A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century Fourth Edition

That a science of stellar chemistry should not only have become possible, but should already have made material advances, is assuredly one of the most amazing features in the sw...

"The analogy between Mars and the earth is perhaps by far the greatest in the whole solar system." So Herschel wrote in 1783,[965] and so we may safely say to-day, after six sco...

Johann Hieronymus Schroeter was the Herschel of Germany. He did not, it is true, possess the more brilliant gifts of his rival. Herschel's piercing discernment, comprehensive in...

1899 Innes's _Reference Catalogue of Southern Double Stars_. 1899 Keeler's photographs of nebulae with the Crossley reflector and generalization of their spiral character. 1899,...

By observations made during a series of five remarkable eclipses, comprised within a period of eleven years, knowledge of the solar surroundings was advanced nearly to its prese...

The mystery of comets' tails had been to some extent penetrated; so far, at least, that, by making certain assumptions strongly recommended by the facts of the case, their forms...

We have now to consider labours of a totally different character from those of Sir William Herschel. Exploration and discovery do not constitute the whole business of astronomy;...

Comparing the methods now available for astronomical inquiries with those in use forty years ago, we are at once struck with the fact that they have multiplied. The telescope ha...

The zeal with which solar studies have been pursued during the last half century has already gone far to redeem the neglect of the two preceding ones. Since Schwabe's discovery...

On the 2nd of June, 1858, Giambattista Donati discovered at Florence a feeble round nebulosity in the constellation Leo, about one-tenth the diameter of the full moon. It proved...

The new way struck out by Janssen and Lockyer was at once and eagerly followed. In every part of Europe, as well as in North America, observers devoted themselves to the daily s...

Newton showed that the bodies known as "comets," or _hirsute_ stars, obey the law of gravitation; but it was by no means certain that the individual of the species observed by h...

The discovery of sun-spots in 1610 by Fabricius and Galileo first opened a way for inquiry into the solar constitution; but it was long before that way was followed with system...

In the year 1826, Heinrich Schwabe of Dessau, elated with the hope of speedily delivering himself from the hereditary incubus of an apothecary's shop,[347] obtained from Munich...

Until nearly a hundred years ago the stars were regarded by practical astronomers mainly as a number of convenient fixed points by which the motions of the various members of th...

In the course of his early gropings towards a law of the planetary distances, Kepler tried the experiment of setting a planet, invisible by reason of its smallness, to revolve i...

It is impossible to follow with intelligent interest the course of astronomical discovery without feeling some curiosity as to the means by which such surpassing results have be...

The question of the sun's distance arises naturally from the consideration of his temperature, since the intensity of the radiations emitted as compared with those received and...

We cannot doubt that the solar system, as we see it, is the result of some process of growth--that, during innumerable ages, the forces of Nature were at work upon its materials...

Newton was the first who attempted to measure the quantity of heat received by the earth from the sun. His object in making the experiment was to ascertain the temperature encou...

Chronology, 1774-1893--Chemical Elements in the Sun (Rowland, 1891)--Epochs of Sun-spot Maximum and Minimum from 1610 to 1901--Movements of Sun and Stars--List of Great Telescop...

1896, January Fessenden's electrostatic theory of comets. 1896 Chandler's Third Catalogue of Variable Stars. 1896 Publication of Lick Observatory Photographic Atlas of the Moon,...

1894 Publication of Roberts's _Celestial Photographs_, vol. i. 1894 Wilson and Gray's determination of the sun's temperature. 1894 Barnard's micrometric measures of asteroids. 1...

Analogy between Mars and the Earth--Martian Snowcaps, Seas, and Continents--Climate and Atmosphere--Schiaparelli's Canals--Discovery of Two Martian Satellites--Photographic Dete...

Stellar Chemistry--Four Orders of Stars--Their Relative Ages--Gaseous Stars--Spectroscopic Star-Catalogues--Stellar Chemistry--Hydrogen Spectrum in Stars--The Draper Catalogue--...

Expeditions to Spain--Great Indian Eclipse--New Method of Viewing Prominences--Total Eclipse Visible in North America--Spectrum of the Corona--Eclipse of 1870--Young's Reversing...

Forms of Comets' Tails--Electrical Repulsion--Bredikhine's Three Types--Great Southern Comet--Supposed Previous Appearances--Tebbutt's Comet and the Comet of 1807--Successful Ph...

Schroeter's Life and Work--Luminous Appearances during Transits of Mercury--Mountains of Mercury--Intra-Mercurian Planets--Schiaparelli's Results for the Rotation of Mercury and...

State of Knowledge regarding the Stars in the Eighteenth Century-- Career of Sir William Herschel--Constitution of the Stellar System-- Double Stars--Herschel's Discovery of the...

Donati's Comet--The Earth again Involved in a Comet's Tail--Comets of the August and November Meteors--Star Showers--Comets and Meteors--Biela's Comet and the Andromedes--Holmes...

Chemistry of Prominences--Study of their Forms--Two Classes--Photographs and Spectrographs of Prominences--Their Distribution--Structure of the Chromosphere--Spectroscopic Measu...

Early Views as to the Nature of Sun-spots--Wilson's Observations and Reasonings--Sir William Herschel's Theory of the Solar Constitution--Sir John Herschel's Trade-Wind Hypothes...

Exact Astronomy in Germany--Career of Bessel--His _Fundamenta Astronomiae_--Career of Fraunhofer--Parallaxes of Fixed Stars--Translation of the Solar System--Astronomy of the In...

Predicted Return of Halley's Comet--Career of Olbers--Acceleration of Encke's Comet--Biela's Comet--Its Duplication--Faye's Comet--Comet of 1811--Electrical Theory of Cometary E...

Origin of the World according to Kant--Laplace's Nebular Hypothesis--Maintenance of the Sun's Heat--Meteoric Hypothesis--Radiation as an Effect of Contraction--Regenerative Theo...

Difficulty of the Problem--Oppositions of Mars--Transits of Venus--Lunar Disturbance--Velocity of Light--Transit of 1874--Inconclusive Result--Opposition of Mars in 1877--Measur...