A compendium of astronomy: being a concise description of the most interesting phenomena of the heavens (1849)

Record Details:

Title:
A compendium of astronomy: being a concise description of the most interesting phenomena of the heavens
Date:
1849
Publisher:
London: Carpenter and Westley
Volume:
A Compendium of astronomy: being a concise description of the most interesting phenomena of the heavens
Leaf #:
0008
Language:
English
Collection:
Magic Lantern and Lantern Slide Catalog
Format:
Catalogs
Contributor:
Toverlantaarnmuseum Scheveningen (TOMU)
Sponsor:
A Million Pictures
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:
Lecture notes with comments to a set of astronomical lanterns slides of the same title. The full title of the lecture is 'A compendium of astronomy: being a concise description of the most interesting phenomena of the heavens intended to accompany a series of thirty diagrams, contained in single sliders, the paintings three inches in diameter exhibited by the improved phantasmagoria lantern'. The slides and the notes were produced by Carpenter & Westley. The lecture explains what is seen in the images that were projected from lantern slides on to a screen. This version is from 1849 but an earlier version from 1837 is also known. Carpenter and Westley's lantern slide set on astronomy was widely used in (popular) education on the subject, and examples of slides can be found in several collections. To learn more about Carpenter and Westley and to see examples of slides in their collection, visit the Lucerna Magic Lantern Web Resource http://slides.uni-trier.de/organisation/index.php?id=1000618 .
Date Added:
March 28, 2024
Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

A COMPENDIUM OF ASTRONOMY. The science of Astronomy teaches the laws which regulate the motions of the heavenly bodies, explains their appearances, and ascertains their magnitudes, distances, and relative situations. When we look at the heavens, we seem to he in the centre of a vast dome or hemisphere, in which the Sun, Moon, and other heavenly bodies, are fixed. This dome appears to us to revolve from east to west in twenty-four hours, round a point, which in our latitude is nearly half way between the zenith (which is directly above our heads) and the horizon. This point is called the North Pole of the heavens; and it would appear to an observer at the North Pole of the Earth to he directly above his head; to one at the Equator, it appears in the horizon: it is never seen by those below the equator; and it is always as many degrees above the horizon, as the place from which it is seen is to the north of the Equator. In consequence of the oblique situation of this point in our latitude, every other part ot the celestial hemisphere appears to us considerably more elevated at some times than at others, in proportion to its distance from the pole; and some parts daily disappear below the horizon. Eor instance, if we observe the course of the Sun, we shall see that he rises in the east, sometime between four and eight o deck in