History Of The Telescope Research Articles

Archives of CrAO spectral observations. Catalogues of objects and images

The work described in this article is a continuation of the previously initiated research on archival spectral observations carried out in Crimea. It covers a time interval of about 90 years and contains information about spectroscopy using various facilities: from the wide-angle astrographs with an objective prism to the main CrAO telescope - ZTSh. A brief history of telescopes and their equipment is presented. The article is illustrated with possibilities of a network access to the catalogues of observations taken with various instruments in the interactive Aladin Sky Atlas with the redirection to original spectrograms. To this aim, the linear coordinates of scanned negatives were converted into a scale that corresponds to the wavelengths. The possibilities of taking into account the spectral sensitivity of the recorded images by the absolute energy distribution are shown. A feature of this work is the connection of digitized original observations and results of their independent processing with data published for objects in the Izvestiya Krymskoi Astrofizicheskoi Observatorii

Архивы спектральных наблюдений КрАО. Каталоги объектов и изображений

Работа, описанная в данной статье, является продолжением ранее начатых исследований по архивным спектральным наблюдениям, выполненным в Крыму. Она охватывает интервал времени около 90 лет и содержит информацию о спектроскопии с использованием различных телескопов: от широкоугольных астрографов с объективной призмой до главного телескопа КрАО - ЗТШ. Рассмотрена краткая история инструментов, их оборудование. Статья проиллюстрирована возможностями сетевого доступа к каталогам наблюдений на различных инструментах в интерактивном атласе неба Aladin с переадресацией к оригинальным спектрограммам. Для них выполнено преобразование линейных координат отсканированных негативов в шкалу, соответствующую длинам волн. Показаны возможности учета спектральной чувствительности регистрируемых изображений для получения распределения энергии. Особенностью представляемой работы является связь оцифрованных оригинальных наблюдений и результатов их независимой обработки с данными, опубликованными для объектов в журнале "Известия Крымской астрофизической обсерватории".

Book Review: A Contemporary of Galileo: Ilario Altobelli: Scienziato, Teologo, Corrispondente di Galileo Galilei

A CONTEMPORARY OF GALILEO Ilario Altobelli: Scienziato, Teologo, Corrispondente di Galileo Galilei. Alessandro Giostra, Francesco Merletti and William Shea (empatiabooks, Camerano, Italy, 2011). Pp. 143. euro15. ISBN 978-88-906165-0-1.This is an interesting little book making a modest contribution to our knowledge of early modern science. It contains three chapters, each more or less concerned with Ilario Altobelli, a Franciscan scholar with astronomical and astrological interests who was also, as the title states, an occasional writer of letters to major figures of his day, including Galileo, Clavius, and Magini. It is unclear how many of those letters were ever answered, making it difficult to argue for Altobelli's significance for the history of his time, but exploring his thoughts on the subjects of, first, Kepler's supernova of 1604 and, second, the publication of Galileo's Sidereus nuncius (1610), offers insights into how a minor, but well-informed and opinionated, character sought to contribute to the major issues current in his world.The first chapter, by Merletti, surveys Altobelli's life, publications, and other writings. A considerable expansion on the biographical material available in the Altobelli entry of the Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, this short chapter is a useful contribution to the literature. Its oddly discursive nature (it devotes a short section to a biography of Mauro Saraceni, who might or might not have been a teacher of Altobelli) sets the tone for the other contributions, which occasionally end up wandering far from their titles.The second chapter, by Shea, is a short essay on the early history of the telescope. Although a competent account for the most part, it is almost entirely superseded by Van Helden et al. (eds), The origins of the telescope (Amsterdam, 2010). It also has effectively no connection to Altobelli aside from the fact that after the publication of Sidereus nuncius, Altobelli asked Galileo to send him a set of lenses so that he could make his own instrument. However, Galileo never sent him lenses and there is no evidence that Altobelli ever made or used a telescope. So Shea's essay lays a background certainly relevant to Galileo's reception of Altobelli's request, but not for a scene in which Altobelli himself ever makes an entrance, despite his desire to do so. The odd sense of Altobelli's conspicuous absence, almost a negative presence, so to speak, builds. Giostra's chapter constitutes the bulk of the volume. He examines Altobelli's brief reports to Galileo on the nova of 1604 in which the former details his observations and defends the priority of his very early sighting in the evening sky of 9 October. Altobelli expresses sympathy with Galileo's public lectures in Padua on the nova and his energetic demolition of Aristotelian explanations thereof. Giostra also draws on Altobelli's much later (1610) congratulatory letter to Galileo about the discoveries detailed in the Sidereus nuncius. …

Book Review: The Early History of the Telescope, the Origins of the Telescope

Book Review: The Early History of the Telescope, the Origins of the Telescope

Notes on Contributors

Notes on Contributors

Book Review: The Telescope in History; Der Meister und die Fernrohre: Das Wechselspiel zwischen Astronomie und Optik in der Geschichte

In 1957 Rolf Riekher, an optical engineer by training and profession, published Fernrohre und ihre Meister (a revised edition appeared in 1990). Like Henry C. King’s The history of the telescope, Riekher’s book is one of the classics of the field and remains indispensable for all those interested in the history of the telescope. In May 2007, on the occasion of Riekher’s eighty-fifth birthday, a colloquium was held in his honour at the Archenhold Observatory in Berlin-Treptow, close to his home and place of work. The volume under review, appropriately titled Der Meister und die Fernrohre, is a Festschrift.

The history of the telescope.

The history of the telescope.

Eyes on the Universe: A History of the Telescope

Eyes on the Universe: A History of the Telescope

The general influence of the development of optics in the seventeenth century on science and technology

After having pointed out the artisan origin of spectacle- and telescope-lenses, their position is considered in the frame of the theoretical knowledge of the time, and of the technical methods employed to construct lenses. The first merit of Galileo in the history of the telescope is demonstrated, the merit of having understood that telescope lenses had to be of a superior quality to those of spectacles, and to have made it possible, even under very difficult circumstances, to obtain such lenses. Secondly, Galileo was the first man of science to have “faith” in what is seen through the telescope, thus demolishing one of the fundamental principles of classical philosophy according to which what is seen can be believed only when confirmed by touch. This Galilean “faith” must be considered the philosophical substratum on which has been constructed all modern experimental science, which therefore owes all its great progress to the fact of having employed optical instruments, such as the telescope and the microscope, with complete certainty of seeing the truth, even when information received by these means was not confirmed by other senses.

The History of the Telescope. Henry C. King

<i>The History of the Telescope</i>. Henry C. King

History of Astronomical Instruments

The History of the Telescope By Dr. Henry C. King. Pp. xvi + 456. (London: Charles Grifnn and Company, Ltd.; Cambridge, Mass.: U.S.A. Sky Publishing Corporation, 1955.) 50s.

Book Reviews: The History of the Telescope

Book Reviews: The History of the Telescope