Download or read book The Great Refractor of Meudon Observatory written by Audouin Dollfus and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-05-14 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The large telescope at Meudon has become legendary. When it was conceived, after 1870, astronomy as a whole was limited to visual observation. Knowledge of the sky was limited to what one could see, assisted only by optical means. The large telescopes produced at this time produced larger images, permitting close-up views: the Meudon telescope was able to accomplish this perfectly. At Meudon, which became the Mecca of visual observation, the major planets were examined in a way that no other telescope had previously been able to. The telescope monitored the state of their atmospheres and mapped the appearance of their surfaces. Through the telescope, one could obtain photographs showing the nuclei of comets, revealing their very small size, and by using an eyepiece one could measure the separation of double stars. With a marvellous little instrument, the polarimeter, the nature of clouds in planetary atmospheres has been determined, and the type of surface material identified. Many more results were obtained, while photography, universally adopted, revolutionized other knowledge about the world. The sensitive emulsion, combined with large aperture reflecting telescopes, revealed the deepness and richness of the cosmos. The vast telescope of Meudon, which was the largest refracting telescope in Europe, became a legendary instrument and was symbolic of a new way to practice astronomy. Audouin Dollfus, a renowned astronomer, describes the great years of the Meudon telescope. He gives us the entire story of this instrument, from the birth of the concept that drove Jules Janssen at the end of the nineteenth century, to the idea that French astronomy could provide an outstanding telescope which would approach the limits of technical and industrial resources. The telescope remained unchanged until 2006, when the first steps toward restoration and public reopening were taken.
Download or read book Chronicling the Golden Age of Astronomy written by Neil English and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-10-31 with total page 665 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The invention of the telescope at the dawning of the 17th century has revolutionized humanity's understanding of the Universe and our place within it. This book traces the development of the telescope over four centuries, as well as the many personalities who used it to uncover brand-new revelations about the Sun, Moon, planets, stars and distant galaxies. Starting with early observers such as Thomas Harriot, Galileo, Johannes Hevelius, Giovanni Domenico Cassini, Robert Hooke and Christian Huygens, the book explores how these early observers arrived at essentially correct ideas concerning the objects they studied. Moving into the 18th and 19th centuries, the author describes the increasing sophistication of telescopes both large and small, and the celebrated figures who used them so productively, including the Herschels, Charles Messier, William Lassell and the Earls of Rosse. Many great discoveries were also made with smaller instruments when placed in the capable hands of the Struve dynasty, F.W. Bessel, Angelo Secchi and S.W Burnham, to name but a few. Nor were all great observers of professional ilk. The book explores the contributions made by the 'clerical astronomers,' William Rutter Dawes, Thomas William Webb, T.E.R Philips and T.H.E.C Espin, as well as the lonely vigils of E.E. Barnard, William F. Denning and Charles Grover. And in the 20th century, the work of Percival Lowell, Leslie Peltier, Eugene M. Antoniadi, Clyde Tombaugh, Walter Scott Houston, David H. Levy and Sir Patrick Moore is fully explored. Generously illustrated throughout, this treasure trove of astronomical history shows how each observer's work led to seminal developments in science, and providing key insights into how we go about exploring the heavens today.
Download or read book Astronomical Photography with the Forty Inch Refractor and the Two Foot Reflector of the Yerkes Observatory Classic Reprint written by George Willis Ritchey and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2017-10-28 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Astronomical Photography With the Forty-Inch Refractor and the Two-Foot Reflector of the Yerkes Observatory IN the original design of the forty-inch refractor of the Yerkes Observatory no provision of any kind was made for direct photography. The objective is a visual one; there is no photographic cor rector such as was provided for the great Lick refractor; and there is no powerful auxiliary telescope for guiding, such as are used in the cases of the standard photographic telescopes and of the very large photographic refractors at Potsdam and Meudon. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Download or read book The Astronomer Jules Janssen written by Françoise Launay and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-11-25 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A physicist and an inventor, Jules Janssen (1824-1907) devoted his life to astronomical research. He spent many years traveling around the world to observe total Solar eclipses, demonstrating that a new era of science had just come thanks to the use of both spectroscopy and photography, and persuading the French Government of the necessity of founding a new observatory near Paris. He became its director in 1875. There, at Meudon, he began routine photographic recordings of the Sun surface and had a big refractor and a big reflector built. Meanwhile, he also succeeded in building an Observatory at the summit of Mont-Blanc. The story of this untiring and stubborn globe-trotter is enriched by extracts of the unpublished correspondence with his wife. One can thus understand why Henriette often complained of the solitude in which she was left by her peripatetic husband: “There are men who leave their wives for mistresses; you do it for journeys!” ... Basking in the glow of his success, Janssen was able to undertake the construction of the great astrophysical observatory of which he had dreamed. It was at Meudon that he had it built.
Download or read book A Question and Answer Guide to Astronomy written by Carol Christian and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-23 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains 250 questions and answers about astronomy, particular for the amateur astronomer.
Download or read book The Discovery of the Universe written by Carolyn Collins Petersen and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2019-11-15 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the discoveries of observatories have unlocked the secrets of the Universe, from Stonehenge to Hubble.
Download or read book The Planet Mars written by William Sheehan and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2021-10-19 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty years after the Viking missions of the ’70s, we are finally going back to Mars. No fewer than ten missions are planned for the period between 1996 and 2003, and it is likely that human explorers will follow soon after--perhaps by the middle of the twenty-first century. When they do, they will owe much to the Mars of romance, to the early pioneers whose discoveries and disappointments are brought to life in The Planet Mars: A History of Observation and Discovery. In this timely and vividly written account, William Sheehan traces human fascination with Mars back to the naked-eye observers of the planet. He recalls the early telescopic observers who first made out enigmatic markings and polar caps on its surface. Through lively historical anecdotes, he describes in detail the debate over the so-called canals of Mars, which encouraged speculation that the planet might be inhabited. Finally, Sheehan describes more recent theories about the planet, leading up to the present, when unmanned spacecraft have enabled us to make giant strides in exploration. Well documented and sparked with human interest, this book will be a useful companion and guide in interpreting the barrage of headlines about Mars that is sure to come over the next few years. Amateurs will appreciate the contributions that have been made to Martian studies by people like themselves, and professionals will find much original material that has never before been published. The American Mars Global Surveyor is scheduled for launch in November 1996, and soon after the American Mars Pathfinder will make its way toward the red planet. A Russian mission consisting of an orbiter and two landers will be launched in October 1997. These space travelers will write a whole new chapter in the dramatic story of Mars, a planet whose exploration has only just begun. Astronomy Book Club main selection and selections of Book-of-the-Month Club and Quality Paperback Book Club.
Download or read book Unveiling Galaxies written by Jean-René Roy and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-12 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thought provoking study of the powerful impact of images in guiding astronomers' understanding of galaxies through time.
Download or read book Memoirs of the British Astronomical Association written by British Astronomical Association and published by . This book was released on 1906 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Memoirs written by British Astronomical Association and published by . This book was released on 1911 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Islam Science Fiction and Extraterrestrial Life written by Jörg Matthias Determann and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-09-17 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Muslim world is not commonly associated with science fiction. Religion and repression have often been blamed for a perceived lack of creativity, imagination and future-oriented thought. However, even the most authoritarian Muslim-majority countries have produced highly imaginative accounts on one of the frontiers of knowledge: astrobiology, or the study of life in the universe. This book argues that the Islamic tradition has been generally supportive of conceptions of extra-terrestrial life, and in this engaging account, Jörg Matthias Determann provides a survey of Arabic, Bengali, Malay, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu texts and films, to show how scientists and artists in and from Muslim-majority countries have been at the forefront of the exciting search. Determann takes us to little-known dimensions of Muslim culture and religion, such as wildly popular adaptations of Star Wars and mysterious movements centred on UFOs. Repression is shown to have helped science fiction more than hurt it, with censorship encouraging authors to disguise criticism of contemporary politics by setting plots in future times and on distant planets. The book will be insightful for anyone looking to explore the science, culture and politics of the Muslim world and asks what the discovery of extra-terrestrial life would mean for one of the greatest faiths.
Download or read book Catchers of the Light written by Stefan Hughes and published by ArtDeCiel Publishing. This book was released on 2012 with total page 1635 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Catchers of the Light' is a History of Astrophotography. It tells the true stories of the 46 pioneers who did most to master the art of celestial photography, as it was known during its early days; and whose efforts have made it possible for us to see the many magnificent pictures of the Universe featured in books, magazines and on the internet. In its TWO magnificent volumes is contained an unbelievable collection of tales of adventure, adversity and ultimate triumph and tells the uplifting stories of this small band of ordinary men and women, who did such extraordinary things; overcoming obstacles as diverse as war, poverty, cholera, death, very unfriendly cannibal natives and even exploding donkeys. It has been written with a no specific audience in mind - it is a book for anybody in fact - astronomers, photographers, historians, genealogists, art dealers, students, artists, doctors, farmers, builders, teachers & many more. If you like to read about the lives of special people - those who never give up - no matter what - and who succeed in achieving the seemingly impossible - then this is the book for you. This book of 1600 or so pages, with 1800 or more photographs/illustrations and over 2000 references/notes - represents the FIRST fully detailed and professionally researched book on the subject; and tells of the incredible lives of the pioneers of Astrophotography, each with their own incredible story to tell - they were the ‘Catchers of the Light’. Catchers of the Light is divided into ten Parts (I-X), each covering a specific aspect of the subject- I: Origins of Astrophotography; II: Lunar Astrophotography; III: Solar Astrophotography; IV: Solar System Astrophography; V: Deep Space Astrophotography; VI: Photographic Astronomical Spectroscopy; VII: Photographic Sky Surveys; VIII: Astrographs; IX: Modern Digital Age; X: Appendices. The following men and women are to be found in the pages of the book; who are the 'Catchers of the Light': Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre (1787-1851); Joseph Nicephore Niepce (1765-1833); Frederick Scott Archer (1814-1857); Richard Leach Maddox (1816-1902); John William Draper (1811-1882); Maurice Loewy (1833-1907); Pierre Henri Puiseux (1855-1928); William Henry Pickering (1858-1938); Armand Hippolyte Leon Fizeau (1819-1896); Jean Bernard Leon Foucault (1819-1868); Warren De La Rue (1815-1889); Pierre Jules Cesar Janssen (1824-1907); John Adams Whipple (1822-1891); William Usherwood (1821-1915); Pierre Paul Henry (1848-1905); Mathieu Prosper Henry (1849-1903); Maximillian Franz Joseph Cornelius Wolf (1863-1932); William Cranch Bond (1789-1859); George Phillips Bond (1825 -1865); Benjamin Apthorp Gould (1824-1896); Henry Draper (1837-1882); Isaac Roberts (1829-1904); William Edward Wilson (1851-1908); James Edward Keeler (1857-1900); Edward Emerson Barnard (1857-1923); Williamina Paton Strevens Fleming (1857-1911); Lewis Morris Rutherfurd (1816-1892); Father Pietro Angelo Secchi (1818-1878); William Huggins (1824-1910); Margaret Lindsay Murray (1848-1915); Edward Charles Pickering (1846 - 1919); Hermann Vogel (1841-1907); Wilhelm Oswald Lohse (1845-1915); Julius Scheiner (1858-1913); Edwin Powell Hubble (1889-1953); Milton Lasell Humason (1891-1972); Amedee Ernest Barthelemy Mouchez (1821-1892); David Gill (1843-1914); William Parsons (1800-1867); Andrew Ainslie Common (1841-1903); George Willis Ritchey (1864 1945); Henri Chretien (1879-1956); Bernhard Voldemar Schmidt (1879-1935); . Eugen von Gothard (1857-1909); Alfred Rordame (1862-1931); Marcel De Kerolyr (1873-1969). If you have seen or read ‘Longitude’ the story of John Harrison, the country carpenter who built the first clock that could accurately tell the time at sea, and who also made ‘Del Boy’ a ‘millionaire’, then you will love the ‘Catchers of the Light’.
Download or read book The Observatory written by and published by . This book was released on 1911 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A review of astronomy" (varies).
Download or read book Planets and Perception written by William Sheehan and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2022-05-03 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Astronomy Book of the Year, Mercury Magazine (Astronomical Society of the Pacific) Do we really know what we see through a telescope? How does the ocular system construct planetary images, and how does the brain interpret them? Drawing on both astronomical and psychological data, William Sheehan offers the first systematic analysis of the perceptual and cognitive factors that go into the initial structuring of a planetary image and its subsequent elaboration. Sheehan details the development of lunar and planetary astronomy, beginning with Galileo’s study of the moon, and focuses particularly on the discover of “canals” on Mars. Through each episode he underscores a perceptual or psychological theme, such as the importance of differences in vision, tachistoscopic perceptual effects, the influence of expectation and suggestion on what one sees, and the social psychology of scientific discovery. Planets and Perception is a provocative book that will intrigue anyone who has ever looked through a telescope. In addition, it offers the psychologically oriented reader a case history in the processes of perception unlike any other in the literature.
Download or read book Discovering Mars written by William Sheehan and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2021-11-09 with total page 769 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For millenia humans have considered Mars the most fascinating planet in our solar system. We’ve watched this Earth-like world first with the naked eye, then using telescopes, and, most recently, through robotic orbiters and landers and rovers on the surface. Historian William Sheehan and astronomer and planetary scientist Jim Bell combine their talents to tell a unique story of what we’ve learned by studying Mars through evolving technologies. What the eye sees as a mysterious red dot wandering through the sky becomes a blurry mirage of apparent seas, continents, and canals as viewed through Earth-based telescopes. Beginning with the Mariner and Viking missions of the 1960s and 1970s, space-based instruments and monitoring systems have flooded scientists with data on Mars’s meteorology and geology, and have even sought evidence of possible existence of life-forms on or beneath the surface. This knowledge has transformed our perception of the Red Planet and has provided clues for better understanding our own blue world. Discovering Mars vividly conveys the way our understanding of this other planet has grown from earliest times to the present. The story is epic in scope—an Iliad or Odyssey for our time, at least so far largely without the folly, greed, lust, and tragedy of those ancient stories. Instead, the narrative of our quest for the Red Planet has showcased some of our species’ most hopeful attributes: curiosity, cooperation, exploration, and the restless drive to understand our place in the larger universe. Sheehan and Bell have written an ambitious first draft of that narrative even as the latest chapters continue to be added both by researchers on Earth and our robotic emissaries on and around Mars, including the latest: the Perseverance rover and its Ingenuity helicopter drone, which set down in Mars’s Jezero Crater in February 2021.
Download or read book The Telescope written by Louis Bell and published by . This book was released on 1922 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
