[P]erhaps one of the most valuable results to be derived from a truly intellectual study of Astronomy is, the habit of keeping up a sustained attention to all the successive steps of a long series of reasonings. Power, and with it dignity, are gained to the mind by this noble exercise.
Read More...by Suhel Ahmad | Last Updated on June 15, 2020 | Created on June 15, 2020
Complete knowledge of every theoretical and instrumental detail can only be obtained by those who will devote… a large portion of their lives; but sound knowledge of the principles… can be obtained by the reasonable efforts of persons possessing common opportunities for general knowledge.
Read More...by Suhel Ahmad | Last Updated on June 15, 2020 | Created on June 15, 2020
The elucidation of the theory of centripetal and disturbing forces is necessarily less complete. Still… a general conception of the nature of the action of those forces… sufficient to preserve the student from the gross errors… may be obtained from explanations like those here offered. The methods of ascertaining the weight of the Earth and […]
Read More...by Suhel Ahmad | Last Updated on June 15, 2020 | Created on June 15, 2020
[T]he methods used for measuring Astronomical distances are in some applications absolutely the same as the methods of ordinary theodolite-surveying, and are in other applications equivalent to them…
Read More...by Suhel Ahmad | Last Updated on June 15, 2020 | Created on June 15, 2020
[T]he instrumental conceptions derived from the use of a common globe are sufficient, in almost every case, for the understanding of the instruments in an Observatory…
Read More...by Suhel Ahmad | Last Updated on June 15, 2020 | Created on June 15, 2020
[H]ow much of the fundamentals of Astronomy may be obtained with the coarsest observation with the unaided eye. …the science which is thus obtained by personal observations is vastly superior (as far as it goes) to that which is obtained by any other method. …The knowledge …inferred from actual personal observation carries with it a […]
Read More...by Suhel Ahmad | Last Updated on June 15, 2020 | Created on June 15, 2020
I had long wished for some opportunity of endeavouring to explain… the principles on which the instruments of an Observatory are constructed, (omitting all details, so far as they are merely subsidiary,) and the principles on which the observations made with these instruments are treated… Such an opportunity appeared to present itself in the course […]
Read More...by Suhel Ahmad | Last Updated on June 15, 2020 | Created on June 15, 2020
In the application of the ordinary principles of geometry and trigonometry to such Astronomical measures… it may sometimes be expedient to resolve the process into several successive steps, and these steps may perhaps require different kinds of treatment. But… all are simple and within ordinary comprehension, and the only complexity arises from the circumstance that […]
Read More...by Suhel Ahmad | Last Updated on June 15, 2020 | Created on June 15, 2020
In conversing with persons who are not officially attached to Observatories or in other ways professionally cognizant of the technicalities of practical Astronomy but who nevertheless display great interest… these persons appear to regard the determination of measures like those of the distance of the Sun and Moon as mysteries beyond ordinary comprehension… [and] when […]
Read More...by Suhel Ahmad | Last Updated on June 15, 2020 | Created on June 15, 2020
[T]his Fifth Edition is required to meet the demand of a somewhat wider class of students than those for whom the Lectures were originally intended. …Mr. Stirling has been at liberty to prepare the modifications and additions …
Read More...by Suhel Ahmad | Last Updated on June 15, 2020 | Created on June 15, 2020