BOOK REVIEW: Astronomie von Olbers bis Schwarzschild

Nationale Entwicklungen und internationale Beziehungen im 19. Jahrhundert

(Acta Historica Astronomiae Vol. 14)

Wolfgang R. Dick & Jürgen Hamel (eds.)

Reviewed by C. Sterken

 

Published by Verlag Harry Deutsch, Thun and Frankfurt am Main.

Acta historica atronomiae Vol. 15, 2002

ISBN 3-8171-1667-5, ISSN 1422-8521. 243 pages. Price 16.80 EUR(D)

File jad8_6.ps contains the complete review in postscript format.

The 14th volume of the Acta Historica Astronomiae is the Proceedings of a Colloquium "International Relationships in Astronomy" (in German) organised by the History of Astronomy Section of the Astronomische Gesellschaft held on September 18 in Lilienthal, Germany. The book contains 13 articles on astronomical topics covering the 19th and 20th centuries.

The first paper is by Günther Oestmann and deals with contemporary assessments of Johann Hieronymus Schroeter's (1745-1816) astronomical works and with later judgements of the scientific importance and significance of his observations as seen by astronomers and historians. This report is complemented by a second article on Schroeter's 25-ft reflector in Lilienthal near Bremen. To this end, author Felix L\"uhning has constructed a scale model of the telescope, and shows how the building of a model brings a deeper understanding of function and handling of this instrument. This brings us to a third paper on telescope building in Lilienthal: Hans-Joachim Leue describes the cooperation of Johann Hieronymus Schroeter and Johann Gottlieb Schrader in developing a white reflecting metal alloy for use as telescope mirror. The fourth article, by Klaus Schillinger, describes on the basis of archival documents the aquisition history of the Herschel telescopes, including telescope quality check, repair and building. Memorial sites referring to Wilhelm Olbers, Johann Hieronymus Schroeter, Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel and Carl Friedrich Gauss are described by Arno Langkavel in two walks outlined in the very last paper of this book.

  Peter Brosche, in the fifth paper, discusses the rediscovery of Ceres in December 1801, a discovery that was the result of the combined efforts of a theoretician (Gauss) and an observer (Zach).

Jürgen Hamel's paper is based on previously unused archival sources and discusses the outstanding role played by H. C. Schumacher (1780-1850, editor of the Astronomische Nachrichten) in the communication between astronomers in his days, when his working place at Altona still belonged to the kingdom of Denmark. This paper is followed by a second one by the same author and deals with the correspondence of H. C. Schumacher and H C. Oersted (1777-1851) and shows how intense and diverse their cooperation was.

In a subsequent paper, Wolfgang Kokott describes the role of the Astronomisches Jahrbuch (published from 1776 by the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin), a ranking international publication, with Bode's modest Berlin Observatory serving as a clearinghouse of information originating from virtually all European countries.

Karl Schwarzschild and the professionalisation of Astrophysics is the title of Theodor Schmidt-Kaler's contribution and presents Schwarzschild's contributions to professionalization of astronomy: establishment of course lectures and a permanent astrophysical laboratory, a tight connection between teaching and research, stimulations and suggestions for astronomy at high school and for the formation of high school teachers, international organisation, and the planning of a southern observatory.

Peter Habison describes the contribution of Leo de Ball (1853-1916, Director of the Kuffner Observatory in Vienna) to international astronomy. Internationalization in astronomy is also discussed in a following paper by Gudrun Wolfschmidt on the establishment of the Vereinigte Astronomische Gesellschaft, the international Astronomische Gesellschaft in 1863 and finally the International Astronomical Union in 1919.

In the second but last paper of the book, Hilmar Duerbeck describes the history of the Chilean National Observatory, beginning with its origins out of Gilliss' US Naval Expedition to the Southern Hemisphere in 1849, over its directors Moesta, Vergara, Obrecht and Ristenpart, to the middle of the 20th century. The paper also includes the astronomical development at the Universidad Católica and various international expeditions, which aimed at the observations of solar eclipses, the Venus transit of 1882, and the Mars opposition of 1907. An overview of the evolution and the actual state of the international observatories Cerro Tololo, La Silla and Paranal, as well as Las Campanas is also given.