While the eye is sensitive only to the light perceived instantly, the silver medium (photo plate and films) that was still used until the 1980s can record the light received…
The Equatorial Mount
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It is enough to have spent a few seconds on the eyepiece of a so-called azimuthal instrument, mounted on a tripod, to be aware of the sidereal movement which causes…
Solar Telescope
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Around the world, about thirty observatories have dedicated at least one telescope to the study of the Sun. Given the atmospheric turbulence, it is almost impossible to use instruments over…
Technological Challenges
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Since the manufacture of the 5 m diameter mirror of the Mount Palomar Observatory in 1939, because of their gross mass exceeding 40 tons, the mirrors of the large telescopes…
Modern Times
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At the turn of the twentieth century, Lorentz understood the futility of mechanical support to explain the propagation of the electromagnetic field. He also discovered the theory of electrons. Meanwhile,…
Kepler’s Laws
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A decisive step was taken in the seventeenth century by Johannus Kepler in Germany, a renowned mathematician, the founding father of modern astronomy. Protestant of confession and thus little concerned…
The Great Civilizations
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In China, the greatest astronomer of the Middle Kingdom was Tcheou Kong, the brother of Emperor Wou Wang who lived in the eleventh century before our era. He built an…