Title & Author:

The heavens on earth : observatories and astronomy in nineteenth-century science and culture / edited by David Aubin, Charlotte Bigg, and H. Otto Sibum.

Publication:

Durham [NC] : Duke University Press, 2010.

Description:

xii, 384 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm

Series:

Science and cultural theory

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
The astronomical capital of the world : Pulkovo Observatory in the Russia of Tsar Nicholas I / Simon Werrett -- The Jesuit on the roof : observatory sciences, metaphysics, and nation building / Massimo Mazzotti -- Eclipse politics in France and Thailand, 1868 / David Aubin -- Keeping the books at Paramatta Observatory / Simon Schaffer -- Training seafarers in astronomy : methods, naval schools, and naval observatories in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century France / Guy Boistel -- Astronomy as military science: the case of Sweden, ca. 1800/1850 / Sven Widmalm -- Geodesy and map making in France and Algeria : between army officers and observatory scientists / Martina Schiavon -- Michelson and the observatory : physics and the astronomical community in late-nineteenth-century America / Richard Staley -- Even the tools will be free : Humboldt's romantic technologies / John Tresch -- "I thought this might be of interest--" : the observatory as public enterprise / Theresa Levitt -- Staging the heavens : astrophysics and popular astronomy in the late nineteenth century / Charlotte Bigg -- The Berlin Urania, Humboldtian cosmology, and the public / Ole Molvig.

Summary:

The Heavens on Earth explores the place of the observatory in nineteenth-century science and culture. Astronomy was a core pursuit for observatories, but usually not the only one. It belonged to a larger group of "observatory sciences" that also included geodesy, meteorology, geomagnetism, and even parts of physics and statistics. These pursuits coexisted in the nineteenth-century observatory; this collection surveys them as a coherent whole. It illuminates the observatory's importance to technological, military, political, and colonial undertakings, as well as to the advancement and popularization of the mathematical, physical, and cosmological sciences. The contributors examine "observatory techniques" developed and used not only in connection with observatories but also by instrument makers in their workshops, navy officers on ships, civil engineers in the field, and many others. These techniques included the calibration and coordination of precision instruments for making observations and taking measurements, methods of data acquisition and tabulation, and the production of maps, drawings, and photographs, as well as numerical, textual, and visual representations of the heavens and the earth. They also encompassed the social management of personnel within observatories, the coordination of international scientific collaborations, and interactions with dignitaries and the public. Focusing on observatory techniques in settings from Berlin, London, Paris, and Rome to Australia, Russia, Thailand, and the United States, The Heavens on Earth is a major contribution to the history of science. -- Back cover.

Resources:
Scholars Portal
Table of contents
Table of contents
Table of contents

ISBN:

9780822346289 (cloth ; alk. paper)
0822346281 (cloth ; alk. paper)
9780822346401 (pbk. ; alk. paper)
0822346400 (pbk. ; alk. paper)

Subject:

Astronomy History 19th century.
Nineteenth century.
Astronomie Histoire 19e siècle.
Dix-neuvième siècle.
Astronomy.
Astronomie
Astronomie Observatorien Geschichte 19. Jh.
Astronomie Geschichte 19. Jh.
Sternwarte.
Astronomi historia 1800-talet.

Form/genre:

Aufsatzsammlung
History.

Added entries:

Aubin, David, 1967-
Bigg, Charlotte.
Sibum, Heinz Otto, 1956-
Science and cultural theory.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 294310
Call No.: BIB 239783
Status: Available