HERSCHEL, John Frederick William, (1792-1871). - Results of Astronomical Observations made during the years 1834, 5, 6, 7, 8, at the Cape of Good Hope; being the completion of a telescopic survey of the whole surface of the visible heavens, commenced in 1825. - London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1847
Large 4to. Orig. blind stamped cloth, gilt lettering on spine, t.e.g.; neatly rebacked (most of the original backstrip preserved). With a lithographic frontispiece and 17 plates of stars and nebulae, 4 folding. (4), XX, 452, (2, errata), (2 of ads) pp. Very mild foxing on first leaves and plates; last leaf and errata slightly browned, otherwise a fresh and large copy presented by «Algernon Duke of Northumberland to The Observatory of the Collegio Romano under the direction of M. De Vito. With the Author's respects».
First edition. «With this monumental survey of the stars of the southern hemisphere, Herschel (1792-1871) completed the task begun by his father William, who fifty years earlier had catalogued the northern celestial hemisphere. Using a twenty-foot reflecting telescope, which he erected just south of Cape Town, Herschel swept the whole of the southern sky (1834-38), cataloguing nebulae, clusters and binary stars, carrying out star counts of over 68,000 stars, and making micrometer measures for separation and position angle of many star pairs. He also introduced numerical measurements into stellar photometry by means of the astronomer, a device of his own invention which allowed him to compare the brightness of stars with an image of the full moon. He made detailed drawings and maps of several objects, including the Orion region, the Eta Cariane nebula, the Magellanic Clouds and many extra-galatic and planetary nebulae» (Norman 1056). Sotheran I, 1092. DSB VI, 326.
Euro1800
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