E-Book Overview
This book contains papers from a conference held to celebrate the 70th birthday of one of the world’s foremost astronomical historians, Professor F. Richard Stephenson, the latest recipient of the American Astronomical Society’s highest award for research in astronomical history, the LeRoy Doggett Prize. Reflecting Professor Stephenson’s extensive research portfolio, this book brings together under one cover papers on four different areas of scholarship: applied historical astronomy (which Stephenson founded); Islamic astronomy; Oriental astronomy and amateur astronomy. These papers are penned by astronomers from Canada, China, England, France, Georgia, Iran, Japan, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Portugal, Thailand and the USA. Its diverse coverage represents a wide cross-section of the history of astronomy community. Under discussion are ways in which recent research using historical data has provided new insights into auroral and solar activity, supernovae and changes in the rotation rate of the Earth. It also presents readers with results of recent research on leading historical figures in Islamic and Oriental astronomy, and aspects of eighteenth and nineteenth century Australian, British, German and Portuguese amateur astronomy, including the fascinating ‘amateur-turned-professional syndrome’.
E-Book Content
Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings 43
Wayne Orchiston David A. Green Richard Strom Editors
New Insights From Recent Studies in Historical Astronomy: Following in the Footsteps of F. Richard Stephenson A Meeting to Honor F. Richard Stephenson on His 70th Birthday
Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings Volume 43
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/7395
Richard and the late Ellen Stephenson
Wayne Orchiston • David A. Green Richard Strom Editors
New Insights From Recent Studies in Historical Astronomy: Following in the Footsteps of F. Richard Stephenson A Meeting to Honor F. Richard Stephenson on His 70th Birthday
Editors Wayne Orchiston National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand Chiang Mai, Thailand
David A. Green Cavendish Laboratory University of Cambridge Cambridge, UK
Richard Strom Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy Dwingeloo, The Netherlands
ISSN 1570-6591 ISSN 1570-6605 (electronic) ISBN 978-3-319-07613-3 ISBN 978-3-319-07614-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-07614-0 Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London Library of Congress Control Number: 2014953898 © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. Exempted from this legal reservation are brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis or material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the Copyright Law of the Publisher’s location, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Permissions for use may be obtained through RightsLink at the Copyright Clearance Center. Violations are liable to prosecution under the respective Copyright Law. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statemen