Authors:
- Provides a uniques sketch of the psychology behind planet hunting, how many astronomers grow up and develop a passion for observing the night sky in different cultures
- Outlines the naked-eye era—starting in prehistory—and leading up to the great developments of 400 years ago which bring to an end the whole era in which the naked-eye and sight-lines to kraal posts and stones and geometric figures originally scrawled in the sand were the sole instruments
- Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
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Table of contents (10 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
About this book
Astronomy is by far the most popular of the physical sciences, enticing enough to become a major cultural preoccupation for many, and for some an enthralling scientific activity which veritably rules their lives. What is the nature of that seemingly unstoppable attraction? In this lively and compelling account, William Sheehan – professional psychiatrist, noted historian of astronomy, and incurable observer - explores the nature of that allure through the story of man's visual exploration of the planets.
In this volume, the first of a trilogy, Sheehan starts with observational astronomy’s profound and lasting effect on his own life, setting the points of embarkation for the journey to come. He travels across the historical landscape seeking the earliest origins of man's compulsion to observe the planets among the hunter gatherers of the upper palaeolithic, and traces the evolving story from the planetary records of the earliest cities, to Pharonic Egypt through to Hellenistic Greek astronomy culminating in Ptolemy. The necessity to observe played its part in the perceptual changes wrought by the Copernican revolution, as well as the observational advances achieved by such extraordinary characters as Tycho with his sharpest of eyes, and his luxurious practice of total astronomy. The two epochal advances published in 1609, both born through planetary observation, namely Kepler's discovery of the true nature of the orbit of Mars and Harriot and Galileo’s observations of the Moon, have a pivotal place in this account.
Sheehan weaves a rich tapestry of social and technological settings, patronage and personalities, equipment and skills, cosmologies and goals, motives and compulsions to try to explain why we have observed, and continue to observe, the planets.
The compelling text of A Passion for the Planets is enhanced by the specially commissioned planetary artwork of Julian Baum, himself son of a noted planetary observer andhistorian of planetary observers, and Randall Rosenfeld.
A Passion for the Planets will be of interest to all amateur astronomers; active planetary observers; armchair astronomers; those interested in the history of astronomy; the cultural history of science; and astronomical art.
Reviews
From the reviews:
“Sheehan offers an interesting analysis concerning the effect of advances in art on astronomy and illustrates his points with selections of poetry and art. … illustrations and photographs are excellent. The footnotes and an index are useful additions. This work … will be of most interest to amateur astronomers. Summing Up: Recommended. Public libraries.” (M.-K. Hemenway, Choice, Vol. 48 (3), November, 2010)Authors and Affiliations
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Willmar, USA
William Sheehan
About the author
William Sheehan is the author or co-author of a number of widely acclaimed books on astronomy, including Planets & Perception: telescopic views and interpretations, 1609-1909 (1988), which was named a Book-of-the-Year by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Worlds in the Sky (1992), a Main Selection of the Astronomy Book Club, The Immortal Fire Within: the life and work of Edward Emerson Barnard (1995), The Planet Mars (1996), In Search of Planet Vulcan (1997), Mars: the lure of the Red Planet (2001), Epic Moon (2001) and Transits of Venus (2004).
The author of a hundred fifty popular articles on astronomy, he is a contributing editor to Sky and Telescope, usually writing about unappreciated historical interludes involving the study of the Solar System. A 2001 fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for structure and evolution of the Milky Way, Gold Medalist of the Oriental Astronomical Association for his work predicting and observing flares on Mars in 2001, and honored by the International Astronomical Union with asteroid no. 16037 (Sheehan), he has observed Mars at the close oppositions of 2003 and 2005 with the 36-inch refractor at the Lick Observatory and lectured on astronomical topics around the world. Professionally, he is a psychiatrist and neuroscientist with an interest in Aspergers Syndrome/autism, functional-brain imaging, and evolutionary psychiatry.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: A Passion for the Planets
Book Subtitle: Envisioning Other Worlds, From the Pleistocene to the Age of the Telescope
Authors: William Sheehan
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-5971-3
Publisher: Springer New York, NY
eBook Packages: Physics and Astronomy, Physics and Astronomy (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VI, 194
Number of Illustrations: 76 illustrations in colour
Topics: Astronomy, Observations and Techniques, Popular Science in Astronomy, Planetology, History and Philosophical Foundations of Physics
Industry Sectors: Aerospace, Electronics