Accomplishments of Glenn A. Walsh

1990 – Expert Witness: Common Pleas Court, County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania. Trial on night-time traffic accident. Testified on phase of the Moon, during the incident.

1995 May 18 – Organized grass-roots effort to prevent sale, and removal from Pittsburgh, of historic apparatus from the original Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science: Zeiss II Planetarium Projector and 10-inch Siderostat-type Refractor Telescope. Petitioned for a public hearing before Pittsburgh City Council. After demonstrating the historic nature of the artifacts at the May 18 public hearing, City Council prevented the sale of the artifacts to Navarro College in central Texas.

1995 September – After several months of work as a new Life Trustee on the Board of Trustees of the Andrew Carnegie Free Library and Music Hall, successfully secured annual state funding and newly-established county (Allegheny Regional Asset District) funding, which ensured the Andrew Carnegie Free Library and Music Hall (Pittsburgh suburb of Carnegie, Pennsylvania) would not close, despite financial and political problems.

1998 February 26 – Organized and implemented public observation session, with 6-inch reflector telescope, of Partial Eclipse of the Sun in Library Park of the Andrew Carnegie Free Library and Music Hall, Pittsburgh suburb of Carnegie, Pennsylvania.

1999 April – Served as Consulting Editor for the Andrew Carnegie issue of Cobblestone, the American History magazine for children.

2001 October 13 – Delivered invited address, regarding the history of The Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science, before the Great Lakes Planetarium Association at the North Hills High School in north suburban Pittsburgh.

2002 October 8 – Organized and implemented special program, in the Andrew Carnegie Free Library Music Hall, celebrating the centennial of the dedication of the Andrew Carnegie Free Library and Music Hall.

2004 June 8 – Organized and implemented only public observation session, within the City of Pittsburgh, of the rare Transit of the Planet Venus across the disk of the Sun (which had not occurred since 1882 December 6). This event, using several telescopes, occurred on the observation deck of The Duquesne Incline in the Mount Washington section of the city.

2005 July 26 – Completed process whereby Pittsburgh City Council designated The Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science as a City-Designated Historic Structure.

2006 November 3 – 2006 National Preservation Conference (sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation) in Pittsburgh: Served on panel, Carnegie Libraries: Challenges and Solutions; Presented address titled, “Primary Impediments to Historic Preservation: EGO and MONEY !”

2007 – Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers - Authored three articles on the lives of Pittsburgh astronomers: Samuel Pierpont Langley, James E. Keeler, and John A. Brashear.

2009 September 15 – Guest speaker at the re-opening of the historic Carnegie Library in the Atlanta suburb of Newnan, Georgia. This library building was the first library to close in 1987, be re-used as a courthouse annex, then converted back to a library in 2009.

2012 April 18 – Premiere, at Pittsburgh's Heinz History Center, of the historical documentary motion picture, Undaunted: The Forgotten Giants of the Allegheny Observatory. Served as a History Consultant for this documentary.

2012 June 12 – Organized and implemented public observing session of the rare Transit of the Planet Venus across the disk of the Sun (the next Transit of Venus will be 2117 December 10 to 11), at the Mount Lebanon Public Library in south suburban Pittsburgh. Regrettably, cloud-cover did not permit direct observation of the event via telescopes. However, the public did see the event on a large screen inside the library, via an Internet link from NASA.

2015 September 19 – Completed process, and dedicated historic plaque, for the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation plaque denoting the 1899 opening of the West End Branch of The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

2017 August 21 – Organized and implemented public observation session, with 6-inch reflector telescope, of Partial Eclipse of the Sun (“Great American Eclipse”) at the Mount Lebanon Public Library in south suburban Pittsburgh.

gaw Wednesday, 2019 October 16

Update: Saturday, 2019 October 19