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American Observations of the 16 May 1901 Total Solar Eclipse from Padang, Dutch East Indies

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The Emergence of Astrophysics in Asia

Part of the book series: Historical & Cultural Astronomy ((HCA))

Abstract

Between 1889 and 1932 the Lick Observatory in the USA maintained a vibrant solar research program and sent a succession of expeditions to the far corners of the globe in order to observe solar eclipses and add to our knowledge of the solar corona and the chromosphere. These expeditions were major logistical exercises that relied mainly on visual, photographic and spectroscopic observations during the brief moments of totality.

In this chapter (which draws on Pearson and Orchiston, The Lick Observatory solar eclipse expedition to Padang (Indonesia) in 1901. In Nakamura, T. et al. (Eds.) (2011). Mapping the Oriental Sky. Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Oriental Astronomy. Tokyo: National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, pp. 207–216) we focus on the Lick Observatory’s expedition to Padang, Sumatra, to observe the 17–18 May 1901 solar eclipse, and after briefly discussing the personnel, their equipment and their observations we view this very successful expedition in the context of the overall development of astronomy in Indonesia.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The following abbreviation is used:

    SA = Mary Lea Shane Archives, University of California at Santa Cruz.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Dorothy Shaumberg from the Mary Lea Shane Archives at the University of California for access to archival records relating to the Lick Observatory solar eclipse expeditions and for making available photographs reproduced in this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand, 260 Moo 4, T. Donkaew, A. Maerim, Chiang Mai, 50180, Thailand

    John Pearson & Wayne Orchiston

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  1. John Pearson
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  2. Wayne Orchiston
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Correspondence to John Pearson .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Oriental Studies, Daito-Bunka University, Itabashi, Tokyo, Japan

    Tsuko Nakamura

  2. National Astronomical Research, Institute of Thailand, Chiang Mai, Thailand

    Wayne Orchiston

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Pearson, J., Orchiston, W. (2017). American Observations of the 16 May 1901 Total Solar Eclipse from Padang, Dutch East Indies. In: Nakamura, T., Orchiston, W. (eds) The Emergence of Astrophysics in Asia. Historical & Cultural Astronomy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62082-4_16

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