Sky and Ocean Joined

Sky and Ocean Joined PDF Author: Steven J. Dick
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521815994
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 636

Get Book Here

Book Description
As one of the oldest scientific institutions in the United States, the US Naval Observatory has a rich and colourful history. This volume is, first and foremost, a story of the relations between space, time and navigation, from the rise of the chronometer in the United States to the Global Positioning System of satellites, for which the Naval Observatory provides the time to a billionth of a second per day. It is a story of the history of technology, in the form of telescopes, lenses, detectors, calculators, clocks and computers over 170 years. It describes how one scientific institution under government and military patronage has contributed, through all the vagaries of history, to almost two centuries of unparalleled progress in astronomy. Sky and Ocean Joined will appeal to historians of science, technology, scientific institutions and American science, as well as astronomers, meteorologists and physicists.

Sky and Ocean Joined

Sky and Ocean Joined PDF Author: Steven J. Dick
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521815994
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 636

Get Book Here

Book Description
As one of the oldest scientific institutions in the United States, the US Naval Observatory has a rich and colourful history. This volume is, first and foremost, a story of the relations between space, time and navigation, from the rise of the chronometer in the United States to the Global Positioning System of satellites, for which the Naval Observatory provides the time to a billionth of a second per day. It is a story of the history of technology, in the form of telescopes, lenses, detectors, calculators, clocks and computers over 170 years. It describes how one scientific institution under government and military patronage has contributed, through all the vagaries of history, to almost two centuries of unparalleled progress in astronomy. Sky and Ocean Joined will appeal to historians of science, technology, scientific institutions and American science, as well as astronomers, meteorologists and physicists.

Exploring the Solar System

Exploring the Solar System PDF Author: R. Launius
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137273178
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 705

Get Book Here

Book Description
Beginning in the early days of the Space Age - well before the advent of manned spaceflight - the United States, followed soon by other nations, undertook an ambitious effort to study the planets of the solar system. The remarkable fruits of this research revolutionized the public's view of their celestial neighbors, capturing the imaginations of people from all backgrounds like nothing else save the Apollo lunar missions. From the first space probes to the most recent planetary rovers, they have continually delivered impressive discoveries and reshaped our understanding of the cosmos. Offering fascinating investigations into this crucial chapter in space history, this collection of specially commissioned essays from leading historians opens new vistas in our understanding of the development of planetary science.

America’s First Eclipse Chasers

America’s First Eclipse Chasers PDF Author: Thomas Hockey
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303124124X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 461

Get Book Here

Book Description
In 2017, over 200 million Americans witnessed the spectacular total eclipse of the Sun, and the 2024 eclipse is expected to draw even larger crowds. In anticipation of this upcoming event, this book takes us back in history over 150 years, telling the story of the nation’s first ever eclipse chasers. Our tale follows the chaotic journeys of scientists and amateur astronomers as they trekked across the western United States to view the rare phenomenon of a total solar eclipse. The fascinating story centers on the expeditions of the 1869 total eclipse, which took place during the turbulent age of the chimerical Planet Vulcan and Civil War Reconstruction. The protagonists—a motley crew featuring astronomical giants like Simon Newcomb and pioneering female astronomers like Maria Mitchell—were met with unanticipated dangers, mission-threatening accidents, and eccentric characters only the West could produce. Theirs is a story of astronomical proportions. Along the way, we will make several stops across the booming US railroad network, traveling from viewing sites as familiar as Des Moines, Iowa, to ones as distant and strange as newly acquired Alaska. From equipment failures and botched preparations to quicksand and apocalyptic ‘comets’, welcome to the wild, western world of solar eclipses.

Proceedings

Proceedings PDF Author: Alan D. Fiala
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Astrometry
Languages : en
Pages : 444

Get Book Here

Book Description


Time and Navigation

Time and Navigation PDF Author: Andrew Kenneth Johnston
Publisher:
ISBN: 1588344916
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Get Book Here

Book Description
If you want to know where you are, you need a good clock. The surprising connection between time and placeais explored inaTime and Navigation- The Untold Story of Getting from Here to There, the companion book to the National Air and Space Museum exhibition of the same name. Today we use smartphones and GPS, but navigating has not always been so easy. The oldest "clock" is Earth itself, and the oldest means of keeping time came from observing changes in the sky. Early mariners like the Vikings accomplished amazing feats of navigation without using clocks at all. Pioneering seafarers in the Age of Exploration used dead reckoning and celestial navigation; later innovations such as sextants and marine chronometers honed these techniques by measuring latitude and longitude. When explorers turned their sights to the skies, they built on what had been learned at sea. For example, Charles Lindbergh used a bubble sextant on his record-breaking flights. World War II led to the development of new flight technologies, notably radio navigation, since celestial navigation was not suited for all-weather military operations. These forms of navigation were extended and enhanced when explorers began guiding spacecraft into space and across the solar system. Astronauts combined celestial navigation technology with radio transmissions. The development of the atomic clock revolutionized space flight because it could measure billionths of a second, thereby allowing mission teams to navigate more accurately. Scientists and engineers applied these technologies to navigation on earth to develop space-based time and navigation services such as GPS that is used every day by people from all walks of life. While the history of navigation is one of constant change and innovation, it is also one of remarkable continuity. Time and Navigation tells the story of navigation to help us understand where we have been and how we got there so that we can understand where we are going.

The House on Observatory Hill

The House on Observatory Hill PDF Author: Gail S. Cleere
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Government publications
Languages : en
Pages : 82

Get Book Here

Book Description


Astronomy at the Turn of the Twentieth Century in Chile and the United States

Astronomy at the Turn of the Twentieth Century in Chile and the United States PDF Author: Bárbara K. Silva
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030177122
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 144

Get Book Here

Book Description
This Palgrave Pivot tells the transnational story of the astronomical observatory in the hills near Santiago, Chile, built in the early twentieth century through the efforts of astronomers from the Lick Observatory in California. Venturing abroad to learn from largely unmapped Southern skies and, hopefully, answer lingering questions about the structure of the galaxy, they planned a three-year research expedition—but ended up staying for more than twenty-five years. The history of the Mills Expedition offers a window onto the history of astronomy, the challenges of scientific collaboration across national lines, and the political and cultural contexts of early-twentieth-century Chile and the United States.

Civic Astronomy

Civic Astronomy PDF Author: George Wise
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402026781
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 217

Get Book Here

Book Description
The founding of the Dudley Observatory at Albany, N.Y., in 1852 was a milestone in humanity's age-old quest to understand the heavens. As the best equipped astronomical observatory in the U.S. led by the first American to hold a Ph.D. in astronomy, Benjamin Apthorp Gould Jr., the observatory helped pioneer world-class astronomy in America. It also proclaimed Albany's status as a major national center of culture, knowledge and affluence. This book explores the story of the Dudley Observatory as a 150 year long episode in civic astronomy. The story ranges from a bitter civic controversy to a venture into space, from the banks of the Hudson River to the highlands of Argentina. It is a unique glimpse at a path not taken, a way of doing science once promising, now vanished. As discoveries by the Dudley Observatory's astronomers, especially its second director Lewis Boss, made significant contributions to the modern vision of our Milky Way galaxy as a rotating spiral of more than a million stars, the advance of astronomy left that little observatory behind.

The World of Visual Time Signals for Mariners

The World of Visual Time Signals for Mariners PDF Author: Roger Kinns
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303157334X
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 467

Get Book Here

Book Description


Discovery and Classification in Astronomy

Discovery and Classification in Astronomy PDF Author: Steven J. Dick
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107276713
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 475

Get Book Here

Book Description
Astronomical discovery involves more than detecting something previously unseen. The reclassification of Pluto as a dwarf planet in 2006, and the controversy it generated, shows that discovery is a complex and ongoing process – one comprising various stages of research, interpretation and understanding. Ranging from Galileo's observation of Jupiter's satellites, Saturn's rings and star clusters, to Herschel's nebulae and the modern discovery of quasars and pulsars, Steven J. Dick's comprehensive history identifies the concept of 'extended discovery' as the engine of progress in astronomy. The text traces more than 400 years of telescopic observation, exploring how the signal discoveries of new astronomical objects relate to and inform one another, and why controversies such as Pluto's reclassification are commonplace in the field. The volume is complete with a detailed classification system for known classes of astronomical objects, offering students, researchers and amateur observers a valuable reference and guide.