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- Title
Rosse, Robinson and Rambaut: Creating a Regime of Observing at Birr Castle, 1840–1850.
- Authors
Bennett, Jim
- Abstract
The decade of the 1840s was arguably the most important period in the long history of astronomy at Birr Castle in Ireland; it included the building of the famous 6-ft reflector and some of its most influential achievements. It was also a challenging time for Lord Rosse on several fronts and the future of the great telescope as a productive research instrument was far from secure. That a steady programme of work was achieved owed no small debt to T. R. Robinson and his nephew W. H. Rambaut, who became an observing assistant to Lord Rosse and used all the current instruments. Rambaut’s observing notebooks are a valuable and revealing record of the observatory work during the critical transition from the completion of the 6-ft telescope to its routine use. The early work on observing nebulae was often done in collaboration, with more than one observer present, and was animated by the pursuit of resolution and the detection of spiral structures. As the programme of observing settled into a more methodical recording of the forms of the nebulae, Rambaut’s work seemed less relevant to the active astronomers at Birr and his notes might even be modified as they were edited for publication.
- Subjects
IRELAND; REFLECTING telescopes; HISTORY of astronomy; NEBULAE; ROBINSON, T. R.; RAMBAUT, W. H.; OPTICAL resolution; ASTRONOMICAL observatories; NINETEENTH century; HISTORY
- Publication
Journal for the History of Astronomy, 2014, Vol 45, Issue 4, p400
- ISSN
0021-8286
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1177/0021828614530822