British Astronomical Research Articles

An Independent Discovery of the 1946 Eruption of the Recurrent Nova T Coronae Borealis and an Early Prediction of a Future Outburst

One of the earliest independent discoveries of the 1946 eruption of the recurrent nova T CrB was by British amateur variable star observer, N.F.H. Knight, on 1946 February 9 at 05.40 UT. Correspondence between Knight and W.M. Lindley, the Director of the British Astronomical Association Variable Star Section, reveals what might be the first prediction of a future eruption in 2026–27.

Stephen's Telescopic Imagination: Geography, Astronomy, and Spatial Analytics in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

ABSTRACT: This essay considers possible sources for Stephen's list of coordinates in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man , suggesting that an intertext with the work of English astronomer Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer (1836-1920) provides not only a credible template but also a mode of imaginative "telescoping" that enables Stephen to develop imaginative "flight" as a complement to empirical, terrestrial observation and experience.

Outburst behavior of the dwarf nova CG Draconis

AbstractDuring the British Astronomical Association (BAA) 2022 campaign, 27,436 photometric observations of the dwarf nova (DN) CG Draconis were made, with 106 eclipses recorded. This work summarizes the new data available and provides updated ephemeris and commentary on the observed eclipse profiles. The orbital period found is . Two types of quasi‐periodic outbursts are identified: normal outbursts, of mag amplitude, and bright, of mag. The pattern resembles superoutbursts of SU UMa‐type DNe, however, no presence of superhumps characterizing these DNe was found. Given CG Dra is located above the period gap, it may represent a new intermediary subtype between SS Cyg and SU UMa‐type stars, or provide support to superoutburst models that do not rely on eccentric accretion disks.

Stellar movements and working hypotheses: A.S. Eddington’s early astronomical career

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.

Confessionalization and comets. John Bainbridge on the comet of 1618

ABSTRACT At first sight, the English astronomer John Bainbridge's treatise on the great comet of 1618 appears rather idiosyncratic. It regards the comet as a favourable omen and applies an astrological explanation that is completely metaphorical. At closer look, however, Bainbridge's interpretation appears well in line with the meaning commonly attributed to comets at the time. We should realize that an important function of the discourse on prodigious phenomena, such as comets, was to uphold and strengthen the confessional social order. Moreover, the treatise was addressed to the King rather than to the common population. To understand the early modern interpretation of comets, the processes of confessionalization and de-confessionalization deserve more consideration.

Nuclear Fusion Research and Development Need New Relativistic Mass and Energy Corrections Given by the Information Relativity Theory

Hundred years after the conjecture of the British astronomer Eddington that the sun is powered by nuclear fusion of hydrogen, new physics theory may help make energy harvesting by nuclear fusion soon a reality. Researchers as well as investors funding fusion megaprojects are asked to deal with new relativistic corrections for mass and energy proposed by Suleiman in his Information Relativity Theory (IRT). These corrections were calculated in this contribution. It will help to decide whether a venture will be successful and to save big investments when in doubt. The assumed optimal kinetic energy for controlled nuclear fusion must be corrected to a somewhat higher level. At very high kinetic energy in the upper GeV range, it remains not enough baryonic mass to be transformed in energy. The fusion probability faded out to zero already at the golden limit of the recession speed of between target nucleon and projectile nucleon. Cold nuclear fusion, if ever possible, is recommended for protons rather than deuterons at highest experimental possible temperatures around 1000 (K) and needs fine-tuned kinetic nucleon energy. It would be also of interest whether a golden ratio based nuclear fuel confinement chamber could be beneficial. In this connection, also cold nuclear fusion setups should be discussed. Nature is governed by the golden ratio and criticality of physical systems influenced by it, and nuclear physics is not an exception. Computer simulations of the underlying controlled nuclear fusion processes should gain profit from IRT corrected starting information and may tackle anew possible low energy nuclear transmutations considering the wave-like dark components of matter and energy.

Stellar Aberration from Earth and from a Satellite

In his endeavor to find a concrete evidence in favor of the Copernican picture of the solar system, the English astronomer James Bradley made a series of astronomical observations during the period (1725-1728) aiming to detect a stellar parallax. His findings, which manifested indeed an annual apparent cyclic motion of a star, were however at conflict with what is expected in a parallax. To his surprise, the result of every measurement obtained corresponded to what he expected to get in a measurement done three months earlier. Bradley realized that he was witnessing a new physical effect, and he presented an explanation that conceived light as a corpuscular stream travelling at finite velocity. Despite that Bradley’s explanation of the stellar aberration effect was inadequate, the equation which he derived to quantify the aberration angle, predicted a better estimation of light velocity, and the aberration phenomenon itself was a concrete support of heliocentrism. Stellar aberration as well as some other optical experiments, whose explanations posed challenges to the existing physical theories in the late nineteenth century paved the way for the emergence of the special theory of relativity. In the current work we employ the theory of universal space and time to show that a given direction in a frame of reference is tilted when observed in a moving frame by an angle that depends on the direction itself and the velocity of the moving frame. The latter fact is utilized to explain stellar aberration, determine the deviation of a star’s vision direction from its true one, and deduce its apparent position at any instant as a function of its latitude and time. The novel concept of aberration correction vector is employed to derive the apparent elliptic path of an observed celestial object at any time. The concept of graded inertial frames is introduced and utilized to deal with aberration when observed from a satellite in a similar way to its treatment when observed from Earth. The transformation matrix between a geocentric frame and a satellite’s non-rotating frame is derived and used to transform temporary Earthly vision directions to the satellite’s frame. Furthermore, the transformed vectors are adopted as transient fixed directions relative to which the vision directions of a star from the satellite are specified throughout one revolution. Satellites connective matrices are constructed to make geometric information regarding the celestial sphere in one frame immediately usable by observers on Earth and in all other satellites.

The pursuit of self and story

The pursuit of self and story Venus Fultz A Room Made of Leaves. Kate Grenville. Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2020. 322 pp. ISBN: 9781922330024 And now, scrambling down between the bushes, we came to a halt in a space enclosed on three sides by greenery. The fourth, facing the harbour, was obscured but not closed in by more branches, forming a private space: a room made of leaves. (217). It takes Mrs. Elizabeth MacArthur over two hundred pages to find the room of leaves. This space, carved for herself and her lover, is a physical space of safety and authenticity, but throughout the novel, Elizabeth pursues her authentic self through moments of feeling. We first see Elizabeth comfortable with herself as a child helping her grandfather with sheep and in the winks of queerness between her and her friend Bridie—which, as a queer writer and reader, I appreciate. I enjoyed Elizabeth's narrative pursuing a sense of self and navigating what that means to her in each situation she is forced into. When she meets MacArthur, she chases his advances not because he is worthy of her or for any hopes of romance but because in the moment of ecstasy, she experiences a euphoria of self and control that intoxicates her. Unfortunately, this moment ties her to MacArthur as wife. The novel does not shy away from the dismal historical reality of life as an orphan, losing her grandfather's respect, and being married to a callous man. Yet despite this unsatisfying marriage, Elizabeth has agency. Interestingly, during Elizabeth's moments of self-actualization as [End Page 394] an adult, the narrative often goes outside of her, marveling at her experience of self. This duality speaks to the layers of narrative in the novel itself. As an "autobiography," the narrative is in first person, but it is first-person retrospective, which adds a layer of distance and ambiguity to the events. This distance exists on top of the "Editor's Note" by Kate Grenville, which tells the reader that while the "autobiography" was found and written by Elizabeth, the novelist "had to use [her] imagination where the old ink was impossible to read" (4). The note also admits that Grenville rearranged the papers to create a cohesive narrative. One might think this addition is redundant since A Room Made of Leaves is not found autobiography, but I find the "Editor's Note" necessary to the novel's overall exploration of the self and story because it centers these themes for a character who in real life never got to tell her own story. Acknowledging that the text has been handled by another person in another time allows the reader to confront the absence of an actual autobiography by Elizabeth MacArthur. The novel does not take in only the story of Elizabeth adjusting to her role as woman of an emerging colony, but it also encompasses the conflicts between the settlers and the Indigenous population suddenly displaced by Elizabeth and John MacArthur and the other colonizers. At the end, before the narrative tapers off into a summary of the "history" already established by John MacArthur's exploits, the novel covers a deadly encounter with John and his regiment against an Aboriginal man, Pemulwuy, whom the colonizers consider a terror. Elizabeth is not present for this encounter. What we and she are privy to, though, is John's returning and relaying the encounter slowly while self-editing and self-affirming his story of events. The narrative and Elizabeth strongly encourage a suspicious reading of John's account of the encounter. Later, Elizabeth remarks on the greater cost of her rise as respected landholder: that land was stolen from Aboriginal peoples. I almost wish Elizabeth had only had these distant encounters with the Aboriginal peoples because earlier in the novel, she takes a British astronomer as a lover, a man who is learning the Aboriginal people's language and is friendly with them. This relationship provides a lens for Elizabeth to appear empathetic to the plight of that population. There is a desire to look back on certain figures of history with rose-colored lenses, especially those we feel were also obscured. However...

FROM THE HISTORY OF THE BINARY NUMBER SYSTEM. THOMAS HARRIOT

For the first time in the Russian-language literature, the article analyzes the works of the English mathematician, geographer and astronomer Thomas Harriot (1560–1621) related to the binary number system. The various variants of the binary notation of numbers presented in the works, examples of converting a decimal number to a binary number and vice versa, examples of four arithmetic operations in the binary number system, the execution methods of which coincide with modern ones, as well as an example of multiplication by an original method, the name of which can be translated in Latin as "another method is sequential addition" are given. All this allows us to conclude that Thomas Harriot described the binary number system earlier than the great German scientist Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who did so in his work "Explication de l'Arithmétique Binaire" in 1703.

Sunspot Positions and Areas from Observations by Thomas Harriot

The reconstruction of sunspot parameters in the early era of telescopic observations extends our knowledge on visual sunspot activity up to 400 years into the past. 200 digital solar images from 18 December 1610 to 28 January 1613 by the English astronomer Thomas Harriot were analyzed to yield sunspot counts, areas and positions. Harriot generally observed in the early morning when the Sun was near the horizon, and he specified the local time of observation, date, place, number of spots, zenith and ecliptic lines, and other information. We assigned 753 sunspots into 293 groups and defined their areas. We developed two approaches to reconstructing the heliographic coordinates of the sunspots. Method I makes use of the time of observation noted by Harriot, and Method II minimizes the day-to-day variability of sunspot latitudes independently of Harriot’s notes. The results of the two methods are discussed.

Eric Strach: Four Decades of Detailed Synoptic Solar Observations (1969‐2008)

AbstractEric H. Strach (1914‐2011) studied medicine at University of Prague and graduated in 1938. Strach dedicated a great part of his life to astronomy becoming a consistent and meticulous observer. He joined the Liverpool Astronomical Association and British Astronomical Association during the 1960s and obtained two recognitions as proof of his great work in solar physics: the BAA's Merlin Medal and Gift in 1999 and Walter Goodacre Medal and Gift, 10 years later. Strach recorded four decades (1969‐2008) of systematic solar records in his observation notebooks although he started his observations from the late 1950s. In this work, we document the valuable effort made by Strach in getting four decades of solar records and the importance of this kind of long observation series for studies of space weather and climate. We present the sunspot group number series according to Strach's data and a long observation series of prominences recorded by Strach.

Thomas Harriot at the National Gallery?

The English astronomer Thomas Harriot is a shadowy figure. Although an eclectic and brilliant scientist, he seldom published his work. The only picture of him, hanging in the President's room of Trinity College, Oxford, is unconfirmed to this day. In this article, we note a close resemblance between the Trinity College portrait and that of the mathematician in a painting on display at the National Gallery. The sitter is not only a mathematician but also characterized as a cartographer and astronomer as Harriot was. Moreover, the sitter shows certain psychological traits that match Harriot's personality. This association may offer new clues to confirming whether the Trinity College portrait is really of Harriot, and may help lift the veil of mystery from the figure of the first modern British scientist.

The Proctor-Parkes Incident: Politics, Protestants and Popular Astronomy in Australia in 1880

Henry Parkes' intervention to placate the Sabbatarian movement and prevent British astronomer Richard Proctor from delivering an astronomical lecture on Sunday 5 September 1880 created a major controversy in the Australian colonies. Controversy had been central to much of Proctor's success, and in this case drew on a long-standing connection between astronomy and religion. An examination of the Proctor-Parkes incident shows how popular science works in culture by drawing on and sustaining the analogical connections between scientific ideas and broader cultural concerns.

WILLIAM HERSCHEL'S 'HOLE IN THE SKY' AND THE DISCOVERY OF DARK NEBULAE

In 1785 William Herschel published a paper in the <italic>Philosophical Transactions</italic> containing the remarkable section "An opening or hole". It describes an unusual vacant place in Scorpius. This matter falls into oblivion until Caroline Herschel initiated a correspondence with her nephew John in 1833. It contains Herschel's spectacular words "Hier ist wahrhaftig ein Loch im Himmel" ("Here truly is a hole in the sky"). About a hundred years later, Johann Georg Hagen, Director of the Vatican Observatory, presented a spectacular candidate for the 'hole', discovered in 1857 by Angelo Secchi in Sagittarius and later catalogued by Edward E. Barnard as the dark nebula B 86. Hagen's claim initiated a debate, mainly in the <italic>Journal of the British Astronomical Association</italic>, about the identity of Herschel's 'object'. Though things could be partly cleared up, unjustified claims still remain. This is mainly due to the fact that original sources were not consulted. A comprehensive study of the curious 'hole' is presented here. It covers major parts of the epochal astronomical work of William, Caroline and John Herschel. This includes a general study of 'vacant places', found by William Herschel and others, and the speculations about their nature, eventually leading to the finding that dark nebulae are due to absorbing interstellar matter. Some of the 'vacant places' could be identified in catalogues of dark nebulae and this leads to a 'Herschel Catalogue of Dark Nebulae'—the first historic catalogue of its kind.

De Sitter en Einstein. ‘Het lijkt mij dat Einstein hier een vergissing begaan heeft’

De Sitter and Einstein Willem de Sitter’s interest in gravity was based on his work on celestial mechanics, in particular on the four big moons of Jupiter. His work on cosmology was based on the general theory of relativity of Albert Einstein. De Sitter published in 1917, on request of Arthur Eddington to inform the English astronomers, a series of four articles in The Observatory and the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Einstein developed his own cosmological models, containing mass. De Sitter found a different solution and described a universe without mass. Einstein could not accept De Sitter’s model and they ‘fought out’ two controversies in their correspondence. In the end Einstein had to confess De Sitter was mainly right in his criticisms. In 1932 Einstein and De Sitter published an article on a new model, the so-called Einstein-De Sitter Model of the universe. So, De Sitter was able to do fundamental work in classical celestial mechanics as well as in the new cosmological theories.

The grand aurorae borealis seen in Colombia in 1859

On Thursday, September 1, 1859, the British astronomer Richard Carrington, for the first time ever, observes a spectacular gleam of visible light on the surface of the solar disk, the photosphere. The Carrington Event, as it is nowadays known by scientists, occurred because of the high solar activity that had visible consequences on Earth, in particular reports of outstanding aurorae activity that amazed thousands of people in the western hemisphere during the dawn of September 2. The geomagnetic storm, generated by the solar-terrestrial event, had such a magnitude that the auroral oval expanded towards the equator, allowing low latitudes, like Panama’s 9°N, to catch a sight of the aurorae. An expedition was carried out to review several historical reports and books from the northern cities of Colombia allowed the identification of a narrative from Montería, Colombia (8° 45′N), that describes phenomena resembling those of an aurorae borealis, such as fire-like lights, blazing and dazzling glares, and the appearance of an immense S-like shape in the sky. The very low latitude of the geomagnetic north pole in 1859, the lowest value in over half a millennia, is proposed to have allowed the observations of auroral events at locations closer to the equator, and supports the historical description found in Colombia. The finding of such chronicle represents one of the most complete descriptions of low-latitude sightings of aurorae caused by the Carrington Event.

Arrow of Time Phenomena in Social Science and Sixteen Global Mega Trends of Human Society

Two most important questions in social science are what drives political, economic, and social changes and where the human society is heading. The arrow-of-time coined by British astronomer Eddington refers to our daily experience that time only goes in the forward direction and never in the backward direction. The arrow-of-time phenomena are ubiquitous in both the human society and the natural world. This paper proves that the physics concept of Goldstone boson or hydrodynamic mode is the key to understand the arrow-of-time phenomena in social science, analyze the important drivers of political, economic, and social changes, and answer the question what is the future of the human society. In the condensed matter physics, Goldstone bosons are hydrodynamic modes characterizing the long-lasting fluctuations around the equilibrium state. Hydrodynamic equations, which govern the mathematical description of the behavior hydrodynamic modes, are also the same equations that describe the dynamics of the condensed matter system. In a previous paper, we proposed that the most stable political structure in any nation is an equilibrium state of the political structure, which is characterized by 16 democratic principles. These democratic principles are the Goldstone bosons or hydrodynamic modes of human societies. This paper will examine these low frequency long lasting global mega trends in detail and quantify these political, economic and social movements with the indexing methodology. In statistical physics, there are only a handful of identifiable hydrodynamic modes in any condensed matter system, and it must be also true for the human society. This paper reaches a very surprising conclusion that despite the complexity of human society with billions and billions of changes every day, the only important driving forces of the long-term political, economic, and social changes are these 16 hydrodynamic modes. These democratic principles or Goldstone bosons have dominated the word history since the dawn of the humanity, and these same 16 global mega-trends of the Goldstone bosons will continue to dominate the world political and economic dynamics in the future, and eventually push the human society towards the equilibrium state of the permanent world peace. The hydrodynamic mode approach not only answers the question what drives social changes, but also becomes a powerful new tool to study world history, social science, and futurology (or scientific astrology). This paper further strengthens the argument that social science is a subfield of quantum physics just like the condensed matter physics and chemistry. The arrow-of-time phenomena in the human society and the natural world share the same identical fundamental causes of quantum indeterminacy and human choices.

Contested landscapes: the moral geographies of light pollution in Britain

This paper considers the concept of light pollution and its connections to moral geographies of landscape in Britain. The paper aims to provide a greater understanding of light pollution in the present day, where the issue connects to policy debates about energy efficiency, crime, health, ecology and night time aesthetics, whilst also engaging with new areas of research in cultural geography. The main sources of investigation are the Campaign to Protect Rural England and the British Astronomical Association’s Campaign for Dark Skies (est. 1990). Using interviews, archival and textual analysis, the paper examines this anti-light-pollution lobby, looking at the lead-up to the formation of the Campaign as well as its ongoing influence. A moral geography of light pollution is identified, drawing on two interconnected discourses – a notion of the ‘astronomical sublime’ and the problem of urbanization. Whilst the former is often invoked, both through visual and linguistic means, by anti-light pollution campaigners, the latter is characterized as a threat to clear night skies, echoing earlier protests against urban sprawl. Complementing a growing area of research, the geographies of light and darkness, this paper considers the light pollution lobby as a way of investigating the fundamental relationship between humankind and the cosmos in the modern age.

Prehistoric British Astronomy: Whatever Happened to the Earth and Sun?

During the first half of the twentieth century, it was an orthodoxy among British archaeologists that the New Stone Age peoples of the island had worshipped an Earth Goddess, in chambered tombs, and then been conquered by foreigners who ushered in a Bronze Age, characterised by circular temples dedicated to a new religion focused on the heavens. In the second half of the century, belief in this sequence collapsed, and experts more or less abandoned attempts to reconstruct religion during this period of prehistory. At the same time it remains true that many of its monuments have clear alignments on heavenly bodies. What now, then, can be done to bring together this evidence with prevailing scholarly attitudes?

Astronomer R.G. Chandra: In the Light of His Anglo-American Connection

In the present paper we have presented some documents to reveal the longstanding relationship of Indian amateur astronomer R.G. Chandra with the British Astronomical Association and American Association of Variable Star Observers.