ENGLISH

The Astronomer Jules Janssen: A Globetrotter of Celestial Physics

By Françoise Launay (auth.)

Book information

Publisher
Springer-Verlag New York
Year
2012
ISBN
978-1-4614-0696-9, 978-1-4614-0697-6
DOI
10.1007/978-1-4614-0697-6
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
6 MB (5851729 bytes)
Series
Astrophysics and Space Science Library 380
Edition
1
Pages
222\234
Orientation
yes
Scanned
yes
Time added
2013-08-01 04:00:00
AstronomyObservations and Techniques;Cultural Heritage;Hist

Description

A physicist and an inventor, Jules Janssen (1824-1907) devoted his life to astronomical research. He spent many years traveling around the world to observe total Solar eclipses, demonstrating that a new era of science had just come thanks to the use of both spectroscopy and photography, and persuading the French Government of the necessity of founding a new observatory near Paris. He became its director in 1875. There, at Meudon, he began routine photographic recordings of the Sun surface and had a big refractor and a big reflector built. Meanwhile, he also succeeded in building an Observatory at the summit of Mont-Blanc. The story of this untiring and stubborn globe-trotter is enriched by extracts of the unpublished correspondence with his wife. One can thus understand why Henriette often complained of the solitude in which she was left by her peripatetic husband: “There are men who leave their wives for mistresses; you do it for journeys!” ... Basking in the glow of his success, Janssen was able to undertake the construction of the great astrophysical observatory of which he had dreamed. It was at Meudon that he had it built.

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