The Heavens Above A Popular Handbook of Astronomy
The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Heavens Above, by J. A. (Joseph Anthony)Gillet and W. J. (William James) Rolfe
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Title: The Heavens Above
A Popular Handbook of Astronomy
Author: J. A. (Joseph Anthony) Gillet and W. J. (William James) Rolfe
Release Date: February 2, 2019 [eBook #58810]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEAVENS ABOVE***
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Spectra Of Various Sources Of Light.
The Heavens Above: A Popular Handbook of Astronomy
It has been the aim of the authors to give inthis little book a brief, simple, and accurate accountof the heavens as they are known to astronomersof the present day. It is believed that there isnothing in the book beyond the comprehension ofreaders of ordinary intelligence, and that it containsall the information on the subject of astronomy thatis needful to a person of ordinary culture. Theauthors have carefully avoided dry and abstrusemathematical calculations, yet they have sought tomake clear the methods by which astronomers havegained their knowledge of the heavens. The variouskinds of telescopes and spectroscopes have beendescribed, and their use in the study of the heavenshas been fully explained.
The cuts with which the book is illustrated havebeen drawn from all available sources; and it is believedthat they excel in number, freshness, beauty,and accuracy those to be found in any similar work.The lithographic plates are, with a single exception,reductions of the plates prepared at the Observatoryat Cambridge, Mass. The remaining lithographicplate is a reduced copy of Professor Langley'scelebrated sun-spot engraving. Many of theviews of the moon are from drawings made fromthe photographs in Carpenter and Nasmyth's workon the moon. The majority of the cuts illustratingthe solar system are copied from the French editionof Guillemin's "Heavens." Most of the remainderare from Lockyer's "Solar Physics," Young's "Sun,"and other recent authorities. The cuts illustratingcomets, meteors, and nebul, are nearly all takenfrom the French editions of Guillemin's "Comets"and Guillemin's "Heavens."
I. THE CELESTIAL SPHERE 3
II. THE SOLAR SYSTEM 41
I. THEORY OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM 41
The Ptolemaic System 41
The Copernican System 44
Tycho Brahe's System 44
Kepler's System 44
The Newtonian System 48
II. THE SUN AND PLANETS 53
I. The Earth 53
Form and Size 53
Day and Night 57
The Seasons 64
Tides 68
The Day and Time 74
The Year 78
Weight of the Earth and Precession 83
II. The Moon 86
Distance, Size, and Motions 86
The Atmosphere of the Moon 109
The Surface of the Moon 114
III. Inferior and Superior Planets 130
Inferior Planets 130
Superior Planets 134
IV. The Sun 140
I. Magnitude and Distance of the Sun 140
II. Physical and Chemical Condition of the Sun 149
Physical Condition of the Sun 149
The Spectroscope 152
Spectra 158
Chemical Constitution of the Sun 164
Motion at the Surface of the Sun 168
III. The Photosphere and Sun-Spots 175
The Photosphere 175
Sun-Spots 179
IV. The Chromosphere and Prominences 196
V. The Corona 204
V. Eclipses 210
VI. The Three Groups of Planets 221
I. General Characteristics of the Groups 221
II. The Inner Group of Planets 225
Mercury 225
Venus 230
Mars
