Agnes Mary Clerke (1842-1907) published The System of the Stars in 1890 when she was a well-established popular science writer. The volume was intended to bring the educated public up to date with the progress made during the nineteenth century in the field of sidereal astronomy. The work was one of the first publications to be illustrated with astrophotography: it contains five astronomical photographs of nebulae. Such photographs had significant impact on the reception and popular acceptance of astrophotography as scientific data. In The System of the Stars, Clerke used the photographs to argue that the natural beauty and symmetry of the universe, displayed by astrophotography, proved the existence of a creator. The work is an important piece of popular Victorian scientific literature, and remains significant today in the context of the nineteenth-century intellectual debates on the relationship between the sciences and religious belief.
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ISBN-13
978-0-511-70945-6 (9780511709456)
Schweitzer Klassifikation
1. The task of sidereal astronomy; 2. The methods of sidereal research; 3. Sirian and solar stars; 4. Stars with banded spectra; 5. Gaseous stars and nebulae; 6. Sidereal evolution; 7. Temporary stars; 8. Variable stars of long period; 9. Variable stars of short period; 10. The colours of the stars; 11. Double stars; 12. Variable double stars; 13. Stellar orbits; 14. Multiple stars; 15. The Pleiades; 16. Star clusters; 17. The forms of nebulae; 18. The great nebulae; 19. The nature and changes of nebulae; 20. The distances of the stars; 21. Translation of the solar system; 22. The proper motions of the stars; 23. The Milky Way; 24. Status of the nebulae; 25. The construction of the heaves; Appendix; Index.
