A little ramble through 19th century astronomy - Trying to contact Venusians in 1874

 Nature February 5^th 1874

 

Signalling between the Earth and the planet Venus is a suggestion made in all good faith by a French astronomer M.Charles Cros, , who considers the coming transit of Venus to be a good opportunity for ascertaining whether there are inhabitants on that planet, and, if so, entering into relations with them. He says:” It is possible that Venus is inhabited; that amongst its inhabitants are astronomers; that the latter judge the passage of their planet across the solar disc to be an object to excite our curiosity; finally it is possible that these savants will strive in some way to make signals to us at the precise moment when they might suppose that many telescopes will be levelled at their planet.

                                                       www.theramblingastronomer.co.uk

A little ramble through 19th century astronomy - Comet discovered in December 1874

 Academy Newspaper Saturday 12^th December 1874

 

A new  comet was discovered by M. Borelly, at Marseilles, on the morning of December 7^th 1874 , in the constellation Corona, its right ascension being 16h. 0m., and its North polar distance 54° so that it is visible low down in the north-west after sunset ; but, though described as brilliant by its discoverer, it requires a powerful telescope to show it.

 From an observation made by Mr. Hind in the evening of December 7, it appears that its daily motion is nearly 1° N.N.E., so that there is a good prospect of farther observations being secured.

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A Ramble through 19th century astronomy - 2 metre Moon map completed in 1874

 Nature February 5^th 1874

 

Dr Schmidt, Professor of Astronomy in the University of Athens, has just completed his great map of the Moon. It is two metres in diameter and is a marvel of accurate mapping and minute draughtsmanship. The shading is so exquisite that any part of the map may be examined by a lens without the appearance of coarse or rough work. The map represents the labour of 34 years and is without doubt one of the greatest astronomical results of the century.

                                                       www.theramblingastronomer.co.uk

 

Cooke Telescope Tales - 9 inch telescope for Sir William Keith Murray in 1858

On December 11^th 1858 Sir William Keith Murray (1801-1861) of Ochertyre  near Crieff in Scotland purchased a 9 inch telescope from Thomas Cooke of York. The telescope was massive and had a tube that was 13 feet long and was mounted on a stone pier 9 feet and 3 inches tall. Up until this point in time it was the largest telescope that Cooke had constructed and it was also at the time the largest refractor in Scotland.

 The weather conditions were often poor at the location of the observatory and Murray was only able to use the Cooke for a short period before his death in 1861. Following his death the telescope was offered for sale unfortunately with no initial interest.

 In 1863 a number of gentlemen raised £1,120 ( today this would be £173,534) to purchase the telescope for the observatory at Glasgow University. It was sited at the Horselethill Observatory and used there until 1939 when the building was demolished. The 9 inch was always referred to as the 9 inch Ochertyre Telescope.

Following the demolition of the Horselethill Observatory a new student observatory was built in the University Gardens to house the 9 in Cooke. 

This was closed in 1969 after which I don’t know  what happened to the 9 inch Cooke Ochtertyre Telescope.

                                                     www.theramblingastronomer.co.uk

 

A little ramble through 19th century astronomy - Suicide at Observatory House in 1892

Hull Daily Mail Wednesday 14^th September 1892

 

PREMEDITATED SUICIDE

 

George Digby Cole, valet to a gentleman named Herschell, who resides at Observatory House, in the Windsor Road Slough, having had disagreement with his master, went on Monday afternoon to a chemist, and, pretending that required the drug for the purpose of poisoning a dog, obtained some prussic acid. He then proceeded to the house of his former employer, and, after using some improper language, took out the bottle and swallowed its poisonous contents. The man walked the room for few moments screaming and shouting in his death agonies till he fell exhausted to the floor.

 

A surgeon attended as speedily as possible, and administered an emetic but he expired. It is said that Cole, who was considered rather an eccentric person, was walking shortly before he committed suicide with an undertaker, whom he asked to measure him for a coffin when he was dead.

 

MY NOTE

 

I am not sure which member of the Herschell family was living at Observatory House at this time.

 

Pussic acid is Hydrogen Cyanide

A little ramble through Eridanus the River

Eridanus is the 6^th largest constellation in the sky, but it is often overlooked due to the lack of bright stars. Or at least certainly from the northern hemisphere. Its brightest star Achernar is not visible from the UK. The constellations starts close to the bright star Rigel in Orion and then meanders south and below the horizon. 

To the Greeks Eridanus was sometimes called the River of Orion due its closeness to Rigel. It is often associated with the river into which Phaethon fell after trying to use the chariot of his father, the sun god. Some Greeks also just referred to it as the river.

It was also seen as a river by the Euphratean astronomers who used the name of Erib-me-gali.

Keeping up this theme of a river the Arab astronomers called this constellation Al Nahr which again means the river.

The brightest star in Eridanus is alpha or Achernar which in Arabic is Al Anir al Nahr or the End of the River. An interesting point to note is that this name was first given to the star theta. This was because it was the southernmost bright star to be seen from Greece. When European explorers travelled to the southern hemisphere, they saw a bright star that could not be seen from Europe.

In 1603 the German astronomer Johannes Bayer extended the length of Eridanus and named it Achernar the End of the river. The star theta was renamed Acamar which in Arabic means the Root.

Achernar is a B class star with a magnitude of 0.5 and is the 9th brightest star in the sky, Achernar is139 light years away. We normally think of a star as a sphere of hot spinning gas but Achernar spins so quickly that it is pushed out of shape, so it appears more like an oblate spheroid. It is quite possibly the least known spherical star in our galaxy. It is not a single star it has a companion star. Achernar is around 10 times the diameter bigger than our Sun. The average temperature is about 15,000 degrees much hotter than the Sun; however, this varies because at the poles it is 17,000 degrees while at the equator its 12,000 degrees.

Theta or Acamar has a magnitude of 2.9 and is 164 light years away. Acamar is a double star, and both stars are A class stars indicating they are hotter than our Sun.

Beta or as it is known to the Arab astronomers as Cursa which means The chair or the Footstall of the Central One is located just above the bright star Rigel in the constellation of Orion. To the Chinese this was called Yuh Tsing or The Golden well. It has a magnitude of 2.8 and is an A class star lying  90 light years away.

Gamma was known to the Arab astronomers as either Zaurac or Zaurak which means the Bright Star of the Boat. The star is a red M class giant star around 192 light years away and has a magnitude or brightness of 2.9. As it is an M class star it will be cooler than the Sun with a surface temperature of about 3,500 degrees compared to the 5,800 degrees of the Sun.

 Gamma or Azha as it was known to the Arab astronomer Al Sufi was chief among the stars of the Ostrich’s Nest which the word Azha means. Its an K class star again cooler than the Sun with a magnitude of 3.9 and is 137 light years away.

There are no bright deep sky objects to mention.

                                                    www.theramblingastronomer.co.uk

 

 

A little ramble through 19th century astronomy - Bath Observatory destroyed by fire in 1867

 Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette Thursday 24^th January 1867.

 

 Destruction of an Observatory. 

—On Sunday last the observatory connected with St. Gregory's College, Downside, near Bath, was totally destroyed by fire. It originated apparently in the heating apparatus, which kindled the joists of the ground floor; the flames, which caught some stuffed birds and other natural history specimens in the museum kept in the lower room, were rapidly communicated to the equatorial room above, in which was a magnificent refracting telescope of 15 inches diameter and 20 feet focal length. 

The observing stages formed capital fuel for the fire, and in less than hour the whole was one mass of flame, leaving no possibility of rescuing anything. The loss of the glass and astronomical plant attached to the telescope is the more unfortunate as the observatory had only just been placed in full working order. The loss to the college of the antiquities, curiosities, and natural history collections in the museum cannot be estimated, for they contained many unique and invaluable specimens, and were the result of fifty years' accumulation.

                                                     www.theramblingastronomer.co.uk

The Astronomy Show on Drystone Radio

 Join me, Martin Lunn MBE every Monday evening from 7.00 pm-9.00 pm on the award-winning Astronomy Show on Drystone Radio, probably the only regular astronomy show on any radio station in the country. 

I will take my weekly look at the night sky and look at all the latest news in astronomy. There will be the astronomical anniversaries this week plus the latest news from the astronomical societies in the north of England.

The Astronomy Show every Monday evening only on Drystone Radio live online at www.drystoneradio.com DAB radio in Bradford and East Lancashire, or 102 and 103.5 FM and can also be heard later on the Drystone Radio Podcast.

Cooke Telescope Tales - Mr Maw and his two Cooke telescopes

William Henry Maw (1836 – 1924) was born in Scarborough on December 6^th 1836, when he was growing up he was friends with the sons of Dr Harland, who would become the founders of the Harland & Wolf ship builders. Both his parents died when he was in his teens, without influences and an advantage of a higher education he was still able to raise himself to become a leading authority in the fields of mechanics and engineering. 

His leisure time was however devoted to astronomy. In Kensington, London in 1887 he built an observatory for his 6 inch Cooke telescope which he used to study the Moon. Later from 1897 when he lived in Surrey he built an observatory for a larger 8 inch Cooke  telescope. This had originally been owned by the Rev R W Dawes and would later be located at the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge and known as the Thorrowgood Telescope.

 W H Maw made extensive observations of double stars using both Cooke telescopes. In particular the double stars from the Struve catalogue. His observations were considered to be very accurate. Maw was a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and one of the founders of the British Astronomical Society.   

                                                     www.theramblingastronomer.co.uk

A little ramble through 19th century astronomy - Moses Holden and the comet of 1840

  Blackburn Standard Wednesday 4^th March 1840 

 

THE COMET 

To the Editor of the Blackburn Standard.

 

 Sir, —Will you have the goodness to insert in the Standard the following account of a comet which is now seen: it is written by Mr. Moses Holden, whose lectures many of your readers will remember, and appeared in the Preston papers of last Saturday:-

 

 " A second Comet has appeared this year, although the month of February is not yet out. This second is very small, and can only be seen with a good telescope. I saw it on the 23rd, it was little above the girdle of Andromeda, and did not look half large as the Nebula in that girdle, nor half as large as Encke's Comet. Its movement for the week along the girdle of Andromeda, as it passes the stars, is as follows,

 

Feb 1840  29    28     27    26    25    24   23

                  o       o       o     o      o      o     o   Comet.

                                                           Nu*            

                   Beta *                Mu*              0 Nebula

 

An equatorial telescope turned to right ascension, in time 1 hour and 15 minutes, and declination 35 deg,  5 min., will be near the place, and with a Comet eye-piece would soon find it this evening.

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A little ramble through 19th century astronomy - temporary observatory near Sydney in 1890

 Colonies and India Wednesday 21^st May 1890 

A temporary observatory is about to be established near Sydney for the purpose of carrying on astronomic photographic work in connection with a chart of the heavens about to be prepared by an Astro-Photo Committee charged by the Conference which met in Paris in 1887. The arrangement of the details has been allotted in zones to 19 observatories in the order of their latitude. Under this arrangement Sydney takes from 34° S. to 42° S., and Melbourne from 70' S. to the South Pole. 

 

H C Russell Sydney astronomer and Sydney observatory

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A little ramble through 19th century astronomy - Repairs to the Madras Observatory in 1890

 Madras Weekly Mail Wednesday 5^th February 1890 

 

THE MADRAS OBSERVATORY

 

Mr. N. Pogson, C.L.E , Government Astronomer, in submitting an estimate of Rs. 2,772 for making certain repairs, reports an follows:

 

Herewith, I have the honor to submit, in duplicate, an estimate for necessary repairs of the Government Observatory, amounting to Rs 2,772, together with an accompanying report by H. Irwin, Esq., C.L.E the Consulting Architect to Government. The repairs have been much needed for some years past, but were deferred, as the transit circle could not then be spared without serious inconvenience. This fine instrument, which cost I, believe about £1,200, was under the very beams, the collapse of which was most imminent; so after Mr. Irwin’s  warning I lost no time in dismounting and removing the transit circle on a strong temporary wooden roller stand to a more secure part of the observatory, pending the repairs of the transit circle room. The telescope cones, bearing the eyepiece and objective, the counterpoises, damps, microscopes, &c., were all taken off on November 16th, assisted by workmen from Messrs. P. Orr and Sons; in consequence of the risk in case of heavy rain, the remainder of the instrument, weighing about 400 lb, was carefully removed bodily on Sunday, November 17th, and the building placed at the Consulting Architect's disposal for whatever emergent precautions in the way of propping and otherwise securing the roof he might consider necessary. During the repairs of the transit room the Madras mean time has to be determined by means of a small transit instrument by Dollond, formerly in use between 1858 and 1862, but with which the time in less certain within half a second than it is within half-a-tenth of a second with the transit circle. The early completion of the repairs is most desirable and advantage will be taken meanwhile for thorough cleaning up of the large instrument on the spot under my own immediate superintendence with such help as I can obtain from Messrs. P. Orr & Sons. The estimate has been sanctioned by government.

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A little ramble through 19th century astronomy - comet Coggia 1874

 Academy Newspaper Saturday July 11^th 1874

 

The comet discovered by Coggia on April 13 1874 has during the last fortnight rapidly increased in brightness and is now a conspicuous object in the northern sky. It will continue to get brighter, but unfortunately its motion is directly away from the pole, and as it is now beginning to move south rapidly, it will soon get below the northern horizon, so that probably it will not be visible to the naked eye, in the northern hemisphere at least, after July 15, when it will be nearly as bright as a first magnitude star, though very low down.

 It is possible, however, that its tail may be seen after the head has set, as was the case with the famous comet of 1843, Mr. Hind, who has devoted much attention to the present comet, considers that it may be seen in full daylight south of the sun with a powerful telescope about July 22, when it makes its nearest approach to the earth. The circumstance that the apparent path of this comet passes nearly through the sun’s place, coupled with Its very slow motion at first, has made it very difficult to compute its orbit; but theory and observation now agree well, and if observatories in the Southern hemisphere watch it carefully, no less than 200° of its orbit will be fixed, and we can then determine whether it is likely ever to visit us again.

The striking feature of this comet in the telescope is its remarkably bright planetary nucleus, from each side of which a fan of light shoots out transverse to the tail. The spectrum of this nucleus, as found by M. Royet (since confirmed by Mr. Lockyer and at Greenwich), is continuous, indicating a glowing solid or liquid, and therefore supporting the theory that it is a meteor stream. The coma and tail which form the usual parabolic envelope give the characteristic spectrum of carbon consisting of three bright nebulous bands, but what is the form under which the carbon exists remains an interesting question which it is to be hoped that Mr. Huggins will resolve. The tail shows strong radial polarisation.

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Cooke telescope tales - Exhibition of the Phonograph in York

 At this time of year Christmas music is being played everywhere, but a long time ago before music was available online or on a CD there was the phonograph or record player as it would become known was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison.

On the 17^th December 1878 the first phonograph to be seen in York was exhibited at the Kenrick Rooms, Spen Lane in York by Messrs T Cooke and Sons. Permission had been obtained by Cooke and Sons from the London Stereoscopic Company who had purchased the British patent from Mr Thomas Edison the inventor. 

The phonograph was explained by Mr Cox-Walker of Cooke and Sons. Briefly the phonograph consists of a brass cylinder, around which turns a spiral grove. The operator speaks into a mouthpiece upon a thin diaphragm, exactly like a telephone, to which a metal point is attached. The cylinder is covered with tin foil, and the point being in connection, and the handle turned while the operator is speaking, the point runs in the groove and makes several indentations in the tin foil corresponding to the vibrations of the diaphragm caused by the voice. On turning the reverse way the sounds are reproduced, the indentations in the tin foil, acting upon the metal point, causing the diaphragm to vibrate and communicate its motion to the air. 

The singing is very distinct, but the reproduced words of a speaker are somewhat thick, though the result is marvellous in the extreme. Two instruments were exhibited, one working by clock work and the other by hand. By the former the tone is reproduced more correctly, owing to the greater regularity in the turning of the instrument.   

                                                     www.theramblingastronomer.co.uk

 

 

A little ramble through 19th century astronomy - S Delphinus in 1865

 

Astronomical Register January 1866 

Mr Baxendell read a communication on the variable star S Delphinus, at the meeting of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester. On the 9^th November 1865. A maximum brightness occurred on the 9^th August 1865, magnitude 8.9, the mean period being 332 days, and the minimum equalling the magnitude 13.5. 

Mr Baxendell’s observations were confirmed in a great measure by Mr G Knott of Cuckfield. The colour iof the star is reddish, and is more intense at the minimum.

                                                     www.theramblingastronomer.co.uk

The Astronomy Show on Drystone Radio

 Join me, Martin Lunn MBE every Monday evening from 7.00 pm-9.00 pm on the award-winning Astronomy Show on Drystone Radio, probably the only regular astronomy show on any radio station in the country. 

I will take my weekly look at the night sky and look at all the latest news in astronomy. There will be the astronomical anniversaries this week plus the latest news from the astronomical societies in the north of England.

The Astronomy Show every Monday evening only on Drystone Radio live online at www.drystoneradio.com DAB radio in Bradford and East Lancashire, or 102 and 103.5 FM and can also be heard later on the Drystone Radio Podcast.

Cooke Telescope Tales - Accident at the Cooke factory

On December 28^th 1866 the son of Mr W Tindall printer of Fulford Road, York an apprentice with Messrs Cooke and Sons Opticians, of this city, lost his right thumb which was taken completely off by a portion of the machinery on the works, whilst he was engaged in his ordinary occupation. 

                                                      www.theramblingastronomer.co.uk