Astronomy

"Astronomy" by Agnes M. Clerke, A. Fowler, and J. Ellard Gore is a scientific publication written in the late 19th century. It offers a concise, illustrated survey of astronomical knowledge, combining history, the principles of celestial mechanics and observing techniques, and accessible accounts of the solar system, stars, clusters, nebulae, and comets. The opening of the volume sets its aim—a compact, well‑illustrated synopsis—then outlines four parts: a historical survey, geometrical astronomy and instruments, the solar system, and the sidereal heavens. It proceeds with a swift history from Hipparchus and Ptolemy through the Arab custodians to Copernicus, Tycho, Galileo, and Kepler, culminating in Newton’s unifying gravitation and its mathematical confirmation by Lagrange and Laplace. Alongside theory, it spotlights Britain’s observational tradition at Greenwich (Flamsteed, Halley, Bradley, Maskelyne), advances in instrument making, and the rise of powerful reflectors and refractors under William and John Herschel, Lord Rosse, and others. The narrative then introduces the “astronomy of the invisible” (the prediction of Neptune), the birth of astrophysics via spectrum analysis and stellar chemistry, and the transformative role of celestial photography with dry plates. At the start of the next section, the text turns to basics of observing from Earth—horizon and curvature, rough sizing of the globe, sensible versus rational horizon, zenith and nadir, and the sky’s apparent daily rotation around the north celestial pole near Polaris.

Astronomy, by Agnes M. Clerke. Republished by OpenStories from Project Gutenberg eBook #77516.