Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T15:59:51.907Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Pulkovo Observatory's Status in 19th Century Positional Astronomy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2016

Kevin Krisciunas*
Affiliation:
Joint Astronomy Centre 665 Komohana Street Hilo, Hawaii 96720 USA

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The most significant basis of the reputation of a scientific organization is the accuracy and influence of its work. From a comparison of values of certain astronomical constants and stellar parallaxes obtained at Pulkovo and elsewhere, the extremely high weight given to the Pulkovo values (e.g. by Newcomb) is further justified in retrospect given the small deviations between Pulkovo values and the “modern” values accepted a century later.

Type
Part 1: The legacy of Pulkovo for inertial systems and reference frames
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer 1990 

References

The Astronomical Almanac for the year 1989, Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office and London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office.Google Scholar
Batten, Alan H. 1988, Resolute and Undertaking Characters: the Lives of Wilhelm and Otto Struve , Dordrecht: D. Reidel.Google Scholar
Böhme, S. and Fricke, W. 1963, in The System of Astronomical Constants , Kovalevsky, J. ed., Paris: Gauthier-Villars (IAU Symposium No. 21), 269293.Google Scholar
Brück, H. A. and Brück, M. T. 1988, The Peripatetic Astronomer: The Life of Charles Piazzi Smyth , Bristol and Philadelphia: Adam Hilger.Google Scholar
Chapman, A. 1983, J. Hist. Astr. 14, 133137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clerke, Agnes M. 1904, A Popular History of Astronomy during the Nineteenth Century , London: Adam and Charles Black, 4th ed. Google Scholar
de Sitter, W. 1938, Bull. Astron. Insts. Neth. 8, 213231. (This paper was completed by D. Brouwer.) Google Scholar
Dreyer, J. L. E. 1882, Copernicus (Dublin) 2, 135155.Google Scholar
Dreyer, J. L. E. 1918, M. N. R. A. S. 78, 343349.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Explanatory Supplement to The Astronomical Ephemeris and The American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac , London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1961, in particular pp. 168174, 180-193.Google Scholar
Gliese, W. 1969, Catalogue of Nearby Stars, Veröffentlichungen des Astron. Rechen-Inst. Heidelberg , No. 22.Google Scholar
Grant, Robert 18[52], History of Physical Astronomy from the Earliest Ages to the Middle of the Nineteenth Century , London: Henry G. Bohn.Google Scholar
Hall, A. 1888, Astron. J. 8, 113.Google Scholar
Harkness, W. 1891, “The solar parallax and its related constants, including the figure and density of the Earth,” Washington Observations for 1885 , Appendix III.Google Scholar
Hughes, D. 1984, Nature 307, 1516.Google Scholar
Krisciunas, Kevin 1988, Astronomical Centers of the World , Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Lieske, J. H. 1985, Celestial Mechanics 37, 209238.Google Scholar
Lieske, J. H., Lederle, T., Fricke, W., and Morando, B. 1977, Astron. Astrophys. 58, 116.Google Scholar
Newcomb, Simon 1895, The Elements of the Four Inner Planets and the Fundamental Constants of Astronomy , Washington: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Newcomb, Simon 1898, “A new determination of the precessional constant with the resulting precessional motions,” Astronomical Papers prepared for the use of the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac 8, Washington: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Procès-Verbaux of the Conférence Internationale des Étoiles Fondamentales de 1896 , Annales du Bureau des Longitudes 3, 18[96], pp. D1D90.Google Scholar
Struve, Otto [Wilhelm] 1895, Zur Erinnerung an den Vater den Geschwistern dargebracht , Karlsruhe: G. Braun'schen Hofbuchdruckerei.Google Scholar
Struve, Otto 1951, Navigation 2, 302305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Struve, W. 1839, Astron. Nachrichten 16, No. 371, 163166.Google Scholar
Struve, W. 1840, ibid. 17, No. 396, 177180.Google Scholar
Struve, W. 1841, ibid. 18, No. 426, 289294.Google Scholar
Struve, W. 1842, “Notice sur l'instrument des passages de Repsold, établi a L'Observatoire de Poulkova dans le premier vertical, sur les résultats que cet instrument a donnés pour l'evaluation de la constante de l'aberration, Bulletin scientifique publié par l'Académie imp. des Sciences de St.-Pétersbourg 10, No. 14, 15, 16.Google Scholar
Struve, W. 1844, “Sur le coefficient constant dans l'aberration des étoiles fixes déduit des observations que ont été exécutées à l'observatoire de Poulkova par l'instrument des passages de Repsold établi dans le premier vertical,” Mém. de l'Acad. Imp. des Sci. de St.-Pétersbourg, Sci. Math. et Phys. 3, 229285.Google Scholar
Struve, [F. G.] W. 1845, Description de L'Observatoire Astronomique central de Poulkova , St. Petersburg: Imprimerie de L'Académie Imperiale des Sciences.Google Scholar
Struve, [F. G.] W. 1852, Stellarum Fixarum imprimis Duplicium et multiplicium Positiones Mediae pro epocha 1830.0 deductae ex observationibus meridianis annis 1822 ad 1843 in specula Dorpatensi , St. Petersburg.Google Scholar