Pencil drawings of the Milky Way

stumbled across this site recently . . . www.astronomersdoitatnight.de/html/otto_boeddicker__1893_.html which has wonderful drawings of the Milky Way done with the unaided eye. Boeddicker was based at Birr Castle at one point.

John

Were these ones done while at Birr ??

Schmidt's drawings are amazing, I guess there was very little light pollution then, and all the drawings are so neat.

Deirdre Kelleghan
IAS

"It is sound judgment to hope that in the not too distant future we shall be competent to understand so simple a thing as a star."
Arthur Eddington

Were these ones done while at Birr ??

hi Dave,

yes, those drawings were the ones used in "The Milky Way", a series drawn at Birr and published in London as lithographs in 1928 (I think). Apparently there have been some duplicates of the original book recently discovered that Lord Rosse is selling for €300 which is quite reasonable for such a historic document.

I think even sketching a section of the Milky Way would improve someone's skill as an observer immensely. With modern technology it would be very easy for someone to print a star chart to the same scale as one of the 19th Century drawings and then create their own Milky Way portrait. With the stars already accurately positioned on a printed chart we are already over a hump the earlier artists had to surmount.

John

I think even sketching a section of the Milky Way would improve someone's skill as an observer immensely

You're hardly thinking of adding to the workload of the Observing Certs Group John? :lol:

Those charts of a very high calibre for hand drawings. It is something i always wanted to sketch, but clears skies at the same time that you have freetime, is a problem...

Seanie.

Try this - load one of those drawings into your favourite graphics prog. Now do an 'invert' or 'negative'. on the entire thing.