his inventions, Marvin also used his expertise as a photo- and cinematographer and film editor to create a series of illustrated lectures about his jungle and astronomical expeditions and researches. He presented these programs before community groups. In turn, he eventually parlayed the lectures into a tourism business that necessitated forming a subsidiary firm, "Adventure Montage." Under the aegis of that company he ran jungle adventures for his hardier clients and, for those fainter of heart, astronomical tours to major Mayan sites like Chichen Itza, Tuluum, and Palenque. These enterprises generally proved gratifyingly successful, and with Ronnie supervising the investment of the profits, Marvin soon found himself in need of tax deductions. That requirement, his interest in astronomy and telescope building, and his philanthropic instincts all happily converged. Marvin began building and giving away valuable telescopes.

Not far from Marvin's home, Foothill Junior College had been founded in 1958. Devoted to community service, the institution's administrators were always interested in entertaining proposals about creative ways in which they might serve the public. For his part, shortly after arriving in Palo Alto, Marvin had founded the Peninsula Astronomical Society (PAS). After the home that he and Ronnie built on Laverne Way in Los Altos had become habitable (or, according to Ronnie, almost so), Marvin turned his attention to building a 16" reflecting telescope to use in the back-yard observatory that he also Page  112began constructing. The observatory he intended both for his personal use and for that of the members of PAS. By November of 1962, however, Marvin concluded that Foothill's campus, on the Monte Bello ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, would make an ideal site for an observatory. He approached a member of the college science staff, Paul Trejo, to assess the college's interest. Trejo then broached the subject with Dr. Calvin Flint, President of the College, and Flint invited a proposal detailing precisely what Marv had in mind.

In January of 1963, Marvin formally offered to give the college the telescope and its supporting accessories. He also offered his gratis services as a consultant to help the college install the telescope, to design and conduct an observing program, and to help the college plan an observatory that would make possible a wider-ranging service to the entire peninsular community.

Intrigued, Flint took Marvin's proposal to the board, which approved the project. Indeed, Flint, who was something of a visionary, decided with only a little prompting from Marvin that since Foothill College was located smack in the center of space research on the West Coast, the college would be a natural site for a Community Space Technology Center that would benefit both the college and the surrounding area. Flint invited a group of citizens, among whom of course Marvin, to discuss this possibility. Predictably, Marvin enthusiastically jumped aboard a bandwagon he had started rolling.

As the project developed, phase one involved the construction of a planetarium with a star projector. Paul Trejo, who became the planetarium's first director, put the programming in place, and during the 1963-64 school year more than 20,000 people attended the planetarium's offerings. Phase two involved building an observatory to give Marvin's telescope a home. In mid-August, 1964, a 20-foot diameter steel dome was hoisted into place atop the newly constructed observatory—the second phase of the science-space center project. Subsequent phases involved building an electronic museum and a Project Oscar satellite-tracking center.

By September of 1966, Marvin's involvement in every aspect of the developing program had so impressed everyone at Foothill College that the administration begged Marvin to come aboard in a part-time, salaried Page  113capacity. Doing so meant giving up his full-time, more lucrative job at Barnes Engineering. It also, however, meant that Marvin would be free to pursue the principal intellectual passion that had obsessed him since his childhood. His ancillary enterprises would, he felt sure, more than compensate the loss of salary. To Marvin the opportunity seemed too good to be true, pursuing his hobby and being paid to do it. He applied for and received the necessary state teaching credential, and in September of 1966, the California State Board of Education averred that Marvin was competent to teach basic electronics and electro-photo optics.

Eventually the part-time job at Foothill grew into a full-time position. Marvin's accreditation expanded to include telescope making and astronomy. When Frank Cole, the founding director of the Foothill Observatory retired, Marvin took over. Even before that happened, however, Marvin's connections with the nation-wide community of amateur and professional astronomers had paid off for the Foothill program; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration selected the Foothill Observatory as one of nine assigned to keep a continuous watch for gaseous emissions on the moon. Moreover, he had sold one of his Solar Prominence telescopes to the observatory and mounted it on his donated 16-inch telescope, with the result that the observatory was busy night and day serving students, amateur and professional astronomers, and the national interest. All this left Marvin clam happy. In his new position he felt, he says, "like a kid with a great toy." Moreover, an academic schedule left more time free to pursue his interests in Central America.

The Guatemalan Connection

The providential stars that had looked favorably on Marvin's enterprises continued to exercise their benign influence. Not long after the Foothill program was up and running, Marvin was flying on business and sat next Page  114to a man named John McIntyre. The two introduced themselves and chatted about their work. When McIntyre learned that Marvin directed an observatory and planetarium, he began to consider their encounter genuinely providential. He explained that he was a friend of Adalberto Santize, the president of Universidad Dr. Mariano Galvez de Guatemala, a private university in Guatemala City. That school was about to embark on the project of building an observatory, and it required a consultant with precisely Marvin's experience both to advise them and to participate in the design of the building and its programming. Marvin was pleased to be able to offer his assistance, and McIntyre assured him that the university would cover his expenses.

Marvin went to Guatemala City, reviewed the nascent plans for the project, helped with the design of the building, and promised to return to assist with the wiring and installation when the dome and telescope mountings were ready. Over the course of the several years it took the university to complete the project Marvin consulted on the project. He also eventually built the six-inch refractor telescope cum attached solar prominence telescope pictured on the frontispiece of this volume and donated them to the university's observatory.

Oaxaca

While Marvin has always remained interested in Central American Culture generally, of all the Guatemalan and Mexican cities where he spent time over the years, Oaxaca early came to occupy a special place in his affections. He adored its color, its climate, its people, its restaurants, and its social scene. Then too, over time a Oaxacan hotelier and travel agent, Jorge Gonzales, became Marvin's closest friend. Moreover, either by the merest chance, or, as Marvin prefers to believe as a result of the special providence that he feels has directed his life, the communities of Palo Alto and Oaxaca were sister cities in the Neighbors Abroad program. Partly as a result of Marvin's initiatives, their Chambers of Commerce cooperated in numerous ventures. An early one that also involved Foothill College organized a trip to view a solar eclipse.

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Darkness at Noon

On March 7 of 1970, a total eclipse of the sun was due to occur that would be best observable in the vicinity of Oaxaca. Worldwide, students of solar phenomena began formulating plans to make the most of the four-and-one-half- minute window when the skies over Mexico would darken at noon. Like his colleagues everywhere, Marvin in his role of Director of the Observatory and Planetarium began to lay plans over a year before this event for a Foothill College Solar Eclipse Expedition to observe the solar occlusion. To procure some of the necessary funding he approached George Everett, director of the National Astronomy and Science Foundation, with a proposal soliciting the foundation's support. Pleased and impressed, especially perhaps with the fact that Marvin would himself contribute two of his Solar Prominence Telescopes to the effort and that the plan provided for including and educating the local Mexicans and Mixtec and Zapotec Indians, Everett agreed to help finance the expedition.

Preparations for the expedition proceeded throughout the winter at an ever more furious pace. Finally, on February 28 with all equipment packed in sturdy wooden boxes that were slated to double as telescope mountings, twenty-two Foothill College staff and students, together with five National Astronomy and Science Foundation personnel, including Director George Everett, flew to Oaxaca. For once Marv's customs-officer jinx did not assert itself.

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Marvin had made arrangements with Searle Hoogshagen of the Wycliffe Bible Translators to establish his observation site at Mitla, near the Missionary Air Fellowship's airstrip there. But much remained to do to be ready. Marv hired local laborers to dig and to construct adobe block piers on which the observation instruments and their mountings could firmly rest. Then the instruments needed to be cleaned, spectrographs adjusted, and the heliostat focused that would project the sun's image on a screen. There the scientists, the students, and the expected crowds of Oaxacan and Mitlan locals could safely view the eclipse. The women of the expedition provided final touches to the preparations by hoisting aloft a banner proclaiming the site to be LA CIUDAD ECLE SOL (Solar Eclipse City) and by preparing eclipse cookies from chocolate and vanilla dough.

A French group had also arrived and had set up on a near-by mountaintop, and NASA had sent a team to observe circum-solar comets that would become visible during the eclipse. Television crews arrived—the American one featuring then popular anchorman Bill Schumacher.

Also at Mitla, the University of Arizona Planetarium team had set up shop right next to the Foothill site and had brought with them a ten-inch reflector telescope. This proximity had given Marvin an idea, so during the spring he had asked his friend and colleague, Dick Norton, Director of the University of Arizona Planetarium, if he could use Arizona's telescope to host a star-gazing party in the evenings before the eclipse, a party to which he could invite the local people. Norton agreed enthusiastically.

With his customary foresight, Marvin had early involved his connections in Oaxaca and the effort benefited from his acquaintance with Luis Olivera, then mayor of Mitla. While preparations went forward in the week before the eclipse, Marvin had gone to the towns and explained to local people what to expect and invited them to view the eclipse and to the star-gazing parties. With the cooperation of local linguists, Marvin conducted one of these educational programs with a slide show in Mitla's zocalo, its town square. Searle Hoogshagan narrated in Spanish while the local innkeeper translated into Zapotec and Mixtec.

Marvin made a special point of inviting school children to observe the eclipse. At last, after much checking and rechecking, all seemed in readiness except the weather. All during the week of frantic preparation, clouds Page  117had obscured the sun. The weather cleared, however, the night of March 6, and the morning of March 7 dawned cloudless. By eight a.m. people began arriving. They came on foot, by bicycle, by automobile. Schoolchildren arrived by the hundreds together with their teachers.

Just before noon, the shadow bands that precede and follow eclipses began to snake across the earth. By noon, the moon took its first bite from the solar disk, and shortly afterward the sun was totally occluded. Marvin recalls that everything worked just as predicted: the chickens went to roost, the animals performed their evening rituals, everyone's experiments worked as well as their designers had hoped, and the main attraction, the solar corona, shone forth in exquisite beauty.

Owing in part to Marvin's work among them, many of the Mitlans who viewed the eclipse that March morning understood the phenomenon they witnessed to be a natural occurrence. Some, however, considered it supernatural and a frightening omen of ill luck to follow. Not so the schoolchildren of Mitla. To their delight, an ice-cream vendor who had been paid Page  118and instructed by the members of the Foothill College staff distributed huge ice-cream confections free of charge to each child.

The evening before the eclipse, an enormous number of people had turned up for the stargazing through the University of Arizona's telescope. A venerable Indian woman was among those waiting in line for her turn to view the heavens. As the sky had fortuitously cleared, Marvin trained the ten-inch instrument on Saturn, sure that its rings would amaze the viewers. When the old woman's turn came, she looked through the telescope and gasped. She made her way around to the front of the scope, looked down the tube, and examined the mirror carefully. Then she returned and looked through the eyepiece once more. Satisfied at last that she was indeed seeing something in the heavens that her unaided eye had never perceived before, she turned, took Marvin's hand in hers, brought it to her lips, and kissed it. The memory of that moment still brings tears to Marvin's eyes. Moreover, as we shall later see, that kiss sparked a love affair between the greater Oaxacan community and astronomical matters in general.