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First edition, first printing of H. A. Rey's perennially popular astronomy book for children. Signed on half-title page verso by astronomer Edwin Hubble and 26 other men and women working at the Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories in 1952. 144 pp., illustrated with duotone offset lithographs. Bound in publisher's blue cloth with pictorial stamping in yellow, printed endpapers depicting seasonal constellation rotation. Very Good with light wear and edge toning, 2 inch split to upper end of front joint, and shaken binding. Christmas 1952 stamp to front free endpaper verso, offsetting and old tape residue to title and facing pages from typewritten sheet, formerly taped and now laid in. Light toning and occasional thumbing to contents. In a Good price-clipped dust jacket with moderate rubbing and soiling and heavy edgewear; pen tracing lettering on front panel by 9-year-old former owner. The jacket unfolds to a poster chart of the sky, with paper loss at center due to chipping at head of spine panel. Also laid in are the January 1954 issue of The Griffith Observatory and newspaper clippings reporting the deaths of Hubble and Seth B. Nicholson. The Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories, built in the early 20th century in Southern California, are among the most famous and historically important observatories in the world. It was at Wilson that Harlow Shapely measured the Milky Way and Edwin Hubble proved the existence of additional galaxies, and it was at Palomar that Maarten Schmidt identified a quasar for the first time. Hubble is one of the signers of this book, together with Seth B. Nicholson, who discovered four moons of Jupiter and lent his name to the Hale-Nicholson Law concerning the magnetic polarity of sunspots, and Edison Pettit, whose name was given to craters on the Moon and Mars. The other astronomers are Milton L. Humason, Walter Baade, Alfred Joy, Sergei Gaposchkin (visiting from Harvard), R. Minkowski, O.C. Wilson, Horace W. Babcock, Paul W. Merrill, W.A. Baum, A.J. Deutsch, Frank E. Ross, and I.S. Bowen, who was also the director of the two observatories. The additional signers include the chief photographer for both observatories, a draftsman, the shop superintendent, a design engineer, and support staff. Each person is named and given a brief description on a list typed on observatory stationery and dated December 1952. That the five women on the list were support staff is no coincidence; women at the time were not permitted to use the telescopes and were relegated to roles as computers, research assistants, librarians, and secretaries. The secretary who typed up the list of names was Leah M. Mutschler, "Secretary Receptionist and a fairly new staff member" at Mount Wilson, who took the job in the face of her husband's opposition. It was she who gathered signatures for Rey's new astronomy book as a Christmas present for her nine-year-old granddaughter, who kept the book for more than 70 years. Mutschler's gift inscription on the title page, with an arrow pointing out her own name, makes the book all the more poignant as a record of achievements of all kinds. An extraordinary roll call of extraordinary astronomers, scientists, and others.

First edition, first printing of H. A. Rey's perennially popular astronomy book for children. Signed on half-title page verso by astronomer Edwin Hubble and 26 other men and women working at the Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories in 1952. 144 pp., illustrated with duotone offset lithographs. Bound in publisher's blue cloth with pictorial stamping in yellow, printed endpapers depicting seasonal constellation rotation. Very Good with light wear and edge toning, 2 inch split to upper end of front joint, and shaken binding. Christmas 1952 stamp to front free endpaper verso, offsetting and old tape residue to title and facing pages from typewritten sheet, formerly taped and now laid in. Light toning and occasional thumbing to contents. In a Good price-clipped dust jacket with moderate rubbing and soiling and heavy edgewear; pen tracing lettering on front panel by 9-year-old former owner. The jacket unfolds to a poster chart of the sky, with paper loss at center due to chipping at head of spine panel. Also laid in are the January 1954 issue of The Griffith Observatory and newspaper clippings reporting the deaths of Hubble and Seth B. Nicholson. The Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories, built in the early 20th century in Southern California, are among the most famous and historically important observatories in the world. It was at Wilson that Harlow Shapely measured the Milky Way and Edwin Hubble proved the existence of additional galaxies, and it was at Palomar that Maarten Schmidt identified a quasar for the first time. Hubble is one of the signers of this book, together with Seth B. Nicholson, who discovered four moons of Jupiter and lent his name to the Hale-Nicholson Law concerning the magnetic polarity of sunspots, and Edison Pettit, whose name was given to craters on the Moon and Mars. The other astronomers are Milton L. Humason, Walter Baade, Alfred Joy, Sergei Gaposchkin (visiting from Harvard), R. Minkowski, O.C. Wilson, Horace W. Babcock, Paul W. Merrill, W.A. Baum, A.J. Deutsch, Frank E. Ross, and I.S. Bowen, who was also the director of the two observatories. The additional signers include the chief photographer for both observatories, a draftsman, the shop superintendent, a design engineer, and support staff. Each person is named and given a brief description on a list typed on observatory stationery and dated December 1952. That the five women on the list were support staff is no coincidence; women at the time were not permitted to use the telescopes and were relegated to roles as computers, research assistants, librarians, and secretaries. The secretary who typed up the list of names was Leah M. Mutschler, "Secretary Receptionist and a fairly new staff member" at Mount Wilson, who took the job in the face of her husband's opposition. It was she who gathered signatures for Rey's new astronomy book as a Christmas present for her nine-year-old granddaughter, who kept the book for more than 70 years. Mutschler's gift inscription on the title page, with an arrow pointing out her own name, makes the book all the more poignant as a record of achievements of all kinds. An extraordinary roll call of extraordinary astronomers, scientists, and others.