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Thomas Hornsby
Thomas Hornsby (1733 in Durham – 11 April 1810 in Oxford) was a British astronomer and mathematician. Life Hornsby became a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford in 1760. He occupied the Savilian Chair of Astronomy at Oxford University from 1763. In 1782, he became Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy. Hornsby was especially concerned with the observation of the transit of Venus. In 1761, he observed the transit of Venus from Shirburn Castle, in Oxfordshire, the seat of the Earl of Macclesfield. George Parker, 2nd Earl of Macclesfield (ca. 1695–1764), celebrated as an astronomer, had spent most of his time conducting astronomical observations at Shirburn Castle; here he had built an observatory and a chemical laboratory. On the 1st April 1764 Hornsby observed the partial phases of an annular solar eclipse. Despite the international efforts made to observe the 1761 transit, poor weather conditions hampered observations. In 1766 Hornsby informed the Royal Socie ...
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Durham, England
Durham ( , locally ) is a cathedral city and civil parish in the county of County Durham, Durham, England. It is the county town and contains the headquarters of Durham County Council, the unitary authority which governs the district of County Durham (district), County Durham. The built-up area had a population of 50,510 at the 2021 Census. The city was built on a meander of the River Wear, which surrounds the centre on three sides and creates a narrow neck on the fourth. The surrounding land is hilly, except along the Wear's floodplain to the north and southeast. Durham was founded in 995 by Anglo-Saxon monks seeking a place safe from Viking Age, Viking raids to house the relics of St Cuthbert. The church the monks built lasted only a century, as it was replaced by the present Durham Cathedral after the Norman Conquest; together with Durham Castle it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. From the 1070s until 1836 the city was part of the County Palatine of Durham, a semi-independ ...
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Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1602 by Sir Thomas Bodley, it is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second-largest library in Britain after the British Library. Under the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003, it is one of six legal deposit libraries for works published in the United Kingdom, and under Irish law it is entitled to request a copy of each book published in the Republic of Ireland. Known to Oxford scholars as "Bodley" or "the Bod", it operates principally as a reference library and, in general, documents may not be removed from the reading rooms. In 2000, a number of libraries within the University of Oxford were brought together for administrative purposes under the aegis of what was initially known as Oxford University Library Services (OULS), and since 2010 as the Bodleian Libraries, of which the Bodleian Library is the largest component. All coll ...
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Moon
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar day) that is synchronized to its orbital period (Lunar month#Synodic month, lunar month) of 29.5 Earth days. This is the product of Earth's gravitation having tidal forces, tidally pulled on the Moon until one part of it stopped rotating away from the near side of the Moon, near side, making always the same lunar surface face Earth. Conversley, the gravitational pull of the Moon, on Earth, is the main driver of Earth's tides. In geophysical definition of planet, geophysical terms, the Moon is a planetary-mass object or satellite planet. Its mass is 1.2% that of the Earth, and its diameter is , roughly one-quarter of Earth's (about as wide as the contiguous United States). Within the Solar System, it is the List of Solar System objects by ...
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Hornsby (crater)
Hornsby is a tiny lunar impact crater in the western part of the Mare Serenitatis, a lunar mare in the northeast quadrant of the Moon's near side. It was named after British astronomer Thomas Hornsby. It is a solitary formation that is located at least 100 kilometers from any significant craters, although the curiously shaped depression Aratus CA lies about 50 km to the west-northwest. To the north-northwest is Linné, a feature notable for its skirt of high-albedo material. To the west of Hornsby is the wrinkle ridge Dorsum Von Cotta. References * * * * * * * * * * * External links {{Commons categoryLTO-42D1 Hornsby— L&PI topographic map In modern mapping, a topographic map or topographic sheet is a type of map characterized by large- scale detail and quantitative representation of relief features, usually using contour lines (connecting points of equal elevation), but histori ... Impact craters on the Moon ...
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Arcturus
, - bgcolor="#FFFAFA" , Note (category: variability): , , H and K emission vary. Arcturus is a red giant star in the Northern celestial hemisphere, northern constellation of Boötes, and the brightest star in the constellation. It has the Bayer designation α Boötis, which is Latinisation of names, Latinized to Alpha Boötis and abbreviated Alf Boo or α Boo. With an apparent visual magnitude of −0.05, it is the List of brightest stars, fourth-brightest star in the night sky and the brightest in the northern celestial hemisphere. Arcturus forms one corner of the Spring Triangle Asterism (astronomy), asterism. Located relatively close at 36.7 light-years from the Sun, Arcturus is a red giant of Stellar classification, spectral type K1.5III—an aging star around 7.1 billion years old that has used up its Stellar core, core hydrogen and stellar evolution, evolved off the main sequence. It is about the same mass Solar mass, as the Sun, but has expanded to 25 times Sol ...
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Proper Motion
Proper motion is the astrometric measure of changes in the apparent places of stars or other celestial objects as they move relative to the center of mass of the Solar System. It is measured relative to the distant stars or a stable reference such as the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF). Patterns in proper motion reveal larger structures like stellar streams, the general rotation of the Milky Way disk, and the random motions of stars in the Galactic halo. The components for proper motion in the equatorial coordinate system (of a given epoch, often J2000.0) are given in the direction of right ascension (''μ''α) and of declination (''μ''δ). Their combined value is computed as the ''total proper motion'' (''μ''). It has dimensions of angle per time, typically arcseconds per year or milliarcseconds per year. Knowledge of the proper motion, distance, and radial velocity allows calculations of an object's motion from the Solar System's frame of reference an ...
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Axial Inclination
In astronomy, axial tilt, also known as obliquity, is the angle between an object's rotational axis and its orbital axis, which is the line perpendicular to its orbital plane; equivalently, it is the angle between its equatorial plane and orbital plane. It differs from orbital inclination. At an obliquity of 0 degrees, the two axes point in the same direction; that is, the rotational axis is perpendicular to the orbital plane. The rotational axis of Earth, for example, is the imaginary line that passes through both the North Pole and South Pole, whereas the Earth's orbital axis is the line perpendicular to the imaginary plane through which the Earth moves as it revolves around the Sun; the Earth's obliquity or axial tilt is the angle between these two lines. Over the course of an orbital period, the obliquity usually does not change considerably, and the orientation of the axis remains the same relative to the background of stars. This causes one pole to be pointed more tow ...
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American Academy Of Arts And Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other Founding Fathers of the United States. It is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Membership in the academy is achieved through a nominating petition, review, and election process. The academy's quarterly journal, '' Dædalus'', is published by the MIT Press on behalf of the academy, and has been open-access since January 2021. The academy also conducts multidisciplinary public policy research. Laurie L. Patton has served as President of the Academy since January 2025. History The Academy was established by the Massachusetts legislature on May 4, 1780, charted in order "to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people." The sixty-tw ...
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Radcliffe Science Library
The Radcliffe Science Library (RSL) is the main teaching and research science library at the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. Being officially part of the Bodleian Libraries, the library holds the Legal Deposit material for the sciences and is thus entitled to receive a copy of all British scientific publications. Since 2023 the library has shared its buildings with Reuben College. History The physician John Radcliffe died in 1714, leaving money in his will to establish the Radcliffe Observatory, the Radcliffe Infirmary and the Radcliffe Library, which was intended to contain "modern books in all faculties and languages, not in the Bodleian Library". The library's building on a site south of the Bodleian Library was completed in 1749 and is now known as the Radcliffe Camera. The scientific books housed in the Radcliffe Camera were transferred to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History in 1861. A new Radcliffe Library building opened in 1901, on land next to the ...
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Radcliffe Observatory
Radcliffe Observatory was the astronomical observatory of the University of Oxford from 1773 until 1934, when the Radcliffe Trustees sold it and built a new observatory in Pretoria, South Africa. It is a Grade I listed building. Today, the building forms part of Green Templeton College of the University of Oxford. History The observatory was founded and named after the physician John Radcliffe (1650–1714) by the Radcliffe Trustees. It was built on the suggestion of the astronomer Thomas Hornsby, who was occupying the Savilian Chair of Astronomy, following his observation of the notable transit of Venus across the sun's disc in 1769 from a room in the nearby Radcliffe Infirmary. The observatory building, at a site on Woodstock Road, commenced to designs by Henry Keene in 1772 and was completed in 1794 to the designs of James Wyatt. It has a prominent octagonal tower based on the Tower of the Winds in Athens, topped with a statue by John Bacon of Atlas holding up the Wo ...
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Perihelion
An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. The line of apsides (also called apse line, or major axis of the orbit) is the line connecting the two extreme values. Apsides pertaining to orbits around different bodies have distinct names to differentiate themselves from other apsides. Apsides pertaining to geocentric orbits, orbits around the Earth, are at the farthest point called the ''apogee'', and at the nearest point the ''perigee'', like with orbits of satellites and the Moon around Earth. Apsides pertaining to orbits around the Sun are named ''aphelion'' for the farthest and ''perihelion'' for the nearest point in a heliocentric orbit. Earth's two apsides are the farthest point, ''aphelion'', and the nearest point, ''perihelion'', of its orbit around the host Sun. The terms ''aphelion'' and ''perihelion'' apply in the same way to the orbits of Jupiter and the other planets, the comets, and the asteroids of ...
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