Abstract
D’Arrest’s excited report brought Encke to the dome. The three astronomers tracked the planet until it set about 2:30 a.m. The following night they returned to this small theater of immense happenings to confirm the observation. Turning the telescope to the same general area of the sky, Galle placed his eye to the finder:
Four stars of the eighth magnitude occupied its field. One of them was brought into the field of the large telescope and critically examined by my assistant and rejected. A second star was in like manner examined and rejected. A third star rather smaller and whiter than either of the others was brought to the center of the field of the great telescope, when my assistant exclaimed: “There it is! there is the planet! with a disk as round, bright, and beautiful as that of Jupiter.” Galle himself, taking his turn at the eyepiece, exclaimed, “My God in heaven, this is a big fellow!”1
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Notes and References
Edwin Holmes, “The Planet Neptune”, Journal of the British Astronomical Association 18, 36–37 (1907).
This was slightly too large; the actual value on the date in question, according to modern measures, would have been 2″.5. This corresponds to a diameter of 49,530 kilometers, compared with 12,756 kilometers for the Earth.
H. H. Turner, obituary notice of Galle, 280.
Grosser, 124.
J. Encke, “Letter to the Editor,” Astronomische Nachrichten 580, (1846). For other accounts of the discovery, see Encke, “Account of the Discovery of the Planet of Le Verrier at Berlin,” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 7, 153 (1846), and J. Galle, “Ueber die erste Auffindung des Planeten Neptun,” Copernicus 2, 96 (1882).
J. Challis, “The Search for the Planet Neptune by Professor Challis,” Astronomische Nachrichten 26, 101–106 (1846).
F. Arago, “Letter about the Name of Neptune,” Astronomische Nachrichten 25, 81 (1846).
Arago, Astronomische Nachrichten 25, 159 (1847).
Hoyt, Planets X and Pluto, 53.
H. Spencer Jones, John Couch Adams and the Discovery of Neptune (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1946), 39.
Sir John F. W. Herschel, letter on “Le Verrier’s planet,” Athenaeum 1019 (October 3, 1846). The letter was written October 1, 1846.
J. W. Herschel to W. Lassell, October 1, 1846, Royal Society Herschel papers (H.S.22.285, quoted in R. W. Smith and R. Baum, “William Lassell and the Ring of Neptune: A Case Study in Instrumental Failure,” Journal for the History of Astronomy xv, 1–17:2 (1984).
See Richard Baum, The Planets: Some Myths and Realities, pp. 120–146; also Baum and Robert W. Smith, “Neptune’s Forgotten Ring,” Sky and Telescope 77, 610–611 (1989),
and Smith and Baum, “William Lassell and the Ring of Neptune: A Case Study in Instrumental Failure,” Journal for the History of Astronomy xv, 1–17 (1984).
Airy to Challis, October 14, 1846; quoted in Smart, “John Couch Adams,” 65.
Airy to Le Verrier, October 14, 1846; quoted in Glaisher, Biographical Notice, Adams, Scientific Papers, vol. 1, p. xxiv.
Airy to Le Verrier, October 18, 1846; quoted in Grosser, Discovery of Neptune, 131–132.
Comptes Rendu 23, 751 (1846).
Quoted in Harrison, Voyager, 33.
Ibid.
L’Univers, October 21, 1846.
Le Semaine, October 25, 1846.
F. Arago, “Examen des remarques critiques et des questions de priorité que la découverte de M. Le Verrier a soulevées,” Comptes Rendu 23,751, 754 (1846).
Mary Roseveare to W. M. Smart, April 21, 1947; quoted in Harrison, Voyager, 71.
E. Loomis, “The Discovery of the Planet Neptune,” in Progress of Astronomy (New York: Harper & Bros., 1851), 58–59.
Chapman, “Airy and Neptune,” 135.
Herschel to Sheepshanks, Dec. 17, 1846; cited in Robert W. Smith, “Cambridge Network,” 416 note.
Herschel to Rev. Richard Sheepshanks, Dec. 17, 1846; quoted in Smith, “Cambridge Network,” 416. The Latin phrase, from Virgil is translated “the gods will otherwise.”
Herschel to R. Jones, quoted in Smith, “Cambridge Network,” 416–417.
J. Herschel, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 11, 111 (1848).
Encke to Le Verrier, September 28, 1846; MS letter in Paris Observatory library, quoted in Grosser, Discovery of Neptune, 119.
Airy, “Account,” 142.
Agnes Clerke, History of Astronomy, 102.
Hanson, 359.
Ibid., 363–364.
Loomis, 59.
Quoted in Phillipe de la Cortadière and Patrick Fuentes, Camille Flammarion (Paris: Flammarion, 1994), 50.
Hanson, “Zenith and Nadir,” 360.
Pannekoek, History of Astronomy, 361–362.
Loomis, 59.
J. Challis, “Determination of the Orbit of the Planet Neptune,” Astronomische Nachrichten 26, 309–314 (1847).
For Herschel’s observation, see Dennis Rawlins, “The Unslandering of Sloppy Pierre,” p. 26; for Galileo’s, see Stillman Drake and Charles T. Kowal, “Galileo’s Sighting of Neptune,” Scientific American 243, 74–79 (1980).
B. Peirce, “Investigation in the Action of Neptune to Uranus,” Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1, 65 (1847).
J. Babinet, “Sur la position actuelle de la planete située au de la de Neptune, et provisoirement nommée Hypèrion,” Comptes Rendu 27, 202–208 (1848).
Sir John Herschel, Outlines of Astronomy (New York: Appleton, 1876 ed.), 549n.
Ibid., 550–551.
J. C. Adams, Appendix on the Discovery of Neptune, Liouville’s Journal de Mathématiques, New Series, Tome II (1876); in Adams, Scientific Works, vol. 1, pp. 63–65. Adams’s comments were in French and have been translated by the authors.
Loomis, 59.
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© 1997 Richard Baum and William Sheehan
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Baum, R., Sheehan, W. (1997). Triumph and Controversy. In: In Search of Planet Vulcan. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-6100-6_9
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