Abstract
IN Leaflet No. 159 (May 1942) of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Roscoe F. Sanford gives a brief account of early astronomy in South America. Our knowledge of the subject results from a number of expeditions which were sent from the United States with the object of securing data on various astronomical matters. In 1847 Lieut. J. M. Gilliss, founder of the U.S. Naval Observatory, induced Congress to authorize and finance an expedition to South America to improve the value of the solar parallax. Cerro Santa Lucia in Chile was chosen as the site for the observatory, and great progress was made in the next three years, during which the positions of Mars and Venus were determined simultaneously in Chile and in the United States, mostly at Cambridge. Several years later, the reduction of these observations was carried out and a solar parallax of 8.5" was derived. Research was conducted in other directions, and eventually the Chilean Government became so interested in the work that it arranged for young Chileans to be taught the use of the instruments. Later it purchased these and founded a National Observatory. Dr. Benjamin Gould, who had carried out the reductions for the solar parallax, interested Sarmiento, the Argentine ambassador to the United States, in a scheme for determining accurate star positions in a zone where observations were lacking, and the result was that the Argentine Government founded El Observatorio Nacional de Argentina in 1870, Gould being chosen as director.
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Early Astronomy in South America. Nature 150, 174–175 (1942). https://doi.org/10.1038/150174c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/150174c0