Full text: History of the Royal Astronomical Society

74 HISTORY OF THE [1830-40 18 
the following decade, was founded on observations made in 1830 do 
and following years. This was a catalogue of 520 stars within 18; 
6° of the Ecliptic, observed by Pearson at South Kilworth, Leices 
tershire, with a transit instrument and a 3-foot-altazimuth.* Of led 
greater importance than these was the catalogue of 726 stars sui 
deduced from observations made at the Cambridge Observatory Sa 
from 1828 to 1835, which appeared in volume 9 of the Memoirs. fol 
This foreshadowed what might be expected, in the way of per- mi 
fectly independent catalogues of standard stars, from the Green- J. 
wich Observatory under its new director, and was a fitting ending rec 
to his work at Cambridge. thi 
If we now turn from the public observatories to those of sy; 
private observers, we find again one great name which stands th< 
pre-eminent; that of John Herschel. The observations of (ei 
double stars made by him with his 20-foot reflector at Slough ele 
were published in the Memoirs of the Society in eight instalments. nu 
Six of these f contain the places of the couples found, 3346 in all. 
The position angles were up to 1828 July 5 merely estimated; in 
after that date they were measured by a micrometer, but the (e^ 
distances were estimated throughout the whole series. In the first tio 
three papers the position angles are expressed according to the in 
notation used by W. Herschel, the parallel being the zero line and fat 
the angles counted from o° to 90° in each quadrant. But in the to 1 
fourth series (presented 1830 April) Herschel used the notation in 
ever since adopted, having found the old system very liable to CQ1 
introduce errors and confusion. Some members of the Council w i 
seem to have been alarmed by this innovation ; and the Committee, ws 
to whom the paper had been referred, recommended that the old his 
notation should be adhered to. South was, however, requested to Y e 
consult with Herschel, and, as an old observer of double stars, he at 
was no doubt easily persuaded of the advantages of the new plan. ea] 
The nebulae and clusters found in the course of Herschel’s wa 
“ sweeps ” were formed into a catalogue of 2306 objects for 1830, fri 
the single observations being given for each object. About 500 ha 
of these objects were recorded for the first time. This catalogue f Q1 
was presented to the Royal Society, and published in the Philoso 
phical Transactions for 1833. Our Society’s Gold Medal was rei 
awarded to Herschel for this work in 1836. ^ ai 
Simultaneously with these observations with the 20-foot ^a 
reflector, Herschel also made measures of double stars with a 
refractor of 5-inches aperture and 7 feet focal length, equatoreally 
mounted. These measures were published in two papers in the 
Memoir 5.J We may add that another distinguished observer of ret 
* Memoirs, 15 , 97-127. f Ibid., 2 , 3 , 4 , 6, 9 . 
t Ibid., 5 , 13, and 8, 37- 
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