Giving observations on stars. Discussion of clock rates and sky sweeps.
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The Sir John Herschel Collection
The preparation of the print Calendar of the Correspondence of Sir John Herschel (Michael J. Crowe ed., David R. Dyck and James J. Kevin assoc. eds, Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998, viii + 828 pp) which was funded by the National Science Foundation, took ten years. It was accomplished by a team of seventeen professors, visiting scholars, graduate students, advanced undergraduates, and staff working at the University of Notre Dame.
The first online version of Calendar was created in 2009 by Dr Marvin Bolt and Steven Lucy, working at the Webster Institute of the Adler Planetarium, and it is that data that has now been reformatted for incorporation into Ɛpsilon.
Further information about Herschel, his correspondence, and the editorial method is available online here: http://historydb.adlerplanetarium.org/herschel/?p=intro
No texts of Herschel’s letters are currently available through Ɛpsilon.
Giving observations on stars. Discussion of clock rates and sky sweeps.
Informing JH that he and GA have just been appointed to a committee to consider the extension of the Astronomical Society's catalogue. Observations on this catalogue.
Wants JH's views on a 20-foot reflector. Inviting him to Cambridge. With this letter he encloses Volume 2 of the Cambridge Observatory's Observations and Lectures in Optics.
Sends volume of observations. Remarks on A. J. Fresnel's experiments. Lists errors in JH's treatise on light. Requests information on circular double refraction.
Encloses paper 'Figure of the Earth.' Wants information on rays in quartz. Has tried A. J. Fresnel's experiments.
Comments on GA's and Edward Sabine's work on the figure of the earth; describes some results JH obtained from using quartz for polarizing light, and is unhappy with the proposed recipient of the R.A.S. medal, M. C. T. Damoiseau, whose lunar theory JH cannot understand.
Sets out JH's preferences with regard to developing a system of reductions of astronomical observations that could then be easily applied.
About the prices of telescope mirrors, and specifically the one of T. J. Hussey; recommends use of certain stars to test the optical quality of the mirror.
Thanks GA for the second volume of his observations; wishes the publications of the Astronomer Royal were as good; adds some comments on polarization of light by liquids, and then talks about observing Georgium Sidum [Uranus], and deals with the orbits of satellites of planets generally.