The Journal of Astronomical Data 2005, Volume 11 ABSTRACTS =============================================================== [JAD 11, 1] CCD photometry of WX Ceti in quiescence and outburst C. Sterken, N. Vogt, M. Uemura, T. Tuvikene, M. Knudsen and H. W. Duerbeck WX Cet (Nova Cet 1963) - a SU UMa type dwarf nova - was observed in 2001 and in 2004-2005 during superoutburst and subsequent quiescence. This paper presents the complete light curve material in digital form, and provides a number of nightly-averaged BVR CCD frames of the WX Ceti field for calibration purposes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [JAD 11, 2] A Catalog and Atlas of Cataclysmic Variables: The Final Edition Ronald A. Downes, Ronald F. Webbink, Michael M. Shara, Hans Ritter, Ulrich Kolb, and Hilmar W. Duerbeck The Catalog and Atlas of Cataclysmic Variables has been a staple of the CV community for over 10 years. The catalog has grown from 751 CVs in 1993 to 1600 CVs at present. The catalog became a "living" edition in 2001, and its contents have been continually updated since that time. Effective 27 January 2006, the catalog will transition to an archival site, with no further updates to its contents. While it is antipicated that the site will remain active, we present the complete contents of the site as a precaution against a loss of the on-line data. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- [JAD 11, 3] BOOK REVIEW: The Physicist and Astronomer Christopher Scheiner: Biography, Letters, Works Franz Daxecker (Reviewed by Hilmar W. Duerbeck) The Innsbruck ophthalmologist Univ.-Prof. Dr. Daxecker has already presented many valuable contributions on the Jesuit astronomer Christoph Scheiner (1573-1650) and his scientific activities. Most of Daxecker's researches were published in German; this book presents the first thorough study of Scheiner's life and work in English. It gives an excellent overview on this contemporary and adversary of Galileo Galilei. Besides three extensive chapters on his work, his correspondence and his writings, the book includes a recently rediscovered obituary text of 1650, and a list of commemorative places. This review cannot give a full account of Scheiner's life as an astronomer, architect, docent, father confessor, advisor in spiritual and mundane matters; the reader is referred to the 40 well-referenced pages in Daxecker's book. As concerns the second part, the correspondence, Daxecker gives letters and concepts in the form of English summaries. These are mainly notes of his superiors, which permit glimpses on his character - often admonitions to pay his debts (the publication of his opus magnum on solar spots had exhausted his financial resources), the selling of instruments, the observance of paucity (which he obviously neglected), and the reproach of his "hot-blooded nature". The third part gives summaries of his lecture on "De tubo optico" and of his published writings on sunspots (Rosa Ursina, 1626-1630), atmospheric refraction (Sol ellipticus, 1615), optics of the human eye (Oculus hoc est, 1619), etc. The Jesuit Scheiner deeply rooted in the theological establishment and had to take into consideration the accepted teachings of Aristotle. When he announced the discovery of sunspots, he used the pseudonym Apelles (an antique artist who hid behind his work of art to listen to the opinion of the spectators); the publication of the postume "Prodromus de sole mobili" (1651) also shows his cautious, conservative behavior in astronomy. On the other hand, his basic mathematical-physical- physiological studies (pantograph, the construction of telescopes, the refraction, the structure of the human eye) were less confined by an ideological corset. The book was written in German and was translated into English. The translation appears at places somewhat clumsy, although the somewhat peculiar wording can often be clarified by the use of a dictionary. One of the major flaws is the statement that Scheiner discovered "flares" on the sun (once also "torches" are mentioned); an earlier German version of this section correctly mentions "Fackeln". Solar flares were only discovered in 1859, Scheiner himself described "faculae", an expression that is also used in present-day English. Not only Scheiner had his problems with the heliocentric system: The book cover shows a geocentric world system, which is described as "heliocentric system of Father Christopher Clavius". On p. 37 we read "the Copernican teachings and thus the hypothesis of Galilei, that the sun was orbiting around the earth", and we wonder what the Galilei trial was all about. An edition of writings by and on Galilei, written by A. Mudry, contains the sentence "... erbringen die Beobachtungen dieses Buches [von Scheiner] so viele Beweise, um der Sonne die ihr zugeschriebene Bewegung abzusprechen, dass ich nicht zu glauben vermag, dass Pater Scheiner nicht selbst in seinem Herzen an die Meinung des Kopernikus glaubt." Now this is certainly a sentence that Mark Twain would have loved to quote in his study of the "awful German language", and indeed the translator lost his track in the piles of suspended negations, and wrote "the observations of Father Scheiner in the Rosa Ursina contain such prolific evidence for the circulation of the sun around the Earth that I am sure Father Scheiner agrees with Copernicus at the bottom of his heart." In 1891, A. v. Braunmuehl published the last extensive biography of Christoph Scheiner. Daxecker's new authoritative biography summarizes earlier studies on single aspects of the author and of other modern Scheiner researchers, which were often published in sources which are difficult to access (regional publications, exhibition catalogs, and Festschriften). The somewhat ambiguous English translation suggests a careful and cautious reading. Nevertheless, this is an important book on Scheiner's many-sided researches and a valuable contribution on the reception of the heliocentric system in the 17th century. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- [JAD 11, 4] BOOK REVIEW: Der historische Buchbestand der Universitaetssternwarte Wien - Ein illustrierter Katalog. Teil 1: 15. bis 17. Jahrhundert. Franz Kerschbaum and Thomas Posch (Reviewed by Hilmar W. Duerbeck) On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of Vienna University Observatory, the authors present the first part of a catalogue that lists those Observatory library holdings which were published before 1800. Part I presents 167 items published before 1700. In an inventory of Austrian libraries of 1900, the University Observatory announced that "a catalogue of the holdings is in preparation, which will be published in the Annals of this institution". 105 years later, this promise has partly been fulfilled. In an age where library catalogues can be queried world-wide through the internet, such a printed catalogue may appear a little bit old-fashioned. Nevertheless, the authors and the reviewer find good reasons - given at the end of this review - why such a supplementary printed catalogue can be a useful tool. The book has a brief introduction that informs about the scope of the catalogue, the history of the Observatory and its library, and the development of the book holdings based on publication date. This is followed by the actual catalogue of 167 entries, where one page is assigned to a given book, arranged in chronological order (and followed by an author index), and finally a list of notes to some of the more important books is given. A book entry contains the name of the author in a modern version and the year of publication. Then follow the title (short as well as extended version), author, place of issue, publisher, language, number or pages and book size, bibliographic information in several catalogues (like Lalande's Bibliographie astronomique of 1803, or the German Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachraum erschienenen Drucke, VD 16 and 17 - see www.vd17.de), the catalogue number in the Observatory library, and listings of additional copies in the Vienna University and Austrian National Libraries. In addition, one, two, three (or rarely more) illustrations from the book are shown - at least the title page of each volume can be inspected. Although the reviewer can only praise the general contents of the book, and likes to congratulate the authors on their achievement, he likes to focus on a point that is not clearly elaborated. This point, however, can be investigated with the help of the illustrations. The authors plot the individual and cumulative number of books in the Observatory library versus year of publication. Does this graph indeed show the "development of the holdings"? They caution that "indeed, the publication year cannot directly be set equal to the year of purchase, but, with a high probability, the publication number of books in a certain decade reflects the purchase number in the corresponding decade." I like to challenge this statement. The first book dates from 1473, and the first University Observatory in Vienna was founded in 1755 by Maximilian Hell S.J. Thus the library cannot have acquired any of the books in this catalogue directly after publication. This is, of course, trivial, and the authors mention that the library has "absorbed" the holdings of older institutions, mainly libraries of Jesuit colleges. Indeed, many books carry the handwritten line "Domus Professae Soc. Jesu Viennae", "Collegij Societatis Jesu Viennae" and, often added, "Speculae Astronomiae 1740". But does the graph reveal the purchase activity of these precursor libraries? Apparently, there was a notable influx of old books in fairly recent times, since the reproduced title pages often give hints for the acquisition of a book. Often one notes the old, almost rectangular rubber stamp "Observatorium Universitatis Vindobonensis C: R:", which seems to belong to the era of Maximilian Hell and his successors. It was replaced by a plain stamp "K.K. Universitaets-Sternwarte Wien", covering the era 1867-1918. Finally, this was replaced by a round stamp showing a single-headed eagle in the centre, surrounded by the text "Universitaets-Sternwarte Wien", and obviously used after 1918. All of these stamps are found on title pages of the books printed before 1700. According to my cursory census, 67 books show the rectangular, 33 the plain "Kakanian", and 15 the round stamp. Indeed, 11 of the 15 books stamped with the post-1918 stamp also carry a rubber-stamped inscription "Vermaechtnis Rudolf K\oenig". Since the authors are silent on this, I like to provide some information: Rudolf Koenig (1865-1927), a rich merchant and owner of a private observatory, lived in Hietzing, a suburb of Vienna; he was interested in selenological studies and was the editor of the second part of J.N. Krieger's Lunar Atlas (1898-1912). Apparently his library was inherited by Vienna University Observatory. It included, e.g., the incunabula Procli Diadochi Sphaera of 1499, or Cellarius' atlas Harmonia Macrocosmica of 1661. That this was not a singular event can be seen from other title page notes. Five books by Kepler, Landsbergen and Scheiner carry the inscription "Ex Libris R. P. Philippi Miller" - and perhaps belonged to Philipp Mueller (1583-1659), a professor of mathematics in Leipzig, who was one of Kepler's correspondents. Handwritten notes indicate that they were incorporated into the Jesuit College library in 1687. At the end of the catalogue, auxiliary notes are devoted to the 37 more important books of the collection. I found them quite informative, and only discovered one obscure point: It is said about the author of Apologia pro Galileo, Tommasso Campanella, that "he intended to move those circles in Rome, which he supposed to be inclined towards the geocentric world view, to counteract the repressive measures against Galilei." I suspect that the authors wanted to say heliocentric (see also my review of Daxecker's book). To conclude, let me add a personal note. On the back cover, Kerschbaum and Posch write "especially in the German-speaking region, there is hardly an astronomical library with comparable, historically grown, holdings". Almost thirty years ago, the reviewer, in his leisure time, systematically catalogued the historical holdings of the Bonn Observatory library for the first time (H. Duerbeck, Verzeichnis alter Buecher 1482-1800..., Bonn 1976, unpublished typoscript). I count 161 items published before 1700. Thus, Bonn Observatory has comparable holdings, although there are no general trends in the names of previous owners on the title pages that allow to elucidate in what way it has "historically grown". Summing up: More than any on-line version, this fine catalogue of old astronomical books offers many opportunities to the reader to start his or her own inquiries into various historical issues. It is warmly recommended to astronomical libraries and serious students in the history of astronomy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- [JAD 11, 5] BOOK REVIEW: Astronomy in and around Prague. Colloquium of the Working Group of the History of Astronomy, Prague, September 30, 2004. Gudrun Wolfschmidt and Martin Solc (Reviewed by Hilmar W. Duerbeck) This publication appeared in the series Acta Universitatis Carolinae, Mathematica et Physica. Nevertheless, it has also an ISBN book number - but it does not have a title page, and does not mention any editors. A foreword in which "the editors" are mentioned is signed by G. Wolfschmidt and M. Solc, thus I will assume that they are indeed the editors of this volume. As mentioned in the title, a meeting of the Working Group of the History of Astronomy (Arbeitskreis Astronomiegeschichte), which is a formation within the Astronomische Gesellschaft, took place in Prague on September 20, 2004. Twenty written contributions - fifteen in English, five in German - cover topics ranging from astronomy in medieval Prague to Czech and German astronomers at the Prague University in the 20th century, with a main focus on Brahe, Kepler, and their contemporaries. While Astronomy in Medieval Prague by Alena Hadravova and Petr Hadrava gives a brief overview of the field, the following contribution by Ingrid Guentherod deals with one of the early women astronomers, Maria Cunitia (= Kunitz, 1604?-1664), and her planetary tables, Urania Propitia, published in 1650. The author complains, in my opinion a little bit too strongly, about the terrible neglect that Kunitz suffered from most historians of astronomy. I believe, however, that the complaint of neglect is not valid; Delambre, Wolf and Maedler deal extensively with Kunitz in their history books (only Zinner keeps silence in 1931), she is also mentioned in Montucla's and Kaestner's histories of mathematics; the latter offers eight pages of information, besides praise he also adds background information on her life, which is not drawn from Kunitz' book itself (as is done in the other sources). True, Delambre is quite critical about Kunitz - but certainly not as devastating as with Ptolemy ... The next contribution, by Alena Solcova, deals with the incorrect name "Tycho de Brahe", and who might have been responsible for this version of the Danish astronomer's name. She traces the name back to a novel of the effluent German writer Amalia Schoppe, Tycho de Brahe. Ein historischer Roman of 1839, and to the Bohemian journalist Anton Faehnrich, who wrote an article on der grosse Sternenforscher Tycho de Brahe in 1841. The author gives a brief biography of Faehnrich, but not one of the quite colorful Mrs. Schoppe (Burg auf Fehmarn 1791 - New York 1858). But are these the earliest occurrences? Using the Karlsruher virtueller Katalog (http://www.ubka.uni-karlsruhe.de/kvk.html), it was easy for the reviewer to find an earlier, and much more authoritative source, the Goettingen mathematician and historian of science Abraham Gotthelf Kaestner, who used "de Brahe" in an article of 1783 and later in his verbose, and thus quite voluminous Geschichte der Mathematik. And this may not be the earliest occurrence of "de Brahe" in the printed record. Tycho is also called "von Brahe" in the first German biography, translated by Philander von der Weistritz (= Chr. Gottlob Mengel). An interesting article by Zdislav Sima and Jiri Valevska deals with the identification of true handwritten notes by Tycho Brahe. The next article, by Josef Smolka, deals with G.J. Rheticus und Prag, and I like to praise the author for not expressing himself in the standard scientific language of poor English, but, instead, in German. However, I deplore that none of the editors (assuming that there are German-speaking persons among them) has taken the effort to eliminate the numerous typographic and stylistic inaccuracies that distract from the reading of this interesting article. And not only that - the book is full of misprints, errors and inaccuracies; in the year of Mozart's 250th birthday, let us paraphrase the words which were first sung in Prague: "Ma in questo libro son gia mille e tre"! Armin Gerl investigates the relations between Galilei and Kepler, and tries to find out the reasons why the former did not recognize the latter's insight, and only quoted him in order to criticize him. Besides Kepler's dark and mathematically demanding texts it especially was Kepler's mystic world view and his speculations about forces acting at a distance which Galilei abhorred. The "pansophy" cultivated at Rudolf II's Prague court, the longing for universal knowledge and the unveiling of God's master plan culminated in Kepler's Harmonice Mundi; Galilei, however, was afraid that such mystical speculations discredited Copernicus' teachings. Thomas Posch and Franz Kerschbaum deal with a "hot topic" of 2004: the Venus transits of 1631 and 1639, their prediction by Kepler and Horrocks, the planetary theories on which these predictions were based, Horrocks' observation and reduction of the event, and the posthumous publication of his results by Hevelius. Klaudia Einhorn and Guenter Wuchterl analyze Kepler's Wallenstein-horoscopes that bring some light into Kepler's relation to astrology. Rahlf Hansen deals with another aspect of Kepler's astrology, i.e. the explanation of the star of Bethlehem, which was presumably caused by a rare planetary constellation - the brightening of Kepler's supernova of 1604 indeed was preceded by another such rare constellation. Hansen argues that there is no need to postulate a historic event, but that there were strong political-theological reasons to include such an event in the Christmas texts. Let us quote another confusing misprint here: "Muenter (1821) Quoten in Zdeler (1826)". After a vain attempt to find the Zedler Lexicon in the list or references, an Ideler is finally found: thus the section should read: Muenter (1821) quoted in Ideler (1826)! Franz Daxecker gives a summary of Christoph Scheiner's principal work "Rosa Ursina", which also form part of his Scheiner biography, p. 124-144 (see JAD 11-3). Rene Zandbergen and Rafael T. Prinke give a summary of the astronomical contents of the mysterious Voynich Manuscript, presumably written by Roger Bacon (13th century) and presumably bought by Emperor Rudolf II for his art chamber, but these things, as well as the general purpose and the meaning of the (undecipherable) text remain obscure. Maybe the whole thing is just a hoax of a 15th century predecessor of Konrad Kujau [In the 1970s, K. Kujau wrote 63 "diaries of Adolf Hitler" and sold them to the magazine Stern for more than 3 million German marks}. Georg Schuppener gives a very instructive review article on the astronomical activities cultivated by the jesuits at the Prague Clementinum (founded in 1556, abolished in 1773). Pavel Chadima und Martin Solc, in a well-illustrated contribution, describe the astronomical instruments which were on display in the Musaeum Mathematicum of the Clementinum, which existed from 1722 to 1785. Today, the items are kept in various collections, and they were reunited, in 1998 in the framework of an exhibit celebrating the 650th anniversary of Charles University. Peter Brosche reminds us of the life and work of Alois David, who was the director of Prague Observatory between 1800 and 1836. In his younger years, David corresponded with Franz Xaver von Zach, and the latter one encouraged him to carry out astronomical position-finding in Bohemia. Ivan Stoll and Gudrun Wolfschmidt deal with Christan Doppler and the effect that carries his name. While Stoll's article focuses on Doppler's life, Wolfschmidt broadly deals with the astrophysical applications. To mention again a funny misprint: the title of Doppler's famous paper is quoted as "Ueber das farbige Licht der Dopplersterne ..." (S. 196) - a few pages later, the title page is shown in facsimile, where the proper title is given. Gudrun Wolfschmidt's second report deals with Joseph Petzval, who was born in Hungary (today his birthplace is situated in Slovakia). His life and work is briefly described on two pages, the remainder of the long article deals with astronomical photography. The reviewer stumbled over the technical details of William Usherwood's "portrait lens of short focal length of 2.4 m" (p. 216), which would have been bulky and heavy. Indeed the reference quoted in the article does not lead to any technical details, but the reviewer found an article by Pasachoff et al. (J. Hist. Astr. 27, 129, 1996) that displays not only interesting photographic documents, but also quotes from a letter of Usherwood: "my camera is for plates nine inch square Lens three & a quarter inch. A Portrait lens twelve inch focal length ..." (i.e. 1:3.7, f=305 mm). Izold Pustylnik describes the history of the Petzval astrograph of Tartu Observatory, which was put into operation in 1911 and was used in the 1920s and 30s by Opik and collaborators for different types of research. Does it still exist? The author only says "it has been used for many years". In the next article, Martin Solc describes the fate of a Prague astrograph, which was acquired from Max Wolf in 1892. Again, the history is given only vaguely - in any case, the telescope was reconstructed recently from fragments found in ruins. The concluding paper by Martin Solc and Alena Mivskova deals with Czech and German Astronomers at the Prague University. This 1/2 page contribution is labelled as an "abstract", and it is noted that "a more extensive meeting" would be necessary "to cover all the different facets of this time in an unbiased way." Let us mention that more than 40 years after the Elysee Treaty, a - hopefully unbiased - "Multinational History of Strasbourg Observatory" has appeared in 2005, edited by Andre Heck. I wonder how long it will take to carry out the same task for Prague Observatory. To conclude: a collection of interesting papers, sometimes not very thoroughly researched, and in addition very sloppily edited - or is editing nowadays nothing more as the uncontrolled (?) processing of LaTeX files? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- [JAD 11, 6] BOOK REVIEW: The European Scientist. Symposium on the era and work of Franz Xaver von Zach (1754-1832) Lajos G. Balazs, Peter Brosche, Hilmar W. Duerbeck and Endre Zsoldos (Reviewed by C. Sterken) This is another interesting volume of the Acta Historica Astronomiae series containing the Proceedings of a Symposium on the life and work of F.-X. von Zach, held in Budapest on September 15-17, 2004 at the occasion of the 250th birthday of this Hungarian geodesist and astronomer. This book presents documents related to Franz Xaver von Zach's many travels to and membership of almost two dozen foreign institutions and scientific societies. Most interesting aspects of cultural history of the school and educational system in the 18th-19th century in Hungary are included. The personality of Zach is explored from different angles: instrumentalist, his conflicts with contemporaneous scientists, his errors and his heroic achievements. The collection of papers is very diverse, and papers are not really related to Franz Xaver von Zach himself, but concentrate on observational and theoretical aspects of the science of his era (instruments and observing projects in China, Hungary, Germany, ...). The book is most useful for people interested in the history of geodesy. This is a quite affordable book with very high information content. The book contains 23 contributions, of which four have no abstract, and one consists of the abstract only. Several papers are very well documented with numerous footnotes and figures and reproductions of historical documents, though some papers contain figures and reproductions with rather poor image resolution. Regrettably, this compilation of very useful cultural and scientific information does not contain an index. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- [JAD 11, 7] ERRATUM: Photometry of 20 eclipsing and ellipsoidal binary systems (2004, JAD 10, 1. R.R. Shobbrook) In the published paper the phase diagrams of pi Sco and AL Scl were ommitted. The version reproduced here is the complete version.