Journal for the History of Astronomy最新文献

{"title":"An astrological practitioner analyzed","authors":"S. Heilen","doi":"10.1177/00218286221115498","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221115498","url":null,"abstract":"Ultimately, Rottner argues that SITF is a valuable case study in “managing innovation over time and in the face of uncertainty” (p. xii). The book concludes with a chapter dedicated to key takeaways, summarized in three categories and illustrated with direct quotes from interview subjects. Rottner emphasizes the importance of nurturing relationships within teams of collaborators, challenging cultural and organizational barriers to collaboration, and creating and maintaining interfaces between working groups that make sense for the project at hand. That her book provides actionable recommendations is appropriate for her intended readership. Making the Invisible Visible is part of the Monographs in Aerospace History series from NASA’s History Division. The History Division collects and stewards historical records and supports scholarship as a public service and for the benefit of agency decision makers. This concise, generously illustrated project history will pique many curiosities, not all of which will be satisfied by book’s end. It may, however, inspire historians to ask new and different questions about the SITF and how its history intersects with or diverges from scholarship in the history of science and technology. An extensive appendix featuring the names of dozens of contributors to SITF provides a head start for future research. A contribution to management studies and the history of astronomy, Making the Invisible Visible is a valuable reference for practitioners and historians alike.","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"498 - 503"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43687723","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Stellar movements and working hypotheses: A.S. Eddington’s early astronomical career","authors":"Robert W. Smith","doi":"10.1177/00218286221121913","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221121913","url":null,"abstract":"Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) was one of the leading astrophysicists of the first half of the 20th century. He is remembered today chiefly for his research into stellar structure and general relativity, both of which he began to explore in the mid-1910s. He was also a key participant in the famous eclipse expeditions of 1919 that tested Einstein’s theory of gravity. Rather than consider these topics, in this paper I will instead examine Eddington’s early astronomical career, that is, from 1906 to about 1915. In this period, he became a well-trained practical astronomer. Eddington also established himself as a brilliant theoretical astronomer, and in so doing helped to create the role of theoretical astrophysicist through his research into star streaming. He was also, unusually for astronomers of this period, an enthusiastic advocate of the use of “working hypotheses” as crucial tools in astronomical practice. The study of Eddington’s early career therefore has much to tell us about the nature of astronomy in the years around 1910 and about Eddington. The paper underlines, for example, the continuing relevance of the “Greenwich-Cambridge Axis” for the power structure of British astronomy, and the importance of the so-called Sidereal Problem for astronomers at this time even though today it is largely forgotten.","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"394 - 414"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44570048","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Astronomers in the chair","authors":"Sibylle Gluch","doi":"10.1177/00218286221114462","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221114462","url":null,"abstract":"from documents such as his official hiring on 3 July 1772 or the 1826 description and inventory of the Berlin Observatory. Readers can page through the volume to identify topics of interest by chapter. For example, public enthusiasm surrounding the discoveries of Uranus (1781) and Ceres (1801) is treated, as is the development, since 1789, of large, precision-calibrated circles that led by 1800 to the introduction of the meridian circle as the primary instrument for astronomical observatories. It should be noted, however, that the two-foot instrument Bode acquired in 1805 from the London workshop of Edward Troughton was not a meridian circle (although Bode called it such) but rather an alt-azimuth circle (pp. 101, 273). Drawing on recent research on Gottfried Kirch, the first astronomer of the Berlin Academy, Schwemin clarifies the relation between Bode and Kirch’s daughter Christina. Bode married, one after the other, two granddaughters of Theodora Kirch, the step-sister of Christina (p. 223). Thus, there were no direct blood ties between Christina Kirch and Bode. The chapter on “Students and Sponsored” (pp. 229–45) is very revealing for history of science. Schwemin finds Bode supporting 21 persons in various relationships. He also frequently met travelers (pp. 246–50) and auditors in his lectures (pp. 250–68). It is also stimulating to read, in the excerpts from Bode’s correspondence, how he expressed himself “on general social and political conditions, his personal circles and his correspondents” (p. 352). Schwemin quotes from 42 letters, dating from 1779 to 1826 (pp. 352–77), identifying a total of 20 correspondents (pp. 324–26). A name index (pp. 393–407) enables all persons to be quickly identified. This Bode biography, with its many chronologically arranged sources and lists of documents, is not a usual biography. It is rather an outstanding and nearly exhaustive source volume for the life and work of Johann Elert Bode and as such stimulates new research questions. This book will interest not only historians of astronomy and laity interested in the history of astronomy but also scholars of the Enlightenment, for astronomers around 1800 saw their work as “an essential part of the European Enlightenment” (p. 13). For this reason it is quite appropriate for this richly illustrated volume to appear in the series Berliner Klassik. Eine Großstadtkultur um 1800.","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"505 - 507"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47443991","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Instrumentation and observations at the astronomical observatory in Hurbanovo in 1871–1918","authors":"Stanislav Šišulák, Ladislav Pastorek","doi":"10.1177/00218286221127966","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221127966","url":null,"abstract":"The period of the last third of 19th century was beneficial to a boom of observatories run by amateur astronomers. One of them was built in Hurbanovo. It is well known that place names have changed throughout history; sometimes more than one was used at the same time, and it often depended on the language in which the historical documents were written. These peculiarities can easily confuse the modern reader. For the sake of clarity, we have decided to use modern official geographical names. Even in Anglophone historiographical literature, modern names are usually used in the first place instead of historical ones. All other historical forms of place names are mentioned in parentheses when they first appear (first in Hungarian, then in German). Several names or variations of those names may be discovered in historical records pertaining to Hurbanovo, e.g.: Stará Ďala (in Slovak), Ó-Gyalla, O Gyalla, Ógyalla, Ogyalla, Ó Gyalla, Ó Gyala, Ó-Gyala, Ó Gyála (in Hungarian), Altdala (in German). The town was named Hurbanovo in 1948. (Slovakia) in 1871 by a local nobleman Nicolaus de Konkoly. The paper is divided into two main parts. The first part is focused on the development of instrumentation and domes of the observatory. The second one is focused on various kinds of astronomical and astrophysical observations performed by the observatory staff from the beginning of the observatory until the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918.","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"475 - 496"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42616243","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A possible reference to the solar corona in a contemporary report of the AD1239 eclipse","authors":"M. J. Martínez Usó, Francisco J. Marco Castillo","doi":"10.1177/00218286221125189","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221125189","url":null,"abstract":"The codex kept at the Arnamagnean Institute, in Copenhagen, with the number 805 4º (København, Det Arnamagnaeanske Institut, Københavns Universitet, AM 805 4º), contains a combination of texts featuring legal and short historiographic pieces. In the latter we find a few astronomical references, among them a contemporary mention of the solar eclipse of June 3, 1239 containing what seems to be a reference to the solar corona. This reference could be added to the only other commonly accepted timed report of the corona from medieval times in the Annales Sangallenses regarding the total solar eclipse of the year AD968.","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"415 - 421"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46907166","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Managing innovation in telescope making","authors":"Emily A. Margolis","doi":"10.1177/00218286221111100","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221111100","url":null,"abstract":"If one followed the extensive media coverage of the James Webb Space Telescope, one might conclude that infrared astronomy is having its moment. In anticipation of the longawaited December 2021 launch, print, television, and social media frequently amplified stories of the space-based infrared observatory and its scientific goals. Renee M. Rottner, Assistant Teaching Professor of Technology Management at the University of CaliforniaSanta Barbara, reminds readers that this public attention is but a moment in a longer history of infrared astronomers building tools to observe beyond Earth’s atmosphere. In Making the Invisible Visible: A History of the Spitzer Infrared Telescope Facility (1971-2003), Rottner presents a chronology of the project that became the Spitzer Infrared Telescope Facility (SITF). SITF was the last of NASA’s “Great Observatories.” Launched in 2003, its infrared observations complimented data from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Designed and operated by government, industry, and university stakeholders, SITF observed the universe for 16 years and contributed to numerous discoveries, including a giant ring around Saturn, and confirmed the value of space-based infrared observatories. Making the Invisible Visible focuses on the 30-plus years that preceded the telescope’s launch, with an emphasis on the planning and management of this project. Rottner shows how decision makers and project managers realized SITF through changing political and economic circumstances. She presents their discussions, debates, and decisions against the backdrop of scientific and technological developments, including the legitimization and growth of the field of infrared astronomy and the start of NASA’s space shuttle program. Brief biographies of key participants enliven and enrich the chronological account of SITF, as Rottner makes visible the ways in which personal experiences and personality shaped the project. Rottner balances written documentation with first-hand accounts to reconstruct the origins and management of SITF. In addition to combing through meeting minutes, conference proceedings, project briefings, and government reports, she conducted oral history interviews with 29 contributors to SITF. Making the Invisible Visible features extensive excerpts from these interviews. Rottner allows space for participants to place their work in broader contexts based on their understanding of events. Bringing relevant scholarship into conversation with these recollections, to reinforce or challenge them, would have strengthened the analysis. 1111100 JHA0010.1177/00218286221111100Journal for the History of AstronomyBook Reviews book-review2022","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"497 - 498"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41376250","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Astronomy and enlightenment in Berlin circa 1800","authors":"K.-D. Herbst","doi":"10.1177/00218286221123500","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221123500","url":null,"abstract":"uncertain] . . . superavit [MS: -bit, a scribal mistake for -bitur] . . . devinent [MS: -inc-], p. 106 n. 44 signare [MS: -nifica-] aliquod diluvium preclare [MS: particulare, as opposed to a diluvium universale], p. 107 n. 48 omnis [MS: -nium] . . . cum [MS: tamen] . . . cuiusquam [MS: quinque] . . . este [MS: om.], p. 108 n. 51 Et quia coniunctione [MS: Sequitur conclusio] . . . quod timendum [MS: protim-, a scribal mistake for pertim-], p. 108 n. 55 crudelitatem [MS: -tis] et nequitiam [MS: -ie], totius falsitatem [MS: -tis] et fallaciam [MS: -ie], p. 110 n. 63 recipiunt etiam [MS: recipiuntur et], ibid. n. 65 prout [MS: possunt]. 12. See the scribal mistakes pointed out in the previous note as well as, e.g., p. 40 n. 5 where the MS really reads quarundem, not -dam. 13. Paraphrasing Captain Kirk.","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"504 - 505"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47876343","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Prediction and politics in Beijing, 1668: A Jesuit astronomer and his technical resources in a time of crisis","authors":"C. Cullen, Catherine Jami","doi":"10.1177/00218286221114093","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221114093","url":null,"abstract":"In late December 1668 the Kangxi 康熙 emperor (r. 1662–1722) asked the Jesuit astronomer Ferdinand Verbiest (1623–1688) to give publicly verifiable proof that the western astronomical system introduced to China by the Jesuits was accurate. In response Verbiest proposed that he and his Chinese opponents should be set the task of predicting the length of the shadow cast by a gnomon of a given length at a given time on a given day, and his suggestion was accepted. Success in this experimental trial was vital to the future of the Jesuit mission in China. After repeating the trial at noon on three successive days, Verbiest was judged to have succeeded in showing the superiority of western methods in this respect. In this paper, we provide a detailed technical analysis of the methods used by Verbiest to make his predictions of gnomon shadows, and trace the sources of his skills back to his astronomical studies in Europe before his departure for China. In the course of this investigation, we discuss changes in European astronomical techniques up to the mid 17th century that played a decisive role in his predictive task. As a result of this analysis, we are able to explain certain previously puzzling features of Verbiest’s predictions as a rational response on his part to the contentious circumstances under which the trial was conducted.","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"422 - 474"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49265036","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"New evidence for Hipparchus’ Star Catalogue revealed by multispectral imaging","authors":"Victor Gysembergh, Peter J. Williams, E. Zingg","doi":"10.1177/00218286221128289","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221128289","url":null,"abstract":"New evidence for ancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus’ lost Star Catalogue has come to light thanks to multispectral imaging of a palimpsest manuscript and subsequent decipherment and interpretation. This new evidence is the most authoritative to date and allows major progress in the reconstruction of Hipparchus’ Star Catalogue. In particular, it confirms that the Star Catalogue was originally composed in equatorial coordinates. It also confirms that Ptolemy’s Star Catalogue was not based solely on data from Hipparchus’ Catalogue. Finally, the available numerical evidence is consistent with an accuracy within 1° of the real stellar coordinates, which would make Hipparchus’ Catalogue significantly more accurate than his successor Claudius Ptolemy’s.","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"383 - 393"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45689638","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Bridging the gap between archaeology and archaeoastronomy","authors":"L. Tirapicos","doi":"10.1177/00218286221122935","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00218286221122935","url":null,"abstract":"the chair. Was it indeed comfortable? And how does the alleged significance of the chair for the ‘users’ social and epistemic authority’ relate to the strict hierarchies enforced in 19th-century observatories? As Nasim thematises in Chapter 1, astronomers like George Airy hardly ever sat on the observation chair. Nor did they spread an image of the labouring observer as an energetic scientist. So how do these competing images come together, and how could one be sure that the public chose the one intended? Thus, despite the sharp contrast to the opposed image of a chair-less other, the contours of the image of 19th-century astronomy still begin to blur. Or one wonders what happened when women sat in the observation chair. Did they feel the flow of ‘manly energies’? The book presents few illustrations of women in observatory chairs – and maybe there aren’t many. It would be interesting to know, though, whether they were ever shown reclining, ever shown in scientific action. Would that have altered women’s standing in (scientific) society? Would it have transformed the representational field of the astronomer’s chair? Notwithstanding these questions, The Astronomer’s Chair is an inspiring study, and, indeed, a cultural history, which directs attention to the dense net of far-reaching interdependences and relations that surrounds even the most mundane objects of science.","PeriodicalId":56280,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the History of Astronomy","volume":"53 1","pages":"507 - 508"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47552880","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}