About this book
An attempt has been made in these pages to trace the evolution of intellectual thought in the progress of astronomical discovery, and, by recognising the different points of view of the different ages, to give due credit even to the ancients. No one can expect, in a history of astronomy of limited size, to find a treatise on “practical” or on “theoretical astronomy,” nor a complete “descriptive astronomy,” and still less a book on “speculative astronomy.” Something of each of these is essential, however, for tracing the progress of thought and knowledge which it is the object of this History to describe. - Summary from the Preface
1Chapter 1: Primitive Astronomy and Astrology
2Chapter 2: Ancient Chinese and Chaldaeans
3Chapter 3: Ancient Greek Astronomy
4Chapter 4: The Reign of Epicycles - From Ptolemy to Copernicus
5Chapter 5: The Discovery of the True Solar System - Tycho Brahe - Kepler
6Chapter 6: Galileo and the Telescope - Notions of Gravity by Horrocks, etc
7Chapter 7: Sir Issac Newton - Law of Universal Gravitation
8Chapter 8: Newton's Successors - Haley, Euler, LaGrange, LaPlance, etc
9Chapter 9: Discovery of New Planets - Herschel, Piazzi, Adams, and Le Verrier
10Chapter 10: Instruments of Precision - Size of the Solar System
11Chapter 11: History of the Telescope - Spectroscope
12Chapter 12: The Sun
13Chapter 13: The Moon and Planets
14Chapter 14: Comets and Meteors
15Chapter 15: The Stars and Nebulae
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