In 1691, Sir Edmund Halley was considered for the Savilian Professorship of Astronomy at Oxford. He needed the approval of the Anglican Church, but was denied for what scandalous reason?

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The scandal is that John Flamsteed seems to have used a religious argument to prevent an appointment he was opposed to on personal grounds: Flamsteed bore a grudge against Newton for disregarding his theories on the Moon and not citing often enough his observations made from the Royal Observatory. And since Halley was an associate of Newton's, having urged him on to publish the Principia and even having paid for the cost of publication, Flamsteed seems to have decided to strike out against Halley as a proxy.

To prevent Halley's appointment, he insinuated, probably correctly, that Halley did not believe that Scripture provides the ultimate truth in all things scientific. That did it - for the time. Halley received the professorship after the man who had taken it in his stead (Wallis) had died.

Do we hear a more than faint echo from this episode when peer-reviewers in today's publication system reject a paper - or demand corrections - on the ground that they weren't cited in it often enough....?

Edited to add: Nice to be back...

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Right on. Your turn Arneb.

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http://www.rrac.org

Ah, I love those coffee-table books on our cultural heritage. Browsing through it, I find these very remakable instances:

Work on an exceedingly lavish palace is begun in the extreme south of the old continent. The line of rulers that starts and completes it, however, don't get to enjoy it for very long - They are thrown out a mere 244 years later by a couple of bigotted religious fanatics who don't even wash regularly.

A (perhaps the) literary giant is on the receiving end of an outrageous event of copyright violation.

A musical giant makes a clever career move (Try to pronounce the city where he assumes his post correctly: Köthen )

Someone receives a Nobel for writing plays about caretakers, dumb waiters and dwarfs.

When that happened? And what this has to do with Astronomy.... ummm, erm, mabe you can tell me?

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Alhambra, 1248

Mmmm, Shakespeare's Sonnets published in 1609?

J S Bach in 1717

Harold Pinter in 2005

Afraid not!

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Now that was a fast approach
However, I was not under the illusion that the thin veil over the relevant dates would hold for long.

Now only the second part of the question remains.

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Is 36 an important denominator?

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

Important...but not that important.

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Hmmm, still no hands going up?

There are not many types of astronomical events observable from Earth that repeat over historical times with a certain regularity (not 36 years; 36 has denominators, too ).

Especially since one of the events happened this very year.

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Has it something to do with a particular Saros cycle?

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They were all years in which solar eclipses of Saros Cycle 134 took place.

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Phew!

Your go, Eroica!

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I love that one!

Johann Heveliusz named a crater on the moon Aetna, and the land around it Sicily in 1648.

Only 3 years later, Italian astronomer Giovanni Riccioli renamed it "Copernicus" after another Polish astronomer. While it might seem strange for an adherent to orthodox geocentrism to name a crater after a prominent proponent of heliocentrism, Riccioli explained he wanted to have "Copernicus flung into the ocean of storms" (Oceanus procellarum, the area surrounding Copernicus crater). Others think that maybe he wanted to make his real convictions public in a discreet way.

The name Copernicus still stands. Read all about it!

(Sorry about all the Wikipedianisms. I know some people here don't like it. However, it is a good reference to get started o a subject, I think)

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Correct! (Actually, I thought Insula Sicilia was the crater and Mt Aetna the central peak?)

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Thanks, Eroica

Might well be - After I got the initial idea of you having in mind crater Copernicus, I plucked the story from the Internet without much backchecking. I did read, however, that Hevelius was impressed by Copernicus' overall appearance, which reminded him of Aetna's caldera.

Here is a potentially quick and easy for the observation-oriented people. But please try to do it from the back of your heads without rotating sky charts, Internet-acquired lists and TheSky. Wrong, if plausible and well-argued answers will be very welcome - So:

My observing location in northern Bavaria is at 49.7950° N, 11.1344° E. This is farther to the North than anything in the US except Alaska (the area, by the way, is named after Burg Feuerstein which does actually mean Flintstone Castle. I maintain, however, we Franconians are not in the stone age ).

What do you think: Assuming excellent if not airless horizons, can I see all the signs of the zodiac from that location? Which is the southernmost star of mag 1 or brighter that I can see during the course of the year? And what is the southernmost mag 1 star that is circumpolar from my observation site?

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you can see Sirius. That's proably as far south as you can get all the way up there.


My guess is that Sagitarious is not visible from your location.




all guessing however.

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-Cross
My travel blog

Some of my Astrophotography


Those that lack education have a hard time understanding its value. - Cross

It's better than Sirius. Sagittarius works fine - except that I have Nuremberg/Fuerth/Erlangen and Forchheim's additive light pollution smack on the sourthern horizon, which spoils the fun a bit.

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