Earl Of Rosse - Book

Thanks Lads!

I read up on the history a number of years ago, and there is quite abit about it, for instance there was an astronomer (whose name eludes me for now) who spent quite a number of years doing naked eye diagram of the milkyway around the turn of the ninetheenth centuary, under the shadow of one of the biggest telescopes in the world !!!!

Fair soon after, once photography became more advanced, his years of hard work were very quickly surpassed by a few photographs !

Steve O'Meara is a big fan of this guy's work too, but alas his name escapes me too. O'Meara mentions him in an old S&T article about his fav deep-sky targets that I downloaded from their archive. He's also mentioned in Deep-Sky Wonders by Walter Scott Houston. His drawings are supposedly the best available and rival any photographs.

hi guys,

I wrote about that very subject in Sky-High 2004 -- have reproduced the piece below. There's a copy of Boeddicker's booklet in a display case at the Birr Castle exhibition. I also had to substitute the "a" in one of the words because of our blasted server's interpretation of that word as being not allowed -- you'll see what I mean!

all the best,

John


"N*ked-eye studies of the Milky Way were an important branch of astronomy during the latter years of the 19th century. An appeal by F.W.A. Argelander to amateur astronomers to undertake n*ked eye observations of phenomena such as meteors, the zodiacal light, variable stars and the Milky Way led to a number of projects concerned with mapping the naked eye Milky Way.

One such program was that completed by Otto Boeddicker, a German astronomer who was an assistant to the Fourth Earl of Rosse at Birr Castle between 1880 and 1916 (when he had to return to Germany because of war in Europe). Boeddicker made exquisite renditions of the n*ked eye Milky Way down to declination –10° over a period of six years and the chart was published by lithography in The Milky Way (London, 1892).

Modern astrophotography has all but made n*ked eye studies of our Galaxy defunct but it is a worthwhile and stimulating project for amateurs to undertake to enhance their observing skills and become aware of deep-sky objects that are visible to the unaided eye."

Modern astrophotography has all but made n*ked eye studies of our Galaxy defunct but it is a worthwhile and stimulating project for amateurs to undertake to enhance their observing skills and become aware of deep-sky objects that are visible to the unaided eye."

Thats a good point !