S. W. Burnham: A Life Behind the Eyepiece

Abstract

Compared with the Renaissance of astronomical learning wrought by the erection of great observatories across Europe in the 1830s and 1840s, progress in the United of States of America was slow to blossom. Prior to 1830, America’s largest refractor – a fine Dollond – was a mere 5 inches in aperture. Unlike Imperial Britain, whose towns were decorated with public and private observatories – great and small – America was a slumbering giant, blissfully unaware of its destiny to become the leading country in astronomical learning for the next century or more (Fig. 28.1).