Abstract
Civic astronomy is an idea whose time almost, but never quite, came. So it is appropriate that the spirit of civic astronomy is best captured in a painting showing an actual event almost, but not quite, as it occurred. The painting depicts the inauguration of Albany, New York’s, first astronomical observatory on August 28, 1856. The event was billed as the greatest assemblage of distinguished ladies and gentlemen ever to convene in that city. Alas, some of the invited dignitaries, including Senator William Seward and former president Millard Fillmore, failed to show up. No matter. The painter put them into the picture anyway.1
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© 2004 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Wise, G. (2004). Seeing from and being Seen. In: Civic Astronomy. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 316. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-2678-2_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-2678-2_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-6702-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-2678-2
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