bystander wrote:Planetary Nebula is kind of a misnomer and has nothing to do with planets.
Telescope in these past days were not half as good as moderate amateur telescopes nowadays. Most of all, in modern day telescopes a lot of effort is spent on the stability of the mounting and its foundation. Christiaan Huygens used a telescope of which the primary lense was mounted on a flag pole. The eye piece was held with a long thin wire connected to the primary lens. No tube, just air. The quality of the optics was poor. Remember that some renaisance astronomers completely missed the rings of Saturn. In the eyes of Huygens Saturn resembled an oval star rather than a planet with a surrounding ring.
Next story i read in a book by Joachim Hermann. The same story can be found on a
website . Texts with [] are added from the book. Just another example of bad optics (and a stubborn man).
<<Quote: Back in 1722, [december 2nd to be precise] a German [theologian and] mathematics professor, J.G. Liebknecht, was examining Mizar with a crude telescope [2 m long] and chanced upon a faint star between Mizar and Alcor. [Since he thought that the star was moving,] He believed that he had discovered a new planet and named it "Sidus Ludoviciana" or "Ludwig's Star" after his sovereign, the Landgrave Ludwig of Hessen-Darmstadt. His hopes were to flatter his local sovereign in hopes of being granted money.
But the reaction from other astronomers was universally unfavorable, as they noted that the "planet" was merely a telescopic star. The object never moved again, and Liebknecht disappeared in a hail of ridicule. Nonetheless, to this day, the star still retains the name that was bestowed upon it by Liebknecht when - for a few months anyway - it was thought to be a planet. :etouQ >>
A professor in philosophy, L.P. Thümmig from Halle wrote a very sarcastic article, that it "was not necessary to write letters to every astronomer in Europe, when one sees a star for the first time". In stead of keeping a low profile, Liebknecht responded with a 16 page article, without a trace of changing the position of Ludwigs star.
This illustrates the poor quality of old telescopes, either optics and/or mounting. Nevertheless the work done with these telescopes is remarkable, such as Messier and Lord Ross.
Now food for thought.
Todays nebula looks like a gas giant. However the ring nebula in Lyra hardly resembles a planet. If the same puff of gas is responsible for its origin, why do we see todays nebula as a disk, while the ring nebula is definitively ring shaped?
[quote="bystander"]Planetary Nebula is kind of a misnomer and has nothing to do with planets. [/quote]
Telescope in these past days were not half as good as moderate amateur telescopes nowadays. Most of all, in modern day telescopes a lot of effort is spent on the stability of the mounting and its foundation. Christiaan Huygens used a telescope of which the primary lense was mounted on a flag pole. The eye piece was held with a long thin wire connected to the primary lens. No tube, just air. The quality of the optics was poor. Remember that some renaisance astronomers completely missed the rings of Saturn. In the eyes of Huygens Saturn resembled an oval star rather than a planet with a surrounding ring.
Next story i read in a book by Joachim Hermann. The same story can be found on a [url=http://www.space.com/spacewatch/050610_big_dipper.html]website[/url] . Texts with [] are added from the book. Just another example of bad optics (and a stubborn man).
<<Quote: Back in 1722, [december 2nd to be precise] a German [theologian and] mathematics professor, J.G. Liebknecht, was examining Mizar with a crude telescope [2 m long] and chanced upon a faint star between Mizar and Alcor. [Since he thought that the star was moving,] He believed that he had discovered a new planet and named it "Sidus Ludoviciana" or "Ludwig's Star" after his sovereign, the Landgrave Ludwig of Hessen-Darmstadt. His hopes were to flatter his local sovereign in hopes of being granted money.
But the reaction from other astronomers was universally unfavorable, as they noted that the "planet" was merely a telescopic star. The object never moved again, and Liebknecht disappeared in a hail of ridicule. Nonetheless, to this day, the star still retains the name that was bestowed upon it by Liebknecht when - for a few months anyway - it was thought to be a planet. :etouQ >>
A professor in philosophy, L.P. Thümmig from Halle wrote a very sarcastic article, that it "was not necessary to write letters to every astronomer in Europe, when one sees a star for the first time". In stead of keeping a low profile, Liebknecht responded with a 16 page article, without a trace of changing the position of Ludwigs star.
This illustrates the poor quality of old telescopes, either optics and/or mounting. Nevertheless the work done with these telescopes is remarkable, such as Messier and Lord Ross.
[i]Now food for thought. [/i]
[url=http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080626.html]Todays nebula[/url] looks like a gas giant. However the ring nebula in Lyra hardly resembles a planet. If the same puff of gas is responsible for its origin, why do we see todays nebula as a disk, while the ring nebula is definitively ring shaped?