Sky & Telescope March 2000 [antikvár]

Reading Last Summerhis month's editorial may seem to be a book report, but it isn't. It's an appreciation to Allan Chapman for his recently published book, The Victorian Amateur Astronomer,* subtided Independent Astronomical Research in Britain 1820-1920. His was the best astronomy book on my reading list last summer, one that should be in every amateur's library. (My favorite book overall. The Troy Town Tale, curiously, was also written by an astronomer, Guy Ottewell of Astronomical Calendar fame.)Chapman's boa-constricting title, alas, will probably keep this wonderful work from becoming a bestseller. To me. Roots of 21st-century Amateur Astronomy would have worked better. Although all countries developed amateur astronomy differently, how we came to be and how we function socially largely echoes theBritish model Chapman depicts.In the beginning . . . were the Grand Amateurs, as Chapman calls them, people with lots of money and lots of time. Like William Lassell, Lord Rosse, and Warren De La Rue they were technologically savvy but averse to routine work, such as the positional measurements carried out by professionals at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. They went off to investigate the nature of nebulae, fmd new members of the solar system, and try out photographic emulsions, then a revolutionary detector.Following case studies of these paragons of the Empire, Chapman traces the filtering down of astronomy to working-class stiffs (many of them unknown to me previously) and to the concomitant entrance of women into the hobby. The birth of amateur clubs is itself a fascinating tale that will resonate with amateurs today.Chapman also shows that it was these maverick amateurs who founded modern astrophysics. After William Herschel, for example, double stars were no longer regarded merely as objects on the sky but as dynamical systems in space. And William and Margaret Huggins, as well as Lewis Rutherfurd in the U.S., pioneered astronomical spectroscopy, to reveal the chemical compositions of stars and to discover new kinds of celestial entities.Then came the schism around the beginning of the 20th century after technology became too expensive for amateurs and needed knowledge too specialized. Amateurs and professionals went their separate ways. A hundred years later I'm delighted to report that technology is rapidly bringing the two blocs back together! Once again we're reminded that the more things change, the more they remain the same.Now we need a similar synthesis of North American amateur astronomy. Good news one is in the works.