Customer Reviews

Stargazer: The Life and Times of the Telescope

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a book I really wanted to like, and I don't regret reading it. That said, this is more a book for people interested in learning a few more details about the pre-1900 history of the telescope than a book to get someone excited about the development of the telescope.

Overall the prose is serviceable, if a bit pedestrian. But it is uneven, with some excellent passages and some that are a bit of a slog. Up through the late nineteenth century the author presents all the major threads of the story, but toward the end the book becomes more a series of highlights rather than a survey of developments. My sense in reading it was that the author ran out of steam and couldn't handle the twentieth century in the depth he managed for earlier epochs. Recent developments in eight to ten meter telescopes are barely mentioned. He provides a superficial discussion of radio telescopes, but doesn't mention solar telescopes. Space telescopes are briefly mentioned, but their history is barely scratched. The epilogue, looking back from year 2108, is more cute that informative.

Yes, read this book if you are interested in telescopes. But be prepared for a sense of unfulfilled promise, as this book could have been so much more ...

_Stargazer: The Life and Times of the Telescope_ by Fred Watson is an epic, far-ranging history of one of the most important instruments in science. Watson traced the origin and development of the telescope from nearly four hundred years ago, when Dutch craftsmen Hans Lipperhey first brought to the world's attention the telescope in 1608 (the author demonstrated that though he gets credit for first bringing it to international attention, he is perhaps not the instrument's original inventor, as there were at least several near simultaneous separate inventions of it), all the way to the present with the impressive orbiting Hubble telescope.

The book is at times as much a history of astronomy as it is of the telescope, chronicling some of the lives of such luminaries as Galileo, Johannes Kepler, William Herschel, and George Ellery Hale and many of the big discoveries, such as the discoveries of the cloud belts of Jupiter, Saturn's rings, the planet Uranus, the moons of Mars, and the first spiral galaxy. Some of the most interesting accounts were of people and discoveries virtually unknown to the general public, such as that of William Gascoigne, a brilliant man who invented the telescopic sight by accident when he saw a spider drop between the objective and the eyepiece, leaving a thread behind it, leading him to develop two crossed threads that would enable an astronomer to point precisely at a star, and who also invented another device (also used in the focus of any eyepiece) that allowed for measuring the angular diameter of the Sun or Moon and the distances between close pairs of stars. Tragically, his life was cut short when he was killed in the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, part of the English Civil War (he was only 24).

The focus of the book however was on the origin and evolution of the telescope, the author detailing each new development in telescope technology, supplying the reader with diagrams to discern the inner workings of such advancements as the Keplerian or inverting telescope (one in which the field of view is independent of the diameter of the objective, replacing some of the problems with the Galilean telescope) and the Cassegrain telescope (one that used a convex secondary mirror to intercept the beam from the main paraboloid mirror before it formed an image, refocusing it back in such as way that an image was formed that could be magnified with an ordinary lens eyepiece behind the mirror). Of near equal importance was the evolution of telescope mounts, devices that held the telescope and allowed it to track the movement of celestial objects across the sky. Though there were some contemporary illustrations of various mounts, I wish there had been more diagrams for such arrangements as the equatorial mounting, English equatorial, and German equatorial to assist the lay reader.

Problems in telescope development were discussed, issues that bedeviled generations of astronomers and engineers, including chromatic aberration (when colored halos appear around images, a problem that mystified astronomers for many decades and was not corrected until two or more lenses were used in combination, lenses whose respective color errors would cancel each other out), comas (when stars take on the appearance of comets with short tails), and spherical aberration (a blurring of images resulting from objective lenses with curved surfaces, as the focused beams of light from a celestial object would fail to cross at a single point).

The history of famous and noteworthy individual telescopes was a very interesting feature of the book. Early telescope makers solved the problems of chromatic and spherical aberration by making the focal length of an objective very long in comparison with its diameter, reducing both aberrations to a level that would not be noticeable, resulting in long, spindly telescopes. Johannes Hevelius, a seventeenth century amateur in the city of Danzig, built a monstrous telescope whose focal length was 150 feet long, supported from a mast 90 feet high, its working more like the rigging of a sailing ship than an optical instrument, so ungainly that a fair number of men were needed to move and point it in the right direction and that any breeze would leave it quivering uncontrollably, making observation difficult. Another notable one is William Herschel's Forty-foot telescope, a massive for the time 48 inches in diameter, the telescope that he is best remembered for and one that still adorns the seal of the Royal Astronomical Society, an expensive object that would not have come to fruition without financial support from King George III (an early forerunner of national funding for scientific projects), and that when it came into use in 1789 proved something of a disappointment, thanks to high copper content of the mirrors (which tarnished rapidly and required frequent repolishing), difficult to manage without two additional workmen, and of course the famous British weather (though the telescope was maintained despite regular scientific usage to impress the King's guests as after all he did pay for it). Still another one was the Irish telescope named the Leviathan of Parsonstown, a massive telescope that was first used in 1845, its four tonne mirror taking sixteen weeks to cool once cast (and had to be cast five times owing to faulty cooling and accidents), an instrument that while it did produce some good science (discovering sixty "spiral nebulae" - they weren't know as galaxies yet), did not live up to its full potential, thanks to attentions being focused elsewhere due to the catastrophic potato famine of 1845-1848, and was dismantled in the early 20th century though between 1996 and 1998 it was lovingly restored to full working order with a new aluminum mirror and a modern hydraulic system to move it.

A good book, I thought some of the explanations could have been better. It had many contemporary illustrations, copious endnotes, an extensive bibliography, a glossary, a listing of famous telescopes today, and a global map showing their relative positions in the world today.

Books about science should be written by literate scientists--they are the ones to tell the real stories, not superficial versions padded with hyperbole, so often found in bookstores and libraries. Fred Watson knows telescopes, knows history--also knows the lives of the oddballs who created them, and the technical niceties. And being Australian, he has the gift of informal humor peculiar (perhaps) to a continent setttled be convicts.

Read the book, and if some of the technology is too detailed, just skim it and keep swimming. Watson starts with the giant telescopes of the present and the near future, and the relentless competition in building them. Then he backtracks to Hans Lipperhey, inventor of the telescope whose secret was foolishly leaked. He shows how Newton was not the originator of the mirror telescope, but built the first successful one, because he also invented the pitch-block method of grinding mirrors, still used by amateurs. Read about the Dollond monopoly, about the Herschels, Fraunhofer and many others, all the way to Bernard Schmidt who lost an arm playing withgunpowder as a kid and who in later life loved alcohol, yet designed an exquisitely different telescope, providing an extremely wide view.

It's all there, and much more. If you have a friend who's an amateur astronomer, this book makes a great gift. If you are one yourself, make sure to have your own copy, too.

David P. Stern, Greenbelt, Maryland

This book is nominally about telescopes. But it's more than that. Telescopes have been the ultimate interaction between hard core science (Newton's development of the theory of gravity for instance) and the state of the art in quite a number of technologies.

For instance lens making was in the early days an offshoot of manufacturing eye glasses. One of the first things to be actually manufactured that could be called high tech. Today the mirrors of large telescopes are made by putting molten glass in a bowl (if you will) that can be spun around a vertical axis so that the centrifugal force causes the glass to flow outwards to rise along the edges of the bowl and form the curve wanted.

The glass used in these large lenses is not old reclaimed Coke bottles. It is precisely defined and manufactured by only three or four companies in the world. It is also not cheap.

Any imperfections in the rotation of the 'bowl' will cause ripples in the surface so the bearings are as perfect as it is possible to make them and the drive motors designed for absolutely perfect speeds.

All of these technologies must come together to make a modern instrument. Like it has for four centuries, these technologies have driven the state of the art every higher, and there is no end in sight.

This book details the history of the telescope, and in doing so, describes the state of the art in a lot of manufacturing fields. Highly recommended.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The author, an astronomer and world class expert in his subject matter, is also a very witty, occasionally humorous and most engaging writer. The historical presentation and mini-biographical snippets are very well written and most informative. As a welcome bonus, the author has included some technical details on the optics and designs of telescopes of all types; the many optical diagrams nicely complement the physical descriptions given in the text. Of course, these physical descriptions encouraged me to dig up my old optics textbooks to verify some of the technical arguments for myself. A glossary, notes and a list of references round out this excellent book. This is a valuable addition to the library of any science buff and is indispensable to anyone remotely interested in astronomy and its fascinating tools.

STARGAZER, the life and times of the TELESCOPE is not a technical book about how to build a telescope. Instead, Fred Watson gives us a history about people building telescopes. He talks about why the science went the direction it did, and what motivated those early craftsmen to make the choices they did. It's easy, entertaining reading, but when you get done, you'll understand the difference between a 'refractor' and a 'reflector', which parts are glass, and which parts are mirrors, and why the telescope is put together the way it is.

An optical telescope is basically a mirror for catching light. Once this principle is understood, it follows that the bigger the mirror, the more we can see, at greater distances with greater accuracy. The only limitation is the human eye. But the history of the telescope is not merely a history of perfecting bigger, better mirrors. It is a surprisingly human, grounded saga of men struggling not only with technology but also with each other --- philosophically, politically, and financially.

Before the invention of the telescope, the universe had to be invented. It was once believed that the night sky, so beloved of astronomers and courting couples, was simply a flat backdrop for a nightly drama played out by the stars. Space was a curtain. It took a genius or two to map out the earth's place among the stars, and a number of lesser known but no less brilliant men to figure out how to see what was out there. The most recognized name in early astronomy is Galileo, who was not the instrument's inventor. Fred Watson --- astronomer, writer, and author of STARGAZER --- informs us that no one person can claim that honor. Galileo was among the very first to construct, use and refine the telescope and got the pleasure of naming all sorts of things (he cleverly named the moons of Jupiter for the Medici family, hoping to gain ducal favor thereby).

Subsequent inventions have been improvements on the basic telescope, adding more lenses and bigger tubes, up to the modern era when we non-astronomers assume that things in the Hubble era have gone about as far as they can go. There is a limit to the number of good sighting places on earth --- the requirements are height and low population density along with near perfect weather conditions. And there is a theoretical limit to how big a lens can be, though Watson recounts a project called OWL (Overwhelmingly Large). "OWL was to be a telescope of no less than 100 metres aperture with a mirror made up of hexagonal segments measuring 2.3 metres across --- a staggering 1600 of them...most of the Universe --- literally --- would fall within its grasp." But OWL is still on the drawing boards, with some scientists considering it a "ULT --- Uselessly Large Telescope."

Watson's book never burdens the reader with too much technical mass, and keeps the human angle always in focus. Most of the book consists of dramatic, often humorous stories of various attempts to make the heavens come to earth through the lens of the telescope. The author's ability to put us ordinary earthbound folk in the big picture is a significant contribution to the subject.

--- Reviewed by Barbara Bamberger Scott, an author (WITH IT - Behler Publications, 2004) and professional book reviewer whose work regularly appears in www.curledup.com, www.bookreporter.com, www.awomanswrite.com, and three North Carolina daily newspapers.

In 1608, a "spyglass' was invented purportedly by Hans Lipperley, but he couldn't get a Dutch patent, so Galileo is considered the inventor. This four hundred -year-old instrument changed the way we view the universe. It helped us to understand our place in the cosmos and the theme of things past and to come.

It is one of the world's far-reaching inventions. When I was inquiring of the reference librarian about the new books being released about Mars, Betty said, "I think it would be so neat to have a telescope." I matter-of-factly told her, "My son is an astronomer." She looked at me in awe; after all these years, I was suddenly 'somebody.' To her, that was much better by far than a silly old movie star. I promised that when he came to visit, I'd bring him to the library for all to meet. Alas, he came on Labor Day when the library was closed. The telescope unlocks the mysteries of the universe to the commoner.

It took a lot of human ingenuity and perserverance to build a working telescope. Now, they are everywhere. Jeff worked at Kitt Peak on those huge contraptions as a grad student. Then, while the Hubble was flawed, he entered the information into the computer for reference so that we could learn how to perform more metictously. The most famous astronomers mentioned in this book are Isaac Newton, Hohannes Keppler, Cassigrain, and Schmidt. He left out Burks. It took a bunch of quirky scientists to make a working telescope and much labor of the heart and mind.

This book is written by an astronomer from Australia in New South Wales. Well known as a broadcaster and writer ('Astronomy,' 'Sky & Telescope,' 'Sky & Space,' and 'New Scientist'), he was awarded the prestigious David Allen prize for communicating astronomy to the public. The maps, drawings and pictures help to interpret the complexity of this spyglass 'out of control.' There are all kinds of telescopes now even those dish kind, radio telescopes, I think they are called. It is a fascinating book even for the ordinary citizen.

I was impressed with the depth of knowledge put forth in this book by Fred Watson. He traced the history of the development of the telescope without the usual diversion into the personal lives of the cast of characters who gave their contributions to the creation and improvement of what is one of the most important scientific instruments of all time. Dr. Watson has captured what is relevant and presented the information in a readable, indeed enjoyable format. I recommend this work. Francis J. O'Reilly

This is a really fun read. The author has a sense of humor and irony, and knowledge enough of the history to highlight both. As other reviewers have commented, the post WW2 coverage is modest. I think the author knew those last few chapters would be doomed to be incomplete by the discoveries of the new telescopes being built and launched left and right these days.

I found his coverage of the pre-telescope era excellent, including a photo of what remains of Tycho Brahe's observatory. The sections on the 18th & 19th century are also fine, with a clear and careful telling of the many convoluted paths that technology was taking at that time. By that point in the book I really couldn't put it down. There's just something compelling about those bickering British scientists! He also includes photos and the ultimate fate of many famous 19th century telescopes.

I think anyone with a passing knowledge of telescopes and an interest in the history of technology would thoroughly enjoy this book.