A TRIAD OF CONTEMPORARY ASTRONOMERS.
It is a remarkable fact in the history of astronomy (says Sir David Brewster), that three of its most distinguished professors were contemporaries. Galileo was the contemporary of Tycho during thirty-seven years, and of Kepler during the fifty-nine years of his life. Galileo was born seven years before Kepler, and survived him nearly the same time. We have not learned that the intellectual triumvirate of the age enjoyed any opportunity for mutual congratulation. What a privilege would it have been to have contrasted the aristocratic dignity of Tycho with the reckless ease of Kepler, and the manly and impetuous mien of the Italian sage!—Brewster’s Life of Newton.
A PEASANT ASTRONOMER.
At about the same time that Goodricke discovered the variation of the remarkable periodical star Algol, or β Persei, one Palitzch, a farmer of Prolitz, near Dresden,—a peasant by station, an astronomer by nature,—from his familiar acquaintance with the aspect of the heavens, was led to notice, among so many thousand stars, Algol, as distinguished from the rest by its variation, and ascertained its period. The same Palitzch was also the first to re-discover the predicted comet of Halley in 1759, which he saw nearly a month before any of the astronomers, who, armed with their telescopes, were anxiously watching its return. These anecdotes carry us back to the era of the Chaldean shepherds.—Sir John Herschel’s Outlines.
SHIRBURN-CASTLE OBSERVATORY.
Lord Macclesfield, the eminent mathematician, who was twelve years President of the Royal Society, built at his seat, Shirburn Castle in Oxfordshire, an Observatory, about 1739. It stood 100 yards south from the castle-gate, and consisted of a bed-chamber, a room for the transit, and the third for a mural quadrant. In the possession of the Royal Astronomical Society is a curious print representing two of Lord Macclesfield’s servants taking observations in the Shirburn observatory; they are Thomas Phelps, aged 82, who, from being a stable-boy to Lord-Chancellor Macclesfield, rose by his merit and genius to be appointed observer. His companion is John Bartlett, originally a shepherd, in which station he, by books and observation, acquired such a knowledge in computation, and of the heavenly bodies, as to induce Lord Macclesfield to appoint him assistant-observer in his observatory. Phelps was the person who, on December 23d, 1743, discovered the great comet, and made the first observation of it; an account of which is entered in the Philosophical Transactions, but not the name of the observer.
LACAILLE’S OBSERVATORY.
Lacaille, who made more observations than all his contemporaries put together, and whose researches will have the highest value as long as astronomy is cultivated, had an observatory at the Collège Mazarin, part of which is now the Palace of the Institute, at Paris.
For a long time it had been without observer or instruments; under Napoleon’s reign it was demolished. Lacaille never used to illuminate the wires of his instruments. The inner part of his observatory was painted black; he admitted only the faintest light, to enable him to see his pendulum and his paper: his left eye was devoted to the service of looking to the pendulum, whilst his right eye was kept shut. The latter was only employed to look to the telescope, and during the time of observation never opened but for this purpose. Thus the faintest light made him distinguish the wires, and he very seldom felt the necessity of illuminating them. Part of these blackened walls were visible long after the demolition of the observatory, which took place somewhat about 1811.—Professor Mohl.