A New Manual of the Elements of Astronomy, Descriptive and Mathematical: Comprising the Latest Discoveries and Theoretic Views : with Directions for the Use of the Globes, and for Studying the Constellations

Front Cover
Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor,, 1877 - Astronomy - 284 pages
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 10 - A Circle is a plane figure bounded by a curved line every point of which is equally distant from a point within called the center.
Page 14 - A sphere is a solid, bounded by one continued convex surface, every point of which is equally distant from a point within, called the centre.
Page 218 - Lepaute was such, that, without her, we never could have dared to undertake this enormous labor, in which it was necessary to calculate the distance of each of the two planets, Jupiter and Saturn, from the comet, and their attraction upon that body, separately, for every successive degree, and for one hundred and fifty years.
Page 223 - Towards the morning of the 13th of November, 1799, we witnessed a most extraordinary scene of shooting meteors. Thousands of bodies and falling stars succeeded each other during four hours. Their direction was very regular from north to south. From the beginning of the phenomenon there was not a space in the firmament equal in extent to three diameters of the moon which was not filled every instant with bodies or falling stars. All the meteors left luminous traces or phosphorescent bands behind them,...
Page 34 - If you forgive me, I rejoice; if you are angry, I can bear it: the die is cast, the book is written ; to be read either now or by posterity, I care not which : it may well wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer.
Page 34 - I will indulge in my sacred fury ; I will triumph over mankind by the honest confession that I have stolen the golden vases of the Egyptians to build up a tabernacle for my God far from the confines of Egypt.
Page 70 - The LATITUDE OF A HEAVENLY BODY is its distance from the ecliptic, north or south. Celestial latitude must of course be reckoned upon a secondary to the ecliptic, from 0
Page 78 - Were it not for the reflective and scattering power of the atmosphere, no objects would be visible to us out of direct sunshine; every shadow of a passing cloud would be pitchy darkness ; the stars would be visible all day, and every apartment, into which the sun had not direct admission, would be involved in nocturnal obscurity.
Page 33 - I had promised my friends in the title of this book, which I named before I was sure of my discovery ; what, sixteen years ago, I urged as a thing to be sought; that for which I joined Tycho Brahe, for which I settled in Prague, for which I have devoted the best part of my life to astronomical contemplations ; — at length I have brought to light, and have recognised its truth beyond my most sanguine expectations.

Bibliographic information