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Valz Prize
The Valz Prize ''(Prix Valz)'' was awarded by the French Academy of Sciences, from 1877 through 1970, to honor advances in astronomy. History The Valz Prize was established in June 1874 when the widow of astronomer Benjamin Valz, Marie Madeleine Julie Malhian, donated 10,000 francs to establish a prize in honor of her late husband. The Valz Prize was to be awarded for work of similar stature as that honored by the pre-existing Lalande Prize. The first Valz Prize was awarded in 1877 to brothers Paul and Prosper Henry, and was for the sum of 460 francs. Save for 1924, the French Academy of Sciences awarded the Valz Prize annually from 1877 to 1943. After 1943, the prize was awarded only sporadically (only once per decade from 1950 to 1970). In 1970 the Valz Prize was combined with the Lalande Prize to create the Lalande-Valz Prize, which continued to be awarded through 1996. In 1997, that prize was combined with numerous other Academy prizes to create the Grande Médaille. Lis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Institut De France - Académie Française Et Pont Des Arts
An institute is an organisational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institute, research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes can be part of a university or other institutions of higher education, either as a group of academic department, departments or an autonomous educational institution without a traditional university status such as a "university institute" (see Institute of Technology). In some countries, such as South Korea and India, private schools are sometimes referred to as institutes, and in Spain, secondary schools are referred to as institutes. Historically, in some countries institutes were educational units imparting vocational training and often incorporating libraries, also known as mechanics' institutes. The word "institute" comes from a Latin word ''institutum'' meaning "facility" or "habit"; from ''instituere'' meaning "bui ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Gill (astronomer)
Sir David Gill (12 June 1843 – 24 January 1914) was a Scottish astronomer who is known for measuring astronomical distances, for astrophotography, and for geodesy. He spent much of his career in South Africa. Life and work David Gill was born at 48 Skene Terrace in Aberdeen the son of David Gill, watchmaker and his wife Margaret Mitchell. He was educated first at Bellevue Academy in Aberdeen then at Dollar Academy. He spent two years at Aberdeen University, where he was taught by James Clerk Maxwell, and then joined his father's clock-making business. His most important influence at university was probably from Prof David Thomson. In 1863 they jointly repaired the university clock and both set up a new mechanical telescope at the Cromwell Tower Observatory. This was his introduction to astronomy. It would seem that Gill's interests lay elsewhere since after a few years he sold the business, and then spent time equipping Lord Lindsay's private observatory at Dun Echt, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meridian (geography)
In geography and geodesy, a meridian is the locus connecting points of equal longitude, which is the angle (in degrees or other units) east or west of a given prime meridian (currently, the IERS Reference Meridian). In other words, it is a line of longitude. The position of a point along the meridian is given by that longitude and its latitude, measured in angular degrees north or south of the Equator. On a Mercator projection or on a Gall-Peters projection, each meridian is perpendicular to all circles of latitude. A meridian is half of a great circle on Earth's surface. The length of a meridian on a modern ellipsoid model of Earth ( WGS 84) has been estimated as . Pre-Greenwich The first prime meridian was set by Eratosthenes in 200 BCE. This prime meridian was used to provide measurement of the earth, but had many problems because of the lack of latitude measurement. Many years later around the 19th century there were still concerns of the prime meridian. Multiple ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Personal Equation
The term personal equation, in 19th- and early 20th-century science, referred to the idea that every individual observer had an inherent bias when it came to measurements and observations. Astronomy The term originated in astronomy, when it was discovered that numerous observers making simultaneous observations would record slightly different values (for example, in recording the exact time at which a star crossed the wires of a reticule in a telescope), some of which were of a significant enough difference to afford for problems in larger calculations. The existence of the effect was first discovered when, in 1796, the Astronomer Royal Neville Maskelyne dismissed his assistant Kinnebrooke because he could not better the error of his observations relative to Maskelyne's own values. The problem was forgotten and only analysed two decades later by Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel at Königsberg Observatory in Prussia. Setting up an experiment to compare the values, Bessel and an assista ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guillaume Bigourdan
Camille Guillaume Bigourdan (; 6 April 1851 – 28 February 1932) was a French astronomer. Personal life Bigourdan was born at Sistels, Tarn-et-Garonne to Pierre Bigourdan and Jeanne Carrière. When his teachers and local curate recognised his intelligence, he was transferred to a local boarding school in Valence d’Agen, where he excelled. In 1870, he received his Baccalauréat with mention of “Assez Bien.” He married Marie Mélanie Sophie Mouchez, the eldest daughter of Admiral Amédée Mouchez. Together, the two had 9 children. The entire family, including the Mouchez cousins, would frequently vacation in Sistels until the outbreak of the First World War, after which Bigourdan would vacation alone. During these vacations, he would farm his land and visit former classmates. He was fluent in Occitan, and spoke it when in Sistels. Academic and Scientific Career Bigourdan studied at the University of Toulouse from 1870, where he received a physics degree in 1874 and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sunspots
Sunspots are phenomena on the Sun's photosphere that appear as temporary spots that are darker than the surrounding areas. They are regions of reduced surface temperature caused by concentrations of magnetic flux that inhibit convection. Sunspots appear within active regions, usually in pairs of opposite magnetic polarity. Their number varies according to the approximately 11-year solar cycle. Individual sunspots or groups of sunspots may last anywhere from a few days to a few months, but eventually decay. Sunspots expand and contract as they move across the surface of the Sun, with diameters ranging from to . Larger sunspots can be visible from Earth without the aid of a telescope. They may travel at relative speeds, or proper motions, of a few hundred meters per second when they first emerge. Indicating intense magnetic activity, sunspots accompany other active region phenomena such as coronal loops, prominences, and reconnection events. Most solar flares and corona ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gustav Spörer
Friederich Wilhelm Gustav Spörer (23 October 1822 – 7 July 1895) was a German astronomer. He is noted for his studies of sunspots and sunspot cycles. In this regard he is often mentioned together with Edward Maunder. Spörer was the first to note a prolonged period of low sunspot activity from 1645 to 1715. This period is known as the Maunder Minimum. Spörer was a contemporary of Richard Christopher Carrington, an English astronomer. Carrington is generally credited with discovering Spörer's law, which governs the variation of sunspot latitudes during the course of a solar cycle. Spörer added to Carrington's observations of sunspot drift and is sometimes credited with the discovery. The Spörer minimum was a period of low sunspot activity from roughly 1420 to 1570. Life From 1833 to 1840 Spörer attended Friedrich-Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Berlin and afterwards studied mathematics and natural history at Berliner Universität until 1843. He gained his doctorate on 14. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solar Eclipse
A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby obscuring the view of the Sun from a small part of the Earth, totally or partially. Such an alignment occurs during an eclipse season, approximately every six months, during the new moon phase, when the Moon's orbital plane is closest to the plane of the Earth's orbit. In a total eclipse, the disk of the Sun is fully obscured by the Moon. In partial and annular eclipses, only part of the Sun is obscured. Unlike a lunar eclipse, which may be viewed from anywhere on the night side of Earth, a solar eclipse can only be viewed from a relatively small area of the world. As such, although total solar eclipses occur somewhere on Earth every 18 months on average, they recur at any given place only once every 360 to 410 years. If the Moon were in a perfectly circular orbit and in the same orbital plane as Earth, there would be total solar eclipses once a month, at every new moon. Instead, because the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Friedrich Karl Ginzel
Friedrich Karl Ginzel (26 February 1850 – 29 June 1926) was an Austrian astronomer. From 1877 Ginzel worked at the observatory in Vienna. In 1886, he became a member of the Königlichen Astronomischen Recheninstituts in Berlin, where he was offered a professorship in 1899. In 1899 he published an important study on solar and lunar eclipses in classical antiquity. His three-volume ''Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie'' (1906–14; reprinted in 1958 and 2007) is still a standard work on calendars and ancient chronology although some sections are now outdated. He was awarded the Valz Prize by the French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research. It was at th ... in 1884 for his work on solar eclipses. The lunar crater Ginzel was named after him. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nebula
A nebula ('cloud' or 'fog' in Latin; pl. nebulae, nebulæ or nebulas) is a distinct luminescent part of interstellar medium, which can consist of ionized, neutral or molecular hydrogen and also cosmic dust. Nebulae are often star-forming regions, such as in the " Pillars of Creation" in the Eagle Nebula. In these regions, the formations of gas, dust, and other materials "clump" together to form denser regions, which attract further matter, and eventually will become dense enough to form stars. The remaining material is then thought to form planets and other planetary system objects. Most nebulae are of vast size; some are hundreds of light-years in diameter. A nebula that is visible to the human eye from Earth would appear larger, but no brighter, from close by. The Orion Nebula, the brightest nebula in the sky and occupying an area twice the angular diameter of the full Moon, can be viewed with the naked eye but was missed by early astronomers. Although denser than the spac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Édouard Stephan
Édouard Jean-Marie Stephan (31 August 1837 – 31 December 1923) was a French astronomer. His surname is sometimes spelled Stéphan in some literature, but this is apparently erroneous. He was born in Sainte Pezenne (today one of the districts of the town of Niort) and attended the Ecole Normale Superieure, and graduated at the top of his class in 1862. He was the director of the Marseille Observatory from 1864 to 1907 (until 1872 he was subordinate to Urbain le Verrier). In the early part of his career there, he had limited opportunities to do observations because he was preoccupied with improving the observatory. He discovered the asteroid 89 Julia in 1866. In 1867 he used the new telescope to observe a transit of Mercury. Between 1870 and 1875, Stephan systematically studied nebulae, precisely recording their positions and discovering many new ones. His goal was to enable the exact measurement of stellar proper motions by creating a reference system of fixed objects. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Comet Of 1882
The Great Comet of 1882 formally designated C/1882 R1, 1882 II, and 1882b, was a comet which became very bright in September 1882. It was a member of the Kreutz Sungrazers, a family of comets which pass within of the Sun's photosphere at perihelion. The comet was bright enough to be visible next to the Sun in the daytime sky at its perihelion. Discovery The comet appeared in the morning skies of September 1882. Reports suggest that it was first seen as early as 1 September 1882, from the Cape of Good Hope as well as the Gulf of Guinea, and over the next few days many observers in the southern hemisphere reported the new comet. The first astronomer to record observations of the comet was W. H. Finlay, the Chief Assistant at the Royal Observatory in Cape Town, South Africa. Finlay's observation on 7 September at 16h GMT was also an independent discovery, and he reported that the comet had an apparent magnitude of about 3, and a tail about a degree in length. The comet bri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_2007-04-30_T001456.gif "Click for more on -> Sunspots")
