AST 3047 TOPIC LIST 2



  1. William Herschel -- background; telescopes and performance, including the 40-ft (48-in), designs; double stars and search for parallax; discovery of Uranus; Messier catalogue, early and later ideas about nebulae; Wright, Kant, and the Milky Way and stellar statistics; discovery of infrared radiation; Michell's statistical argument and visual binaries
  2. Caroline Herschel -- assistance to William; comet "sweeper" and discoveries; editing of Flamsteed's catalogue and William's catalogues of nebulae; honors
  3. John Herschel -- early work on photography, named process; double stars with James South; carried on father's work; travel to Cape and Results, rejection of father's late views on nebulae, "zone of avoidance" for nebulae; method for determining orbits of visual binaries
  4. Parsons=Lord Rosse -- experiments with mirrors, steam-powered grinding and polishing; "Leviathan of Parsonstown" and spiral nebulae, influence on resolvability issue
  5. Lassell -- background; large telescopes and discoveries; location at Malta; framework instead of solid tube and reason
  6. Flamsteed -- British Catalogue, first modern star catalogue
  7. Halley -- proper motion, tangential velocity
  8. Bradley -- aberration of starlight and significance; discovery of nutation and cause
  9. Maskelyne -- first Astronomer Royal to use achromats with instruments, improved precision in timing right ascension
  10. Bessel -- background; Fundamenta Astronomiae: Bradley's observations analyzed, along with precession, nutation, refraction, aberration, proper motion; importance of corrections for systematic errors arising from instruments, personal equation
  11. astronomical unit and Sun's geocentric parallax -- Halley and transit method; 18th century results, "black drop" effect; Encke's re-analysis using method of least squares (Gauss)
  12. (heliocentric) parallax of star = trigonometric parallax -- W. Struve, Bessel, and Henderson, their instruments, and their candidate stars; criteria for candidates; results and problems with parallaxes; bright stars vs. nearest stars
  13. catalogues of star positions (19th cent.) -- Bonn Durchmusterung (BD), Cordoba Durchmusterung (CD) for southern sky; Cape Photographic Durchmusterung (CPD) by Gill; Carte du Ciel project
  14. catalogues of visual binaries -- J. Herschel and South, Dawes, Bessel, W. and O. Struve, S. W. Burnham (close pairs)
  15. Bessel -- astrometric binaries: Sirius B, detected by younger Clark; Procyon B, detected by Schaeberle (white dwarf stars)
  16. lunar theory: Hansen, Delaunay, Newcomb, Adams, Hill; tides and tidal friction
  17. asteroids: von Zach's "celestial police" and Titius-Bode Rule; Piazzi and Ceres; Gauss's method and recovery; Kirkwood gaps
  18. planetary theory -- Leverrer's analysis, advance of Mercury's perihelion and "Vulcan"
  19. prediction and discovery of Neptune -- Adams, Leverrier, Galle, and d'Arrest; method used, critical assumption, respective roles, interpretation; Walker and Peirce's critique
  20. comets: short-period (Encke's, Halley's) vs. long-period; shapes of tails and Sun's repulsion, Bessel and Bredikhin on relative force, Arrhenius and solar radiation pressure
  21. meteors: Benzenberg and Brandes, triangulation; showers, esp. Leonids; connection with comets -- Adams, Schiaparelli
  22. photometry: J. Herschel, Zoellner; magnitude scale (Pogson)
  23. Kirchhoff's Rules, types of spectra and corresponding types of sources with examples
  24. Huggins: spectra of nebulae -- gaseous vs. stellar; Doppler effect
  25. chemical composition: Comte, Kirchhoff and Sun, Huggins and stars; helium, coronium, nebulium
  26. classification of stellar spectra: Secchi; Harvard -- Maury and a, b, and c lines, Cannon and Henry Draper Catalogue classification; colors and temperatures; interstellar reddening
  27. spectroscopic binaries: Maury (double-line), Vogel and Scheiner (single-line)
  28. eclipsing binaries: Algol -- Goodricke; Vogel and Scheiner
  29. Sun: sunspot cycle -- Schwabe; differential rotation, latitude pattern of sunspots -- Carrington, "butterfly" diagram
  30. solar spectrum: "flash" spectrum and chromosphere (Young); prominences and corona (Janssen, Lockyer)
  31. Great Moon Hoax
  32. Martian canals: Schiaparelli and doubling; Lowell's interpretation; Antoniadi's work
  33. instruments: portrait camera and astrograph; objective prism; spectroheliograph (Deslandres, Hale) and chromosphere
  34. journals: Astronomische Nachrichten, Monthly Notices RAS, Astronomical Journal, Astrophysical Journal