Caption: Portrait of Carl Seyfert (1911--1960) with an observatory in the background that is probably a cartoon portrayal of Dyer Observatory of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

Features:

1. Carl Seyfert was the founding director of Dyer Observatory. The portrait is by his wife Muriel M. Seyfert (1909--1997), also an astronomer.

2. He also worked as a TV weatherman in Nashville in the 1950s. Seyfert was a promoter and builder, and probably did this to raise his profile in Nashville.

3. Seyfert is best remembered for having discovered Seyfert galaxies. Like many discoveries, the credit has to be shared a bit, but Seyfert is the key person in identifying them (see Wikipedia: Seyfert Galaxies: Discovery).

4. I never knew Carl Seyfert, of course, but I worked at Dyer Observatory in 1995--1996. Actually, I was physically up on the hill only once a month or so and usually only for open house nights.

5. I had older colleagues at Vanderbilt University who remembered Seyfert.

6. Seyfert died at relatively young age, 49, in a car accident---at a road intersection I used to pass on my way to Dyer.

7. Dyer is all changed now I understand---but when I worked there it was as if the 1950s never ended and that Carl Seyfert had just left a moment ago.

8. The portrait used hang in the stairway of Dyer Observatory.

9. It does NOT seem to me that the observatory in the background can be an accurate representation of Dyer Observatory at any time. Certainly in the 1990s, Dyer was hidden by forest from lower elevations. The hiddenness added to Dyer's romantic allure.