Abstract
BEGINNERS in astronomy will find this little compilation useful. Just the kind of information is brought together in it which persons interested, though not learned, in celestial phenomena want to be supplied with Technical language, too, is as much as possible avoided, while sufficient exactness for the purpose in view is usually preserved. Not, however, invariably; the statements regarding the two solar eclipses visible in 1886 are so loose as to be misleading. Eleven miniature maps, showing the paths through the constellations during the present year of seven primary and four minor planets, are neatly executed, and ought to prove acceptable to casual observers. Exception must be taken to the introductory assertion that Copernicus swept away all the “complicated machinery of the heavens.” His reform of the Ptolemaic system was by no means so complete as Mr. Peck's expression implies. The retention by the Frauenburg astronomer of the old hypothesis of equable circular motion necessitated, in fact, the employment still of no less than thirty-four circles, by which to make plain, as he said, “the entire structure of the heavens”—that is, the revolutions of the moon and of the six known planets.
The Apparent Movements of flee Planets and the Principal Astronomical Phenomena for the Year 1886.
Illustrated with Charts showing the Paths of the Eleven Principal Planets among the Stars. By William Peck. (Edinburgh: Archibald and Peck, 1886)
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[Book Reviews]. Nature 33, 438 (1886). https://doi.org/10.1038/033438b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/033438b0