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Books > Science & Mathematics > Astronomy, space & time > Solar system
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Empire and the Sun - Victorian Solar Eclipse Expeditions (Paperback)
Loot Price: R746
Discovery Miles 7 460
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Empire and the Sun - Victorian Solar Eclipse Expeditions (Paperback)
Series: Writing Science
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
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Astronomy was a popular and important part of Victorian science,
and British astronomers carried telescopes and spectroscopes to
remote areas of India, the Great Plains of North America, and
islands in the Caribbean and Pacific to watch the sun eclipsed by
the moon. Examining the rich interplay between science, culture,
and British imperial society in the late nineteenth century, this
book shows how the organization and conduct of scientific fieldwork
was structured by contemporary politics and culture, and how rapid
and profound changes in the organization of science, advances in
photography, and new printing technology remade the character of
scientific observation.
After introducing the field of Victorian science to the
nonspecialist, the book examines the long periods of planning
necessary for eclipse expeditions, and it recounts the day-to-day
work of getting to field sites, setting up camp, and preparing for
and observing eclipses. Operating behind the countless decisions
made by scientists was a host of large-scale forces, including the
professionalization and specialization of disciplines, the growth
of service, and public funding for the sciences. Fieldwork also
required close coordination with the many institutions and
technological systems of British imperialism.
The development of imaging technologies was, of course, crucial to
observations of the solar corona. Eclipse observation taxed
astronomers and their cameras to their limits, and it raised new
questions about the trustworthiness of imaging technologies. In the
late nineteenth century, scientists shifted from drawing to
photographing natural phenomena, but the shift occurred gradually,
unevenly, and against resistance. Victorian astronomers had to
weigh carefully the merits of human and mechanical observation, and
the difficulties of solar photography highlight the inseparability
of images from technologies of observation and printing.
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