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Photographic Plate
Photographic plates preceded photographic film as a capture medium in photography, and were still used in some communities up until the late 20th century. The light-sensitive emulsion of silver salts was coated on a glass plate, typically thinner than common window glass. History Glass plates were far superior to film for research-quality imaging because they were stable and less likely to bend or distort, especially in large-format frames for wide-field imaging. Early plates used the wet collodion process. The wet plate process was replaced late in the 19th century by gelatin dry plates. A view camera nicknamed "The Mammoth" weighing was built by George R. Lawrence in 1899, specifically to photograph "The Alton Limited" train owned by the Chicago & Alton Railway. It took photographs on glass plates measuring × . Glass plate photographic material largely faded from the consumer market in the early years of the 20th century, as more convenient and less fragile fil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palomar Observatory
Palomar Observatory is an astronomical research observatory in San Diego County, California, United States, in the Palomar Mountain Range. It is owned and operated by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Research time at the observatory is granted to Caltech and its research partners, which include the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Yale University, and the National Optical Observatories of China. The observatory operates several telescopes, including the Hale Telescope, the Samuel Oschin Telescope (dedicated to the Zwicky Transient Facility, ZTF), the Palomar Telescope, and the Gattini-IR telescope. Decommissioned instruments include the Palomar Testbed Interferometer and the first telescopes at the observatory, an Schmidt camera from 1936. History Hale's vision for large telescopes and Palomar Observatory Astronomer George Ellery Hale, whose vision created the Palomar Observatory, built the world's largest telescope four times in succession. He published ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pluto
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest known trans-Neptunian object by volume, by a small margin, but is slightly less massive than Eris. Like other Kuiper belt objects, Pluto is made primarily of ice and rock and is much smaller than the inner planets. Compared to Earth's moon, Pluto has only one sixth its mass and one third its volume. Pluto has a moderately eccentric and inclined orbit, ranging from from the Sun. Light from the Sun takes 5.5 hours to reach Pluto at its average distance (). Pluto's eccentric orbit periodically brings it closer to the Sun than Neptune, but a stable orbital resonance prevents them from colliding. Pluto has five known moons: Charon, the largest, whose diameter is just over half that of Pluto; Styx; Nix; Kerberos; and Hydra. Pluto and C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phoebe (moon)
Phoebe ( ) is an irregular satellite of Saturn with a mean diameter of . It was discovered by William Henry Pickering on March 18, 1899 from photographic plates that had been taken starting on 16 August 1898 at the Boyden Station of the Carmen Alto Observatory near Arequipa, Peru, by DeLisle Stewart. It was the first satellite to be discovered photographically. Phoebe was the first target encountered upon the arrival of the '' Cassini'' spacecraft in the Saturn system in 2004, and is thus unusually well-studied for an irregular satellite of its size. ''Cassinis trajectory to Saturn and time of arrival were specifically chosen to permit this flyby. After the encounter and its insertion into orbit, ''Cassini'' did not go much beyond the orbit of Iapetus. Phoebe is roughly spherical and has a differentiated interior. It was spherical and hot early in its history and was battered out of roundness by repeated impacts. It is believed to be a captured centaur that originated in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural Satellite
A natural satellite is, in the most common usage, an astronomical body that orbits a planet, dwarf planet, or small Solar System body (or sometimes another natural satellite). Natural satellites are often colloquially referred to as ''moons'', a derivation from the Moon of Earth. In the Solar System, there are six planetary satellite systems containing 209 known natural satellites altogether. Seven objects commonly considered dwarf planets by astronomers are also known to have natural satellites: , Pluto, Haumea, , Makemake, , and Eris. , there are 442 other minor planets known to have natural satellites. A planet usually has at least around 10,000 times the mass of any natural satellites that orbit it, with a correspondingly much larger diameter. The Earth–Moon system is a unique exception in the Solar System; at 3,474 kilometres (2,158 miles) across, the Moon is 0.273 times the diameter of Earth and about of its mass. The next largest ratios are the Neptune– ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
323 Brucia
Brucia (minor planet designation: 323 Brucia) is a stony Phocaea asteroid and former Mars-crosser from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately in diameter. It was the first asteroid to be discovered by the use of astrophotography. Description ''Brucia'' was also the first of over 200 asteroids discovered by Max Wolf, a pioneer in that method of finding astronomical objects. Discovered on December 22, 1891, it was named in honour of Catherine Wolfe Bruce, a noted patroness of the science of astronomy, who had donated $10,000 for the construction of the telescope used by Wolf. The asteroid is a member of the Phocaea family (), a large family of stony S-type asteroids with nearly two thousand known members. It was an outer Mars-crossing asteroid with perihelion less than 1.666 AU until July 2017. For comparison, asteroid 4222 Nancita will become a Mars-crosser in June 2019. was a Mars-crossing asteroid until January 2016. ''Brucia'' has a synodic r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Max Wolf
Maximilian Franz Joseph Cornelius Wolf (21 June 1863 – 3 October 1932) was a German astronomer and a pioneer in the field of astrophotography. He was the chairman of astronomy at the University of Heidelberg and director of the Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory from 1902 until his death in 1932. Early life Max Wolf was born in Heidelberg, Germany on 21 June 1863, the son of medical doctor Franz Wolf. His father encouraged an interest in science and built an observatory for his son in the garden of the family home. It is from here that Wolf was credited with his first astronomical discovery, comet 14P/Wolf, in 1884. Life at the university Wolf attended his local university and, in 1888, at the age of 25, was awarded a Ph.D. by the University of Heidelberg. He spent one year of post-graduate study in Stockholm, the only significant time he would spend outside of Heidelberg in his life. He returned to the University of Heidelberg and accepted the position of ''p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minor Planet
According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term ''minor planet'', but that year's meeting reclassified minor planets and comets into dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies (SSSBs).Press release, IAU 2006 General Assembly: Result of the IAU Resolution votes International Astronomical Union, August 24, 2006. Accessed May 5, 2008. Minor planets include asteroids ( |
Variable Star
A variable star is a star whose brightness as seen from Earth (its apparent magnitude) changes with time. This variation may be caused by a change in emitted light or by something partly blocking the light, so variable stars are classified as either: * Intrinsic variables, whose luminosity actually changes; for example, because the star periodically swells and shrinks. * Extrinsic variables, whose apparent changes in brightness are due to changes in the amount of their light that can reach Earth; for example, because the star has an orbiting companion that sometimes eclipses it. Many, possibly most, stars have at least some variation in luminosity: the energy output of the Sun, for example, varies by about 0.1% over an 11-year solar cycle. Discovery An ancient Egyptian calendar of lucky and unlucky days composed some 3,200 years ago may be the oldest preserved historical document of the discovery of a variable star, the eclipsing binary Algol. Of the modern astronomers, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sonneberg Observatory
Sonneberg Observatory (german: Sternwarte Sonneberg) is an astronomical observatory and was formerly an institute of the Academy of Science in the German Democratic Republic. It was founded in 1925 by Cuno Hoffmeister and is located in Sonneberg, Thuringia, Germany. The Sonneberg Observatory has one of the world's largest collections of photographic plates in its museum of astronomy. See also * List of astronomical observatories This is a list of astronomical observatories ordered by name, along with initial dates of operation (where an accurate date is available) and location. The list also includes a final year of operation for many observatories that are no longer in ... References External links * Astronomical observatories in Germany Buildings and structures in Sonneberg (district) Science and technology in East Germany {{Thuringia-struct-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Observatory
An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysical, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed. Historically, observatories were as simple as containing an astronomical sextant (for measuring the distance between stars) or Stonehenge (which has some alignments on astronomical phenomena). Astronomical observatories Astronomical observatories are mainly divided into four categories: space-based, airborne, ground-based, and underground-based. Ground-based observatories Ground-based observatories, located on the surface of Earth, are used to make observations in the radio and visible light portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Most optical telescopes are housed within a dome or similar structure, to protect the delicate instruments from the elements. Telescope domes have a slit or other opening in the roof that can be opened du ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Declination
In astronomy, declination (abbreviated dec; symbol ''δ'') is one of the two angles that locate a point on the celestial sphere in the equatorial coordinate system, the other being hour angle. Declination's angle is measured north or south of the celestial equator, along the hour circle passing through the point in question. The root of the word ''declination'' (Latin, ''declinatio'') means "a bending away" or "a bending down". It comes from the same root as the words ''incline'' ("bend foward") and ''recline'' ("bend backward"). In some 18th and 19th century astronomical texts, declination is given as ''North Pole Distance'' (N.P.D.), which is equivalent to 90 – (declination). For instance an object marked as declination −5 would have an N.P.D. of 95, and a declination of −90 (the south celestial pole) would have an N.P.D. of 180. Explanation Declination in astronomy is comparable to geographic latitude, projected onto the celestial sphere, and right ascension is l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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