Has no suggestions to improve photographs. Wants to determine whether the degradation of light from center to edge of sun is 'real.' Does not think sun's size affects focus.
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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.
Has no suggestions to improve photographs. Wants to determine whether the degradation of light from center to edge of sun is 'real.' Does not think sun's size affects focus.
Has photographs of September 23 . Desires half pictures 'with the sun's limb in the middle of the view.' Cannot yet draw conclusions about the notches of the limb.
Thanks WS for his Iliad translation. JH has just finished Book 3 of his own translation of the Iliad.
Has heard about William Whewell's accident. Hopes he will recover, but knows his advanced age may hinder this. Wishes WS to send news of progress.
Thinks William Whewell's excitement may be a 'precursor to exhaustion.' The hope of recovery is very slight. JH is interested in Whewell's article on Plato.
Thanks WS for communicating the events of William Whewell's last days.
Discusses how to denote the positions of the celestial bodies in solar photographs. Advocates a system that shows differences of heliocentric longitude on the sides of the sun.
Helioautographs are beautiful. Advises keeping original plan for presentation. Says 'Clarke's' [Harvey Carlisle's] article on William Whewell in MacMillan's is satisfactory. Describes an 'absurd paragraph' regarding Whewell in François Moigno's Mondes.
Says the plan for the exhibition is ingenious. Discusses the 11 year cycle of sunspots and says the sun was spotless the previous day.
Congratulates WS on his recovery. Thanks him for the meteor observations. The evidence points to an 11 rather than a 10 year period [in sunspots?].
Thanks WS for describing Aristotle's and Richard Whately's observation of the great sensitivity of the eye's lateral portion. Congratulates WS on becoming Dean of Norwich. Draft discusses miracles and lists possible arguments against WS's idea that miracles are not a violation of nature
Discusses the sudden motion of some sunspots. Does not think planetary action is a very probable cause. Discusses upcoming conjunction of Venus and Jupiter.
Thanks WS for 'Genevieve' translation. Will not continue the Dante because a Terza Rima translation has been done previously. The sun is behaving oddly.
Describes the peculiar pairs of sunspots he has recently witnessed. Thinks the earth affected their appearance somehow. Is using the Julian calendar for dating observations.
Some photographs support the sudden disappearance of the spot on 17 Sept. Some photographs are misdated. The relation of Jupiter and sunspots suggests previously unknown interconnections in the solar system.
Is working on a compilation of the measures of double stars. If [Rudolf] Wolf's period of 11.11 years is correct, why should 1810-11, a minimum, mark the first observations of solar spots?
Sends [William Whewell's] 'Isle of Sirens' and an acknowledgement to it in 'skimble skamble Hexameters.' Is eager to receive solar photographs and will send others by Professor [George?] Morton.
Discusses discrepencies between his observations for September and WS's photograph. It seems the new spots result from Jupiter being in opposition.
Describes the similarities between JH's sketches and WS's photographs of sunspots. Has greater faith in own observations. Wishes WS would add Julian dates. Sends Professor [George?] Morton's photographs.
Asks whether WS has photographs of the sun for 21 and 22 April. Notes how curious sunspot activity has been. Doubts that such is reconcilable with the notion of 'meteoric in-falls.'