Essays on Astronomical History and Heritage: A Tribute to Wayne Orchiston on his 80th Birthday

ISBN-13: 9783031294921 / Angielski

Steven Gullberg; Peter Robertson

Opis

This multidisciplinary work celebrates Wayne Orchiston's career and accomplishments in historical and cultural astronomy on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Over thirty of the world’s leading scholars in astronomy, astrophysics, astronomical history, and cultural astronomy have come together to honor Wayne across a wide range of research topics. 

These themes include:

• Astronomy and Society
• Emergence of Astrophysics
History of Radio Astronomy
• Solar System
• Observatories and Instrumentation
• Ethnoastronomy and Archeoastronomy

This exceptional collection of essays presents an overview of Wayne’s prolific contributions to the field, along with detailed accounts of the book’s diverse themes. It is a valuable and insightful volume for both researchers and others interested in the fields of historical astronomy and cultural astronomy.

Spis treści

History of Radio Astronomy

Martin George, Grote Reber in Tasmania

Kenneth I. Kellermann, The search for extraterrestrial civilizations:  A scientific, technical,

political, and cultural adventure

James Lequeux, Wayne Orchiston and the history of radio astronomy

Peter Robertson, The hole-in-the-ground telescope and the discovery of the Galactic centre

Virginia Trimble, Radio, radar, John Bolton, Joseph Weber, and the landing at Gela Beach 1943

Harry Wendt, Remains of the day: Historical remnants of the CSIRO Radiophysics field stations

Richard Wielebinski, History of cosmic magnetic fields

 

Emergence of Astrophysics

Alan Batten, The mere fanciful abstractions of science

David H. DeVorkin, Henry Norris Russell’s campaign to make Physics the core of Astrophysics

John Hearnshaw, Astronomical travels in Asia

Wolfgang Steinicke, The discovery of the Coma Galaxy Cluster

 

Transits of Venus

Brad Schaefer, The black drop during transits of Venus and antique telescopes

Sara Schechner, Politics and the dimensions of the Solar System: John Winthrop’s transit of Venus expeditions

Christiaan Sterken, Transits of Venus

 

Solar Eclipses & Solar Physics

Stella Cottam, “Where’s Waldo” – Leonard Waldo and the 1878 total solar eclipse in Fort Worth

Gerry Gilmore, Gudrun Tausch-Pebody and Ben Hilligsoe Harvey, Re-examining the 1920s Lick and Potsdam solar eclipse light-bending tests of General Relativity

Jay Pasachoff, Solar eclipses in Wayne’s span

 

Observatories & Instrumentation   

Jana Ruth Ford, Three Dyer Observatory astronomers

Roger Kinns, Evolutions in the history of visual time signals for mariners

Nick Lomb, Closing Encounters: The efforts of the New South Wales Branch of the British Astronomical Association to save Sydney Observatory

Glen Rowe, Finding colonial New Zealand's place in the world – Astronomy and a geodesical surveyor

 

Ethno- & Archaeo-astronomy

Steven Gullberg, Inca cultural astronomy

Duane Hamacher and Robert Fuller, Aboriginal astronomy in the Sydney basin

Trevor M. Leaman and Duane W. Hamacher, Using the Significant Horizons methodology to determine potential astronomical use of Aboriginal stone arrangements

Jefferson Sauter, Astronomical phenomena in Armenian and Georgian written sources (AD 1000–1900)

 

Asteroids/Comets/Meteors

Cliff Cunningham, The evolution of ‘meteor’ as an astronomical trope 1590–1760

John Drummond, John Tebbutt and the Great Comet of 1881

 

Other Fields

Richard de Grijs, Star charts of the Dutch East India Company

Stephen J. Dick, Cosmos and Culture: Linking the Heavens and the Earth

Lars Gislen, Sweden’s Thirty Days in February: Calendar Reform

William Sheehan, The flower and the bee: Competing observers of Mars in 1894, and a bit of Fristonian philosophy of science

Woodruff T. Sullivan, William Herschel and the Moon

William Tobin, The life and science of Léon Foucault as a muse

 

Details still to come for two papers: Ian Glass (Cape Town) and Richard Stephenson (Durham)

O autorze

Steven Gullberg holds a Ph.D. in astronomy from James Cook University (Australia) and is Professor of Cultural Astronomy at the University of Oklahoma (USA), where he is Lead Faculty for the School of Integrative and Cultural Studies. He is the University’s Director for Archaeoastronomy and Astronomy in Culture, serves as Chair of the International Astronomical Union’s Working Group for Astronomy in Culture, and serves as the Managing Editor of the Journal of Astronomy in Culture. He has conducted extensive field research on the astronomy of the Incas in the Peruvian Andes and has written many research papers. He is the author of Astronomy of the Inca Empire: Use and Significance of the Sun and the Night Sky (Springer Nature, 2020), co-editor of Education and Heritage in the Era of Big Data Astronomy (Cambridge University Press, 2021), and co-editor of Cultural Astronomy in Latin America (World Scientific, in press). At the University of Oklahoma, he led the development of an archaeoastronomy distance-learning program and courses designed to educate researchers around the world. Steven regularly presents papers at international conferences as he endeavors to globally advance the field of Cultural Astronomy. 

Peter Robertson holds a PhD in the history of astronomy from the University of Southern Queensland (Australia) and is currently an honorary research fellow in the Astrophysics Group at the University of Melbourne. Peter spent most of his career in science publishing, including over twenty years as the Managing Editor of the Australian Journal of Physics, published jointly by CSIRO and the Australian Academy of Science. Since his retirement in 2009, he has spent much of his time researching the development of radio astronomy in Australia. He is the author of three books: Beyond Southern Skies: Radio Astronomy and the Parkes Telescope (Cambridge University Press, 1992); Radio Astronomer: John Bolton and a New Window on the Universe (NewSouth Books, 2017); and Golden Years of Australian Radio Astronomy: An Illustrated History (Springer, in press). Peter is currently an Associate Editor of Journal of Astronomical History & Heritage.