This book will take the story of astronomy on from where Allan Chapman left it in Stargazers, and bring it almost up to date, with the developments and discoveries of the last three centuries. He covers the big names - Halley, Hooke, Herschel, Hubble and Hoyle; and includes the women who pushed astronomy forward, from Caroline Herschel to the Victorian women astronomers. He includes the big discoveries and the huge ideas, from the Milky War, to the Big Bang, the mighty atom, and the question of life on other planets. And he brings in the contributions made in the US, culminating in their race with the USSR to get a man on the moon, before turning to the explosion of interest in astronomy that was pioneered by Sir Patrick Moore and The Sky at Night.

Our knowledge of the universe, from the atomic level to the galactic, changed beyond recognition between the sixteenth century and into the twenty-first. In this book Allan Chapman takes up the story from where he left off in Stargazers, tracing the ground-breaking discoveries and developments of the last three centuries. Besides the big names - Halley, the Herschels, Einstein, Hubble, Hoyle, and Lovell - he includes a host of colourful figures, from wealthy telescope-builders to working-men astronomers, to popular astronomical lecturers, along with the many women, from Caroline Herschel to Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who made fundamental discoveries. He also discusses humanity's perennial fascination with aliens and life on other worlds. He then turns to the great observatories of the United States, Jodrell Bank, the 'space race', and the explosion of interest in astronomy that followed Sir Patrick Moore's first appearance on The Sky at Night in 1957.

The fascinating history of astronomy continues where Stargazers ended, including exploring women's huge achievements.

"Allan Chapman writes with clarity and energy in a manner designed to both inform the general reader and stimulate thought. Engagingly written, and with great authority, he combines a manageable level of detail regarding this vast subject, with his own personal insights and experiences. His work enables the reader to both grapple with the complex historical 'big picture' of unfolding ideas over the centuries, while also appreciating the significant impact and discoveries of individual pioneers in the field. Allan is not afraid to offer challenging personal insights and raises important questions for the reader to consider. This is an engaging, detailed, informative and thought-provoking book." Martyn Whittock, historian, teacher, and writer

"A fascinating narrative, full of delightful anecdotes, giving a very readable overview of astronomy and our understanding of the universe." Martin Grossel, Emeritus Fellow in Organic Chemistry at the University of Southampton

"Allan Chapman is a polymath, celebrated for his superb lectures on astronomical history. This engrossing book contains an immense amount of recondite information. His lively writing retains the flavour of his lectures, and will enlighten, fascinate and entertain anyone interested in science and its social context." Lord Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal

__COntents__  
Acknowledgments 18  
Preface 21  
__1 From the Beginning to 1700: The Origins of Astronomy__  
The origins of astronomy 26  
The earliest astronomers 27  
What made the "Greek experience" 29  
central to Western thought?  
Medieval consolidation 32  
Europe's astronomical Renaissance 35  
__2 Cosmology Begins at Home: Captain Edmond Halley, 41__  
FRS, RN, Astronomer, Geophysicist, and Adventurer  
The schoolboy scientist 42  
Early adventures: St Helena, Danzig, and across 44  
Europe: the making of a physical scientist  
Edmond Halley, the father of meteorology 47  
and geophysics  
Later adventures: Captain Halley RN takes 50  
HMS Paramore among the icebergs  
Professor Halley and the Great Aurora Borealis 51  
of 1716  
Halley studies the nebulae and ponders 53  
cosmological vastness  
__3 Could a Comet Have Caused Noah's Flood?__  
Changing views about comets, 1580–1720 57  
Dr Robert Hooke takes comets into the chemical 59  
laboratory in 1677  
Comets tamed at last: 1680–1705 61  
Noah's Flood, the ancient earth, comets, 62  
and the saltiness of the sea  
Edmond Halley: the Astronomer Royal 64  
and the longitude, 1720–42  
Religion and politics, a merry life and a 69  
sudden death  
__4 "Let there be more light." How Telescope Technology__  
Became the Arbiter in Cosmological Research  
Long telescopes on tall poles 73  
All done with mirrors: the early reflecting telescope 77  
John Hadley and his Newtonian 79  
reflecting telescope  
A golden guinea an inch: James Short turns the 81  
reflecting telescope into big business  
John Dollond "perfects" the refracting telescope 84  
c. 1760  
"Every gentleman must have one!" 86  
Benjamin Martin, lecturer, and entrepreneur,  
makes scientific instruments fashionable  
__5 The Rector and the Organist: Gravity, Star Clusters,__  
and the Origins of the Milky Way  
Thomas Wright of Durham and eighteenth-century 89  
speculative cosmologies  
The Revd John Michell: the Pleiades Cluster, "dark 91  
stars", and gravitational "black holes" in 1783  
Charles Messier: comet hunter and nebula 93  
cataloguer of the Ancien Régime in Paris  
The enterprising oboist: Herschel comes 94  
to England  
Herschel the fashionable church organist 97  
and musical impresario of Bath  
From organ pipes to telescopes, from acoustics 98  
to optics, and on to cosmology  
Bath, 13 March 1781: William Herschel 100  
discovers a "comet"  
__6 William and Caroline Herschel Fathom the 104__  
"Construction of the Heavens" from an English  
Country Garden  
William Herschel's telescope technology 106  
Observing with a Herschel telescope 107  
Stars, the Milky Way, and the "Construction of 109  
the Heavens" after 1784  
"Oh Herschel! Oh Herschel! Where do you fly? 112  
To sweep the cobwebs out of the sky"  
"Shining fluids", glowing rings of light, star 113  
clusters, and gravity: the Herschelian universe  
Observatory House, 1784: an account by a 116  
visiting French savant  
Sir William Herschel, Knight Guelph 118  
A Herschel telescope postscript 119  
__7 Measuring the Heavens and the Earth in Eighteenth-__  
Century Europe  
Part 1: In Pursuit of Venus: Astronomy's First Great  
International Adventure  
In pursuit of the solar parallax 122  
Venus in transit, June 1761 125  
Venus transits the sun in 1769 129  
Le Gentil and the 1769 transit 133  
Practical observation, Venus, and the longitude 134  
__8 Measuring the Heavens and the Earth in Eighteenth-__  
Century Europe  
Part 2: Pendulums, Planets, and Gravity: Creating  
the Science of Geodesy  
The curious behaviour of M. Richer's clock: 140  
Cayenne, Brazil, 1672  
Geophysics by degrees and the shape of the earth 142  
The Astronomer Royal, the mountain, and 147  
the village fiddler  
Geophysics goes to the laboratory: 149  
Henry Cavendish and the torsion balance  
experiment, 1797–98  
__9 Cosmology and the Romantic Age 152__  
From daffodil fields to starry fields: a universe of 152  
awe and wonder  
Laws of wonder: Herschel, Laplace, 153  
and the laws of gravitation  
Mysteries beyond the spectrum: 156  
Sir William Herschel discovers the "dark  
spectrum" in 1800  
Science for Georgian ladies and gentlemen 157  
The London physician, the Bavarian orphan, 160  
and the wonders of light  
Professor Bessel and the distance of the stars 163  
Caroline the comet hunter 166  
__10 Sir John Herschel: The Universal Philosopher of 168__  
the Age  
John Frederick William Herschel: a genius 168  
in the making  
John Herschel inherits the cosmological 170  
"family business"  
Optics, chemistry, photography, and a gift 172  
for friendship  
Slough, marriage, then the Cape of 174  
Good Hope  
The Herschel cosmos of 1850 178  
The size of the stars and their absolute brightness 180  
__Sir 11 There Must Be Somebody Out There! 184__  
A fascination with "aliens" 184  
The Revd Dr Thomas Dick of Broughty 186  
Ferry, Dundee  
New York, August 1835, and the 188  
"Great Lunar Hoax"  
Jules Verne: from the earth to the moon in 1865 191  
Pity the poor Martians dying of thirst: 1877 193  
The Martians turn nasty 195  
So is there really anybody out there? 196  
__12 Mary Somerville: Mathematician, Astronomer, and 198__  
Gifted Science Communicator  
Miss Mary Fairfax, the independent-minded 198  
admiral's daughter  
Two contrasting husbands 200  
Continental travel and international 201  
mathematical fame  
Mary Somerville, astronomy, and the Herschels 202  
Early mathematical and physical works 205  
Mary Somerville, the physical sciences expositor 206  
On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences, 208  
Physical Geography, and On Molecular and  
Microscopic Science  
Natural laws, religion, and her final voyage 211  
__13 Sir George Biddell Airy of Greenwich: Astronomer 212__  
Royal to the British Empire  
Sir George Biddell Airy (1801–92): 213  
early life and achievements  
New instruments, chronometers, time, 217  
and the electric telegraph  
Airy the scientific civil servant 222  
Airy and the discovery of Neptune, 1846 223  
The Astronomer Royal and his staff 225  
John Herschel, the universal philosopher 182  
__14 Barristers, Brewers, Peers, and Engineers: Paying for 228__  
Astronomical Research: the British "Grand Amateur"  
Tradition  
Funding astronomy in Great Britain: 228  
the roots of a tradition  
The Grand Amateur astronomical world 231  
The Liverpool brewer and the Manchester 234  
steam-engine builder  
The Irish nobleman who discovered the 240  
"whirlpools" of deep space  
The Royal Astronomical Society: 246  
a Grand Amateur creation  
Postscript: Grand Amateur astronomy today 247  
__15 The Camera Does Not Lie: The Birth of__  
Astronomical Photography  
Monsieur Louis Daguerre, Sir John Herschel, 249  
and Mr William Henry Fox Talbot  
Dr John William Draper of New York: 252  
the first astronomical photographer  
The "miracle" of the "wet collodion" 253  
photograph, 1851  
Warren De La Rue: the Guernsey-born paper 255  
manufacturer and pioneer of  
astronomical photography  
The first "custom-designed" photographic 258  
telescope  
James Nasmyth's The Moon (1874): 260  
photographing the moon at second hand  
The "dry gelatin" plate and new possibilities 262  
Isaac Roberts: photographer of the galaxies 262  
__16 Unweaving the Rainbow__  
Part 1: Sunlight, Sunspot Cycles, and Magnetic  
Storms 266  
Understanding the Sun, Our Nearest Star 266  
The great solar storm of 1859 268  
"Rice grains", "granules", and the solar surface 270  
Solar knowledge by 1860: a résumé 271  
__17 Unweaving the Rainbow__  
Part 2: Cosmologists and Catholic Priest Pioneers  
of Astrophysics  
An afternoon walk in Heidelberg in 1859 275  
Sir William and Lady Margaret Huggins discover 277  
gaseous nebulae from a south London garden  
Father Angelo Secchi of Rome: 281  
the Jesuit pioneer of astrophysics  
The Stonyhurst College Jesuit Observatory 282  
The sun and the spectroscope 284  
Our American cousins and our Irish friends 287  
__18 The Revd Thomas William Webb and the Birth 291__  
of "Popular Astronomy"  
The Revd Mr Webb of Hardwicke, 291  
astronomer and popularizer  
Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes and 293  
Webb's telescopes  
The "modest" amateur astronomer and the 295  
new reflecting telescope  
Victorian clergymen-astronomer-engineers 297  
Astronomical societies and The English Mechanic 300  
magazine  
Popular astronomy in France 303  
John Jones of Brangwyn Bach and other 303  
working-men astronomers  
__19 "Ladies of the Night": The Astronomical Women__  
in Great Britain and America 310  
Scientific education for women 310  
Professional astronomy for women in the 312  
"Old World"  
Agnes Mary Clerke of Skibbereen, 316  
the Irish historian of astronomy  
Women in the new amateur astronomical 319  
societies after 1881  
Florence Taylor: from Leeds to Minnesota 320  
Elizabeth Brown, the sun, and the eclipse-chasers 322  
The first women Fellows of the Royal 325  
Astronomical Society  
__20 Astronomy for the Masses in the Victorian Age__  
and Early Twentieth Century  
The age of self-improvement: Sunday schools, 327  
Mechanics' Institutes, and the Victorian  
"knowledge industry"  
Lord Henry Brougham: pioneer of popular 329  
education  
Astronomy shows, demonstrations, 331  
and lectures  
Richard Anthony Proctor and Sir Robert 337  
Stawell Ball: stars of the astronomical  
lecture circuit  
Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington and 341  
Sir James Hopwood Jeans: astronomy's first  
"Knights of the airwaves"  
__21 Under New World Skies: The Great American__  
Observatories  
North America's first big observatories 345  
The Harvard astrophysicists 348  
The ladies of the Harvard Observatory 348  
Alvan Clark and Sons, opticians of Boston, Massachusetts 350  
 American Liberal Arts Colleges and astronomy 352  
Percival Lowell, the "canals" of Mars, 353  
and Flagstaff, Arizona, in the west  
America's two giant refractors: the Lick and 355  
Yerkes Observatories  
America's giant reflecting telescopes 358  
Conclusion 360  
__22 On the Eve of the Watershed: Astronomy and__  
Cosmology c. 1890–1920  
The universe: a steady, stately place? 363  
The Michelson–Morley Experiment, 1887 364  
"Twinkle, twinkle, little star; now we know just 367  
what you are": the birth, life, and death of stars  
The Hertzsprung–Russell Diagram, 1910–13 371  
Henrietta Swan Leavitt and the "Cepheid" stars 373  
Harlow Shapley, the spiral galaxies, and the 375  
Milky Way  
The Great Debate: Smithsonian Museum, 379  
Washington DC, 26 April 1920  
__23 It's All Relative. The "Alice in Wonderland" World of 381__  
Early Twentieth-Century Physics  
The "physics quake" of the 1890s: X-rays, 382  
atoms, and radiation  
The mighty atom 385  
Mercury, Vulcan, and the problems of gravity 387  
The patent clerk of Bern: Albert Einstein and 388  
relativity  
Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, Einstein, and the 392  
solar eclipse of 1919  
Albert Einstein the affable celebrity 394  
Postscript 397  
__24 Crossing the Watershed: Edwin Hubble,__  
the Celebrity Astronomer of the Galaxies  
From small-town Missouri to self-created 398  
English gentleman  
Hubble, red shifts, and the "extra-galactic" universe 400  
Hubble's Law and Constant 403  
The subsequent development of Hubble's cosmos: 405  
Milton Humason, Walter Baade,  
and Allan Sandage  
Milton Humason 406  
Walter Baade 407  
Allan Sandage 408  
Edwin Hubble and the stars of Hollywood 410  
__25 The Belgian Priest–Cosmologist and the "Cosmic Egg" 412__  
Father Georges Lemaître of Leuven 412  
Making sense of modern cosmology: 414  
the Royal Astronomical Society discussion meeting,  
Burlington House, Piccadilly, London,  
10 January 1930  
Father Lemaître and Sir Arthur Eddington 416  
"It's all a 'big bang'": Sir Fred Hoyle and his 417  
steady state cosmology of 1948  
Return to the stars 420  
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and the 422  
white dwarfs  
Lemaître, Pope Pius XII, and the big bang 426  
Stephen Hawking and the black hole 426  
__26 Sir Bernard Lovell and the "Radio Universe" 428__  
Karl Jansky's "merry-go-round" and the birth of 429  
radio astronomy  
The "radio window" and how the radio telescope 431  
works  
Grote Reber of Wheaton, Illinois: an amateur leads 433  
the way – yet again!  
Sir Alfred Charles Bernard Lovell and 435  
Jodrell Bank, Cheshire  
Other great radio telescopes 441  
The achievement of radio astronomy 443  
Sir Bernard Lovell: a recollection 446  
__27 "Fly Me to the Moon": The Birth of the Space Age 449__  
Rockets into space 449  
The rocket men 451  
The first space flights 455  
Yuri Gagarin (1934–68), the first space man, 1961 457  
The Apollo missions 457  
Touchdown: the Sea of Tranquillity, 20 July 1969 459  
The Book of Genesis goes to the moon: 460  
Christmas 1968  
The end of manned missions 460  
The unmanned space probes 461  
The Hubble Space Telescope 463  
Exploring the surface of Mars 464  
Terra-forming Mars 467  
__28 A Universe for the People: Sir Patrick Moore and the 468__  
New Amateur Astronomy  
Popular astronomical fallacies 469  
Television and astronomy's new popular audience 472  
Sir Patrick Alfred Caldwell-Moore and 473  
The Sky at Night, 1957–2012  
Moonstruck: amateur astronomy and the moon 476  
after 1950  
Transient lunar phenomena, or "TLP"s 478  
Good telescopes for all 479  
The researches of modern amateur astronomers 481  
The post-1950 amateur astronomy movement 483  
Carl Edward Sagan and Cosmos, 1980 484  
Sir Patrick Moore: the man and the astronomer 485  
29 Postscript: Creation Revisited: Where Do We 489  
Stand Today?  
Life on other worlds and space travel, 490  
twenty-first-century style  
Creation, cosmology, and the mind of God 493  
Appendix: The Cock Lane Ghost, or the 496  
"Ghost Catch"  
Notes 497  
List of In-text Illustrations 508  
Further Reading 513  
Index 545

\["For astronomy enthusiasts and curious minds alike", "Explains complex discoveries in an engaging way", "You'll gain a deeper understanding of our universe"\]

Explore the fascinating journey of astronomy from past to present.

Allan Chapman

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Preface

1. From the Beginning to 1700: The Origins of Astronomy

The origins of astronomy

The earliest astronomers

What made the "Greek experience" central to Western thought?

Medieval consolidation

Europe's astronomical Renaissance

2. Cosmology Begins at Home: Captain Edmond Halley, FRS, RN, Astronomer, Geophysicist, and Adventurer

The schoolboy scientist

Early adventures: St Helena, Danzig, and across Europe: the making of a physical scientist

Edmond Halley, the father of meteorology and geophysics

Later adventures: Captain Halley RN takes HMS Paramore among the icebergs

Professor Halley and the Great Aurora Borealis of 1716

Halley studies the nebulae and ponders cosmological vastness

3. Could a Comet Have Caused Noah’s Flood?

Changing views about comets, 1580–1720

Dr Robert Hooke takes comets into the chemical laboratory in 1677

Comets tamed at last: 1680–1705

Noah's Flood, the ancient earth, comets, and the saltiness of the sea

Edmond Halley: the Astronomer Royal and the longitude, 1720–42

Religion and politics, a merry life and a sudden death

4. “Let there be more light.” How Telescope Technology Became the Arbiter in Cosmological Research

Long telescopes on tall poles

All done with mirrors: the early reflecting telescope

John Hadley and his Newtonian reflecting telescope

A golden guinea an inch: James Short turns the reflecting telescope into big business

John Dollond "perfects" the refracting telescope c. 1760

"Every gentleman must have one!" Benjamin Martin, lecturer, and entrepreneur, makes scientific instruments fashionable

5. The Rector and the Organist: Gravity, Star Clusters, and the Origins of the Milky Way

Thomas Wright of Durham and eighteenth-century speculative cosmologies

The Revd John Michell: the Pleiades Cluster, "dark stars", and gravitational "black holes" in 1783

Charles Messier: comet hunter and nebula cataloguer of the Ancien Régime in Paris

The enterprising oboist: Herschel comes to England

Herschel the fashionable church organist and musical impresario of Bath

From organ pipes to telescopes, from acoustics to optics, and on to cosmology

Bath, 13 March 1781: William Herschel discovers a "comet"

6. William and Caroline Herschel Fathom the “Construction of the Heavens” from an English Country Garden

William Herschel's telescope technology

Observing with a Herschel telescope

Stars, the Milky Way, and the "Construction of the Heavens" after 1784

"Oh Herschel! Oh Herschel! Where do you fly? To sweep the cobwebs out of the sky"

"Shining fluids", glowing rings of light, star clusters, and gravity: the Herschelian universe

Observatory House, 1784: an account by a visiting French savant

Sir William Herschel, Knight Guelph

A Herschel telescope postscript

7. Measuring the Heavens and the Earth in Eighteenth-Century Europe: Part 1: In Pursuit of Venus: Astronomy’s First Great International Adventure

In pursuit of the solar parallax

Venus in transit, June 1761

Venus transits the sun in 1769

Le Gentil and the 1769 transit

Practical observation, Venus, and the longitude

8. Measuring the Heavens and the Earth in Eighteenth-Century Europe: Part 2: Pendulums, Planets, and Gravity: Creating the Science of Geodesy

The curious behaviour of M. Richer's clock: Cayenne, Brazil, 1672

Geophysics by degrees and the shape of the earth

The Astronomer Royal, the mountain, and the village fiddler

Geophysics goes to the laboratory: Henry Cavendish and the torsion balance experiment, 1797–98

9. Cosmology and the Romantic Age

From daffodil fields to starry fields: a universe of awe and wonder

Laws of wonder: Herschel, Laplace, and the laws of gravitation

Mysteries beyond the spectrum: Sir William Herschel discovers the "dark spectrum" in 1800

Science for Georgian ladies and gentlemen

The London physician, the Bavarian orphan, and the wonders of light

Professor Bessel and the distance of the stars

Caroline the comet hunter

10. Sir John Herschel: The Universal Philosopher of the Age

John Frederick William Herschel: a genius in the making

John Herschel inherits the cosmological "family business"

Optics, chemistry, photography, and a gift for friendship

Slough, marriage, then the Cape of Good Hope

The Herschel cosmos of 1850

The size of the stars and their absolute brightness

Sir John Herschel, the universal philosopher

11. There Must Be Somebody Out There!

A fascination with "aliens"

The Revd Dr Thomas Dick of Broughty Ferry, Dundee

New York, August 1835, and the "Great Lunar Hoax"

Jules Verne: from the earth to the moon in 1865

Pity the poor Martians dying of thirst: 1877

The Martians turn nasty

So is there really anybody out there?

12. Mary Somerville: Mathematician, Astronomer, and Gifted Science Communicator

Miss Mary Fairfax, the independent-minded admiral's daughter

Two contrasting husbands

Continental travel and international mathematical fame

Mary Somerville, astronomy, and the Herschels

Early mathematical and physical works

Mary Somerville, the physical sciences expositor

On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences, Physical Geography, and On Molecular and Microscopic Science

Natural laws, religion, and her final voyage

13. Sir George Biddell Airy of Greenwich: Astronomer Royal to the British Empire

Sir George Biddell Airy (1801–92): early life and achievements

New instruments, chronometers, time, and the electric telegraph

Airy the scientific civil servant

Airy and the discovery of Neptune, 1846

"Comets, Cosmology and the Big Bang" explores astronomy's evolution from 1700 to 2000. It features key figures, discoveries, and the race to the moon, appealing to history and science enthusiasts.

\["Interested in the history of human development? ","This book charts the story of Halley, Hooke, Herschel, Hubble and Hoyle","A great way to grow your love of Science's fascinating history "\]

For stargazers and science enthusiasts alike, this history of the field of Astronomy follows the lives of its key movers and shakers. The people who opened up God's cosmos.

Comets, Cosmology and the Big Bang

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