astronomy, astronomie, astronomye, astronomige

[In Sw. & Dan. astronomi; Ger. & Fr. astronomie; Sp., Port., & Ital. astronomia Lat. astronómia; Gr. ἀστρονομία ( astronomia ): ἄστρον (astron) a star, and νομός ( nomos ) = usage, custom, law; νέμω (nemo) = to deal out, to distribute.] *1. Originally: The pseudo science which studied the movements of the stars, with the view of obtaining information (which they were not fitted to give) regarding the destiny of individuals or bodies of men; astrology. [ASTROLOGY. See also ASTRONOMER.] "And hem lerede, witter like Astronomige and arsmetike." Story of Gen. and Exod . (ed. Morris), 791-2. "Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck, And yet methinks I have astronomy . Shakesp.: Sonnets , 14. 2. Subsequently and now: The sublime science which treats of the distances, magnitudes, ma es, composition, motions, and all that is discoverable regarding the heavenly astronomic-astro-theology A bodies, meaning the sun, the earth, the moon, the planets, the fixed stars, the comets, the meteorites, the nebulæ, and all other material bodies really or apparently moving in infinite space. It is founded on careful and oft repeated observations, made chiefly with elaborately-constructed instruments [ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS); these observations being next made the basis of reasoning, founded, wherever it is practicable, as it generally is, on mathematical demonstration. Astronomy may be variously divided. simple distinction is sometimes made into geography , which treats of the earth, and uranography, the subject of which is the "heavens." Sometimes the branch of science which describes the celestial bodies as they are is called Descriptive Astronomy. When the specific subject treated is the "fixed" stars, it becomes Sidereal Astronomy. The sciences now mentioned have sought rather to record than to explain phenomena; but what is called Physical Astronomy proposes to itself the high aim of accounting for the facts observed. Its chief ally in this arduous task is mathematics, with which every astronomer worthy of the name requires to be very familiar. The vault of heaver being visible in all its glory alternately by day and night in every portion of the world, absolute ignorance regarding celestial phenomena cannot have existed in any place or at any time. The people belonging to some nations were, however, more observant in this respect than others, and claims to early proficiency in astronomy, in some cases leading to vehement controversy, have been preferred in favour of the Chinese, the Chaldæans, the Egyptians, and the Hindoos. In these and other countries, in early times, the stars were not so much studied as worshipped, there being strong temptation, even in the most pious minds, to this form of religious error (Job xxx i. 26-28). Hipparch us of Bithynia and Rhodes (?), who flourished from B.C. 160 to 125, catalogued the stars visible above the horizon, noting down 1,080. Among his numerous discoveries may be reckoned the prece ion of the equinoxes, trigonometry, and apparently the stereographic projection of the sphere. The next very great name was that of Ptolemy, the geographer and astronomer of Alexandria, A.D. 130-150, who discovered the lunar evection, refraction, . [EVECTION, REFRACTION.] He was also the author of the Ptolemaic system, with its primum mobile , its eccentrics, and its epicycles. "Oh, how unlike the complex works of man Heaven's easy, artle , unencumbered plan!" Cowper Truth The The Arabs translated a work of Ptolemy's called Μέγιστη ( Megiste ) into their own language, and prefixing to its name their article alt he, transformed it into Almagest. The Christians during the "dark ages" deriving their knowledge of astronomy from the Arabs rather than from a study of the heavens, received from their instructors the Ptolemaic system and the Almagest, which did not lose credit in Western Europe till the seventeenth century. [ALMAGEST, PTOLEMAIC.] In 1472 or 1473 was born Copernicus, who in 1543, just before his death, published his great work, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies, composed more than thirteen years before. It propounded the Copernican system [COPERNICAN], which, modified and improved, is now received as established truth, being supported by an amount of evidence of which Copernicus had no conception. next very great name is that of Tycho Brahé, a Dane by birth, but of Swedish ancestry. He was born on the 14th of December, 1546, and died in 1601. Though not accepting the Copernican system, but holding views partly borrowed from Copernicus and partly from Ptolemy [TYCHONIC), his extensive and accurate observations gave a great impulse to astronomy, and prepared the way for further discoveries, in addition to those which he had himself made. Two great names now come together upon the scene, those of Kepler and of Galileo. The former was a pupil of Tycho. He will for ever be remembered for the discovery of the three laws which bear his name, the first and second made known in 1609, and the third in 1618. [KEPLER'S LAWs.] About 1581, Galileo had discovered the isochronism of the pendulum [PENDULUM]; having constructed a telescope, he discovered in 1610 the satellites of Jupiter, the phases of Venus, the mountains of the moon, with other new truths. In 1642, the year in which Galileo died, Sir IMG:content-0844.png:[blocks in formation] The year that Newton died (1727) was the one in which the discovery was made by Bradley of the aberration of light, which irrefragably proved the motion of the earth, and gave the death-blow to the Ptolemaic and Tychonic systems, both of which were founded on the hypothesis that it was stationary. As we approach modern times the discoveries become far too numerous to be chronicled here; but room must be found to mention the Herschel family-the first of the name, Sir William Herschel, who was born in 1738, and died in 1822, having, among other great discoveries, added nine new members of the solar system, one of them, the planet Uranus, to the eighteen previously known. The work on astronomy so often quoted in these pages was penned by his son, Sir John Herschel, also a great discoverer; and the third generation of the family are now at work. Many discoveries will be found recorded under other articles. [ASTEROID, COMET, CONSTELLATION, GRAVITATION, PLANET, SOLAR SYSTEM, STAR, .] "In astronomy, for instance, the superior depart ments of theory ory are completely disjoined from the routine of practical observation. -Herschel: Study of Nat . Phil . (1831), § 126,