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Beyond the planets: early nineteenth-century studies of double stars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Mari Williams
Mari Williams
Affiliation:
Business History Unit, London School of Economics, Portugal Street, London WC2A 2HD.
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Extract

In 1837 the German-born astronomer F. G. W. Struve published his famous catalogue of double stars. For Struve this was the culmination of 12 years' detailed observation of a class of celestial objects lying exclusively beyond the solar system; for historians of astronomy it poses the problem of explaining why the study of double stars became a significant part of astronomical endeavour, as it did, during the 1820s and 1830s. For, although Struve's interest was extreme, it was shared to a lesser extent by several eminent contemporaries, including John Herschel, Friedrich Bessel, Johann Encke, James South and Félix Savary. Their combined efforts represented an important transition in astronomy: for the first time one of the emphases of the subject moved beyond the solar system to the so-called fixed stars. The question of the emergence of interest in double stars is of historical significance, therefore, as it is related to the problem of the origins of ‘stellar astronomy’. This essay is thus intended to offer an explanation of astronomers' interest in double stars, and to tackle the related question of whether this transition constituted a major break in the history of astronomy. Furthermore it is proposed that answers to these problems may be found by considering the practice of astronomy dominant during the first half of the nineteenth century. Astronomers in this period were overwhelmingly concerned with a refined form of positional astronomy. The problems they chose to solve were by and large related to the difficulties of the accurate reduction of observational data, and the compilation of reliable tables and star charts, which were then used as a background against which the motions of solar system objects were plotted. By assessing individuals' studies of double stars within this context it can be seen firstly that such studies were no more or less than specific examples of a general case, and secondly that the stars themselves were not usually of intrinsic interest. In general it was the positions of the stars on the

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , November 1984 , pp. 295 - 309
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1984

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References

1 Struve, F. G. W., Stellarum duplicium et multiplicium mensurae micrometricae, St. Petersburg, 1837Google Scholar; a synopsis was published simultaneously in French: Étoiles doubles. Mésures micrometriques, St. Petersburg, 1837.Google Scholar

2 The use of the term ‘stellar astronomy’ is here meant to include particular studies of the intrinsic properties of celestial objects known by astronomers to lie beyond the solar system. Such studies would be those undertaken to increase astronomerss' understanding of the objects themselves and thus exclude work—such as the provision of stellar catalogues—carried out as an aid to solar system studies. See Williams, M. E. W., ‘Was there such a thing as stellar astronomy in the eighteenth century?’, History of Science Insert, 1983, 21, 369–85.Google Scholar

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9 Reasons for his failure are discussed in my Ph.D. thesis, ‘Attempts to measure annual stellar parallax: Hooke to Bessel’, University of London (Imperial College), 1981, Chapter 3.Google Scholar

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12 Idem., ref. 5, Dreyer, , 2, 250.Google Scholar

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16 Ibid., 149.

17 Idem., Populäre Vorlesungen über wissenschattiche Gegenstände, edited by Schumacher, H. C., Hamburg, 1848, 5Google Scholar: ‘Was die Astronomie leisten muss, ist zu allen Zeiten gleich klar gewesen: sie muss Vorschriften ertheilen, nach welchen die Bewegungen der Himmelskörper.’

18 Bessel's enormous undertaking in the refinement of positional astronomy resulted in the publication of two very influential volumes: Fundamenta Astronomiae, Königsberg, 1818Google Scholar; and Tabulae Regiomontanae, Königsberg, 1830.Google Scholar See also Hermann, D. B., ‘Some aspects of positional astronomy from Bradley to Bessel’, Vistas in astronomy, 1976, 20, 183–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Bessel, , ref. 15, 149–50Google Scholar: ‘Dieses merkwürdige Sternenpaar… ist der sehr aufmerksamen Betrachtung der Astronomen würdig, indem es uns zu interessanten Folgerungen über das Fixsternen-Gebäude fürhen kann’.

20 Ibid., 161: ‘Gelingt es uns, die jährliche Parallaxe dieses Sternenpaars zu beobachten… so würden wir daraus die summe ihrer Massen berechnen können.’

21 Idem., ‘Untersuchungen des Theils des planetarischen Störungen, welche aus der Bewegung des Sonne entsteht’, Abhandlungen der Berliner Akademie der Wissenschaften (Mathematische Classe) 1824, Berlin, 1824, 1–31Google Scholar; and ‘Bestimmung der Entfernung des 61 des Sterns des Schwans’, Astronomische Nachrichten, 1839, 16, 65–85.Google Scholar

22 Pannekoek, A., A History of Astronomy, London, 1961, 430.Google Scholar

23 Struve, F. G. W., ‘Auszug aus einem Briefe des Hrn. Prof. Struve an den Director der Sternwarte Seeberg’, Zeitschrift für Astronomie und verandte Wiss, 1817, 4, 462–73.Google Scholar

24 Idem., Mesures micrometriques, ref. 1, 13–14Google Scholar: ‘Mon premier soin fut donc d'établir le grand instrument dans le méridien, et en observant le passage de plusieurs étoiles doubles, je fus surpris d'en reconnaitre les satellites, quoique, suivant les données de Herschel, ces étoiles appartinssent aux plus difficile à séparer. Cette circonstance me décela toute la perfection de l'instrument, et me fortifia dans la résolution que j'avais prise anterieurement de choisir les étoiles doubles pour objet de mes recherches. Aucun astronome, à ma connaissance, ne s'occupait alors de ces étoiles; j'avais donc l'espérance de parvenir à des résultats importants par la comparaison de mes nouvelles observations avec celles qu'avait enterprises Sir William Herschel vers les années 1780 et 1800.’

25 All Struve's publications are usefully listed at the end of Novokshanova, Z. K., Vasily Yakovlevich Struve, Moscow, 1964, 249–71.Google Scholar

26 Gauss, C. F., Theoria motus corporum coelestium, Hamburg, 1809.Google Scholar For a historical appraisal of Gauss's work on the method of least squares see Tilling, L., ‘The interpretation of observational errors in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries’, Ph.D. thesis, University of London (Imperial College), 1973, Chapter 6.Google Scholar

27 de Laplace, P. S. M., ‘Sur l'application du calcul des probabilités à la philosophie naturelle’, Connaissance des Temps pour 1818, Paris, 1815, 361–77.Google Scholar

28 The most important and active astronomers working in the German states at this time were Olbers, Bessel, Gauss, von Lindenau (until 1817), Bode, Schumacher and von Zach.

29 Struve, F. G. W., ‘A comparison of observations made on double stars. Letter to John Herschel’, Memoirs of the Astronomical Society of London, 1826, 2, 443–55Google Scholar; idem., Catalogus novus stellarum duplicium et multiplicium, Dorpat, 1827.Google Scholar

30 Idem., ‘Observations on double stars’, Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, 1823, 9, 334–41Google Scholar; and ibid., 1824, 10, 102–9, 331–8; idem., ‘Observations on double stars’, Edinburgh Journal of Science, 1824, 1, 137–9.Google Scholar

31 Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, 1824, 10, 331.Google Scholar

32 Herschel, J. F. W. and South, J., ‘Observations of the apparent distances and positions of 380 double and triple stars…’, Phil. Trans., 1824, 114, iii, 1412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar (‘Distance’ here means the angular separation of the components; ‘position’ the orientation with respect to the meridian of an imaginary line joining them.)

33 Amici's work on doubles was known in Britain only via the accounts of it published by von Zach in his periodical Correspondence Astronomique, published in Genoa.

34 South, J., ‘Observations on the best mode of examining the double or compound stars’, Memoirs of the Astronomical Society of London, 1822, 1, 109–14, 109.Google Scholar Paper read 5 May 1820.

35 For an account of the selection of William Herschel see Dreyer, J. L. E. (ed.), The history of the Royal Astronomical Society, London, 1923, Chapter 1.Google Scholar

36 Herschel and South, ref. 32, 1.

37 South, J., ‘Observations of the apparent distances and positions of 458 double and triple stars, made in the years 1823, 1824 and 1825…’, Phil. Trans., 1826, 116, 1–391.CrossRefGoogle Scholar He was unable to collaborate with John Herschel for the second catalogue as much of the work was carried out in Paris.

38 See under ‘Doppelsterne’ in the indexes of the following volumes of correspondence: Gauss-Olbers, edited by C. Schilling, in Gauss, C. F., Werke: Briefwechsel mit H. W. M. Olbers, Berlin 1900Google Scholar; Gauss-Bessel, edited by R. Englemann, in idem., Werke: Briefwechsel mit F. W. Bessel, Leipzig, 1880Google Scholar; Gauss-Schumacher, edited by C. A. F. Peters, in idem., Werke: Briefwechsel mit H. C. Schumacher, St. Petersburg, 1860–1863.Google Scholar See also Briefwechsel zwischen Olbers und Bessel, edited by Erman, A., Leipzig, 1852, 2, 311–2, 316–23.Google Scholar

39 Bessel, F. W., Königsberger Beobachtungen, 10, Königsberg, 1825Google Scholar; idem., ‘Vorläufige Nachtricht von einem auf der Königsberger Sternwarte befindlichen grossen Heliometer’, Astronomische Nachrichten, 1830, 8, 397–408Google Scholar, translated into English by R. Main in his paper, ‘On the present state of our knowledge of the parallax of the fixed stars’, Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1842, 12, 1–60, 49–57.Google Scholar

40 Bessel, F. W., ‘Verlcichung der gegenseitigen Stellungen von 37 Doppelsternen, welche sowohl in Königsberger beobachtet sind’, Astronomische Nachtrichten, 1833, 10, 388–98Google Scholar; idem., ‘Beobachtungen der gegenseitigen Stellungen von 38 Doppelsternen’, Abhandlungen Berliner Akademie der Wissenschaften: Mathematike Classe, 1833, 41.Google Scholar

41 Savary, F., ‘Sur la Détermination des orbites qui décrivent autour de leur centre de gravité deux étoiles tres rapprochées l'une à l'autre’, Connaissance des Temps pour 1830, Paris, 1827, 56–69.Google Scholar

42 Idem., ‘Addition à la Note sur le Mouvement des Étoiles doubles’, ibid., 163–71, 169: ‘Dans un petit nombre d'années, il sera facile de les modifier avec une probabilité assez grande, et il semble déjà permis de croire que l'on parviendra à déterminer, soit par l'observation, soit par le calcul, les positions relatives de l'étoile mobile, pour une époque quelconque, dans les limites d'erreur qui n'excèderont par un degré.’

43 Encke, J. F., ‘Über die Berechnung der Bahnen der Doppelsterne’, Berliner astronomisches Jahrbuch für 1832, Berlin, 1830, 253–304.Google Scholar

44 Encke's dissertation on comets is contained in numbers 210 and 211 of the Astronomisches Nachrichten and was translated into English by Airy, G. B., Translation of Encke's dissertation…, Cambridge, 1832.Google Scholar

45 The catalogue was published in stages in the pages of the Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society: 1826, 2, 459–97Google Scholar; 1829, 3, 47–63, 177–213; 1831, 4, 331–96; 1833, 6, 1–73; 1836, 9, 193–204.

46 Herschel, J. F. W., ‘Micrometrical measurements of 364 Double stars with a 7-foot Equatorial Achromatic telescope, taken at Slough, in the years 1828, 1829 and 1830’Google Scholar, ibid., 1832, 5, 13–92.

47 Idem., ‘On the investigation of the orbits of revolving double stars; being a supplement to a paper entitled “Micrometrical measurements of 364 Double stars &C”’, ibid., 171–222.

48 Cannon, S. F., Science in Culture, New York, 1978, 81.Google Scholar

49 Herschel's solution differed from those of Encke and Savary in that he made use of graphical representations of the relative motions of the stellar components, arguing that the accuracy of his data was more fairly reflected geometrically than analytically.

50 A number of other characters showed interest also, including Mädler, who studied the orbits of binaries, Dawes, an English astronomer who ran a private observatory in Ormskirk and made many observations of doubles, Dunlop, who compiled a catalogue of doubles visible from his observatory in New South Wales, and von Zach who published a number of letters about doubles in his Correspondence astronomique.

51 Cannon, , ref. 48, 80–1.Google Scholar

52 Letter from Olbers to Bessel, 21 October 1821, printed in Olbers-Bessel correspondence, ref. 38, 2, 212: ‘Sie, lieber Bessel, und unser Gauss, machen eine förmliche Revolution, und eine wirkliche Epoche in der beobachtenden Astronomie.’