Geoffrey G. Douglass arrived at the Naval Observatory from Case Institute of
Technology (Cleveland, Ohio) on April 28, 1967 to become a member of the
Astronomy & Astrophysics Department. His first project was to do literature
searches and editorial work on the UBV Photoelectric Catalog (PECAT, 1968). He
became proficient in filling in broken zeroes with an ink pen on camera
"ready" proofs from the IBM printer.
He also participated in the major A&A projects: Parallax plate measuring on SAMM, observing photographic double stars on the 26-inch refractor and measuring those plates on the MANN two-screw machine. He was also responsible for training and supervising all SAMM and MANN users.
He began working with C.E. Worley on the visual double star program and the Double Star Catalog in 1968 and continued that collaboration until Charles's death in December, 1997. He was responsible for all software development for the Double Star Catalog, assisting in literature searches, additions and corrections to the Catalog, and sending yearly updates to the two other repositories of double star data. This entailed running more than 180 trays of IBM cards through an erratic card reader (approximately one-half million cards once every year). He assisted Worley in all aspects of producing the major revision of the Double Star catalog, the Washington Double Star Catalog (WDS) in 1984. With the acquisition of the speckle interferometer in 1990 for use on the 26-inch refractor he became responsible for observing and reducing all speckle data under the direction of Worley. A large part of his time in 1998 until his retirement at the end of that year was devoted to preparing the speckle data (>10,000 observations) for publication. It is gratifying for him to see that the double star programs have taken their rightful place as major projects at the USNO and in DoD, and that their importance to fundamental astronomy has finally been realized.
He began to work on the Southern Astrograph Project in 1971 (later to become the Twin Astrograph project (TAC)). Initially this project was to photograph the entire southern hemisphere from a site in Perth, Australia. He was responsible for testing of both sets of telescope lenses, and taking of all test fields and selected area plates. When it became evident that the telescope could not be sent to the southern hemisphere due to budget cutbacks, the telescope was used to obtain plates for the Zodiacal Zone Catalog, and then the northern hemisphere ($-$18 degrees to +90 degrees in declination) from the USNO Washington site. He was appointed manager of the Zodiacal Zone Project (1977), and then TAC Project (1978-1985). Duties for the Zodiacal Zone Project entailed coordinating the transfer and measuring of Yale Zone Catalog plates on the STARSCAN measuring machine, and the observing of the Zodiacal Zone fields on the Twin Astrographic Telescope. Duties for the TAC project were primarily to oversee and participate in the observing of the northern fields on the Twin Astrograph Telescope. He was also responsible for organization and coordination of transfer of the telescope to New Zealand and for input on design of TAC facilities. He was honored to be sent to New Zealand with the Twin Astrograph Telescope to begin the southern observing project (1985-1988). While the project was not done due to the delayed acquisition of a new red lens, observations of radio reference frame areas were taken, and occultation data was also supplied to the two major New Zealand national observatories. Upon his return to USNO Washington he oversaw astrograph plate measuring on STARSCAN of the northern hemisphere plates by contract measurers, and was responsible for testing of STARSCAN.
(Prepared by Geoff Douglass at the time of his retirement.)