I knew this wouldn't fool you for long...
Todo tuyo, IMO

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Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem.

Didn't Frank Drake also make an interesting observation that was unrepeatable?


Galileo is the of course the right answer.

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"I will do my best to understand and explain the universe from big to small without invoking miracles, unrepeatable events, or divine intervention. In place of those things I will use observations, mathematics, and science."


-Cross
My travel blog

Some of my Astrophotography


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

Next question:
Towards the end of the 20th century, some of our ideas about Mercury and Mars were mistaken, in part because of conclusions drawn by this astronomer from his own observations. Name the astronomer, the mistaken idea, and how it was corrected. Extra credit: At what observatory were his observations carried out.

Taking a pre-google lunge, I'll guess the obvious -Lowell? [I'd answer more but I am also guessing I'm wrong. ]

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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.

Lowell? End of 20th century (Or was that a typo?)? Mercury?
I am back from my google lunge (and hard landing). I can only say:

Hint?

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Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem.

I tried Googling the other day (despite Wolverine's comment to me about the restaurant ) and read tons about Mercury, but couldn't figure this one out. Mercury really throws it off. Do you think IMO has put everyone on a wild goose chase? And where is he??

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Sunset

I remember seeing a sketch of Mercury that looked much like Lowells drawings of canals on Mars. So my guess is Lowell and Mercurian canals.

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I'm not a scientist, but I play one on the internet.
http://www.rrac.org

But still this question is about the late 20th, not 19th century. I think IMO wants us to find out how a respectable scientific opinion on the planetology of the two bodies was refuted by (which?) observation.

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Non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem.

Yes ... second half of 20th century. Hint: sketches of Mercury were involved as were observations of stellar occultations by Mars. The physical characteristics involved were very different in the two cases.

Sorry ... he was off trying to figure out how to clean mildew/mold off the primary of a Celestron Nexstar ... any ideas anyone?

This is driving me nuts, IMO. The only person who I can find that had a wrong assumption about Mercury that fits this time period is Eugenios Antoniadi: http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclo...Antoniadi.html. But he died in 1944...is that too early? That wrong assumption was corrected in the 1960s, then by Mariner 10, but his Mercury map was used for years:
http://www.vt-2004.org/////mt-2003/m...y-mapping.html

So, if that's wrong, too, at least I learned something.

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Sunset

IMO did not say when the erroneous views were established, that was my only real hope. I just wanted to help ya'll get past my shallow end of the pool.

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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.

OK, if I scratch my Antoniadi idea then I'd have to go with Giovanno Schiaparelli, because he watched a Mars opposition and created the most detailed map of Mars AND he figured Mercury's rotation all wrong. He was at the Brera Observatory in Milan Italy. His ideas about seas and water on Mars were shattered by the Mariner 4 in 1965. His idea about Mercury's rotation was killed by the Arecibo Radio Telescope. (Though apparently others had some ideas about the temperature of the alleged "far side" of Mercury). Then Mariner 10 mapped it.


I don't think Lowell fits the Mercury aspect, and then IMO would have told y'all if you were correct. But what do I know?

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Sunset

That's who first sprang to my mind - erroneously believing in the synchronous rotation of Mercury and unwittingly starting all that Martian canali thing. But these errors were corrected well before the end of the 20th century, so ...

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- There must be a new moon out, she said. He's always bad then.

The hint about Martian stellar occultations tends to make me think that part of the answer has something to do with the Martian atmosphere but I haven't been able to find any references to that or to how it applies to Mercury. There is the finding about possible ice in polar craters on Mercury...

Dave Mitsky

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Chance favors the prepared mind.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

I don't know if you saw, but IMO gave a second clue in reply to Arneb:
So I took that to mean that the corrections could be from 1950 on. I liked my Antoniadi idea at first, because he too had Mercury's rotation wrong, but only Mariner 4 could conclusively show there were no seas on Mars as Schiaperelli thought. Antoniadi had already criticized Lowell.

IMO needs to get out of bed.

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Sunset

It says in my Mars magazine that French astronomer Audoin Dollfus reportedly detected water vapor in the Mars atmosphere in 1963, but I don't think he had anything to do with Mercury whereas Schiaparelli did. Plus there's this business about occultation.

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Sunset

Where did Dolfus (only one "L") observe from? What other observations did he make?

(Incidently, the observations involved were in the mid-20th century, the correction, of course, some years later.)

Geesh, he was/is at the Meudon Observatory (but all the Pic-du-Midi) where Antoniadi was. The sources I looked at all spell his name with two L's. I'm going to be late for work, so the answers are in here, among other places:
http://www.bpccs.com/lcas/Articles/dollfus.htm

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Sunset

Darn ... You are right about the 2 LLs ... Ive been misspelling his name for years ... but that article does not even mention several other of his observational results ... and he did observe from Pic du Medi.