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History of Astronomy

History of Astronomy

by George FORBES (1849 - 1936)

An attempt has been made in these pages to trace the evolution of intellectual thought in the progress of astronomical discovery, and, by recognising the different points of view of the different ages, to give due credit even to the ancients. No one can expect, in a history of astronomy of limited size, to find a treatise on “practical” or on “theoretical astronomy,” nor a complete “descriptive astronomy,” and still less a book on “speculative astronomy.” Something of each of these is essential, however, for tracing the progress of thought and knowledge which it is the object of this History to describe. - Summary from the Preface


Chapter 1: Primitive Astronomy and Astrology

Chapter 10: Instruments of Precision - Size of the Solar System

Chapter 11: History of the Telescope - Spectroscope

Chapter 12: The Sun

Chapter 13: The Moon and Planets

Chapter 14: Comets and Meteors

Chapter 15: The Stars and Nebulae

Chapter 2: Ancient Chinese and Chaldaeans

Chapter 3: Ancient Greek Astronomy

Chapter 4: The Reign of Epicycles - From Ptolemy to Copernicus

Chapter 5: The Discovery of the True Solar System - Tycho Brahe - Kepler

Chapter 6: Galileo and the Telescope - Notions of Gravity by Horrocks, etc

Chapter 7: Sir Issac Newton - Law of Universal Gravitation

Chapter 8: Newton's Successors - Haley, Euler, LaGrange, LaPlance, etc

Chapter 9: Discovery of New Planets - Herschel, Piazzi, Adams, and Le Verrier

Preface