Related papers: Boscovich and the Brera Observatory
Observations of the solar corona at the Pic du Midi began with Bernard Lyot and his spectro coronagraph installed on the multi-purpose equatorial mount of the Baillaud cupola. It was not until 1956 that domes and instruments specifically…
The Italian Jesuit astronomer Giovanni Battista (Giambattista) Riccioli constructed a powerful, thoroughly scientific argument in favor of geocentrism - an argument based on telescopic observations of stars. This paper contains a rendition…
During the voyages that led him to discover the new continent bearing his name, Amerigo Vespucci made interesting astronomical observations of the southern sky. In the past, his data have been interpreted with criteria that do not follow…
Johannes Hevelius's 1662 Mercurius in Sole Visus Gedani contains a table of magnitudes and apparent telescopic diameters of nineteen stars. The data conform to a simple model, suggesting that Hevelius produced what is essentially a table of…
What are the historical evidence concerning the turning of the spyglass into an astronomical instrument, the telescope? In Sidereus Nuncius and in his private correspondence Galileo tells the reader what he did with the telescope, but he…
Exactly 500 years ago, Nicolaus Copernicus drew a lattice of lines on a panel above the doorway to his rooms at Olsztyn Castle, then in the Bishopric of Warmia. Although its design has long been regarded as some kind of reflecting vertical…
The Jesuit scientist Christopher Clavius (1538-1612) has been the most influential teacher of the renaissance. His contributions to algebra, geometry, astronomy and cartography are enormous. He paved the way, with his texts and his teaching…
The alleged use of Keplerian telescopes by Fabio Colonna (1567-1640), in Naples, since as early as October 1614, as claimed in some recent papers, is shown to be in fact untenable and due to a misconception.
Meridian circles played a fundamental role in astronomy since their invention in 1704. Then, at the end of the XX century, this function had been taken over by space astrometry, when the Hipparcos mission demonstrated the advantages of…
In the distant past, astronomy was often intertwined with religion into a unified cosmos. As science became a distinct cultural enterprise, astronomy has witnessed a variety of rich interactions with other fields. Mathematical statistics…
The Baltic meetings of astronomers from Northern Germany and Scandinavia began in 1957 and gathered up to 70 participants. Reports of the presentations are available from all meetings, providing an overview of the interests of astronomers…
The third column of the left row in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli in Rome, has a hole carved in it, of probable astronomical use. The tube aims at a point a 116 degrees of azimut, East-South-East and 17.3 degrees of altitude, the…
The Copernican Principle (which says the Earth and sun are not unique) should have observational consequences and thus be testable. Galileo Galilei thought he could measure the true angular diameters of stars with his telescope; according…
When the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) was conceived and its first science cases defined, exoplanets had not been detected. Later studies, however, showed that optical and near-infrared photometric and…
The principle that celestial bodies must move on circular orbits or on paths resulting from the composition of circular orbits has been assumed as a constant guide in the astronomical thougth of the peoples facing the Mediterranean sea as…
This project aims to attract school students and teachers from the state education system from Ca\c{c}apava do Sul - RS to Sciences and specially to Astronomy. We made astronomical observations using a Galileoscope choosing the Moon as a…
The Plate Archive of the Cordoba Observatory includes 20.000 photographs and spectra on glass plates dating from 1893 to 1983. This contribution describes the work performed since the plate archive was transferred to the Observatory Library…
In this paper, we examine the evolution of a specific mathematical problem, i.e. the nine-point conic, a generalisation of the nine-point circle due to Steiner. We will follow this evolution from Steiner to the Neapolitan school (Trudi and…
The general prohibition of books advocating heliocentric theory put many progressive Jesuits in a difficult position. One of the most prominent Jesuit scientists of the 18th century, Rogerius Boscovich, was in particularly affected by…
The purpose of this note consists of discrete rational reconstruction which took place during the years 1609-1630 and 1630-1666, ie, the year of the publication of their Astronomia Nova and the year of death of the great German astronomer…