FIXLMILLNER, Placidus Acta Astronomica Cremifanensia divisa in partes duas, quarum prior observationes ab anno MDCCLXXVI ad annum MDCCXCI... posterior vero exercitationes, seu enodationes variarum materiarum astronomicarum complectitur... Steier, Franz Josef Medter, 1791
4to (236 x 180 mm), pp [xxiv] 556, with engraved frontispiece, engraved vignette on title, and 6 folding engraved plates; a fine copy in contemporary calf, covers with gilt arms of the Viennese Monastery Schottenkloster, upper joint repaired. £2250
First edition of this rare collection of astronomical observations and essays by Placido Fixlmillner (1721-1791), director of the observatory at Kremsmünster. Fixlmillner, a Benedictine priest, is known for the first detailed calculation of the orbit of Uranus. The work contains observations made between 1776 and 1791, essays on the parallax of the Sun, the 1769 transit of Venus, the occultation of Saturn in 1775, on aberration and nutation in planets, on stellar aberration, on the orbit of Uranus, and on sunspots. There is a comparison of observations made in Tahiti, Hudson Bay, and also the mission of St. Joseph in California. Fixlmillner frequently cites observations of Maximilian Hell, director of the Vienna observatory and Fixlmillner's contemporary and colleague.
The frontispiece illustrates the observatory; the vignette on the title depicts the interior, with two telescopes mounted on mural quadrants and one on a half circle.
Lalande p 617; Poggendorff I 756; not in NUC; OCLC records two copies (Observatories of Paris and Lyon)
£2250
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