Astronomy & Cosmology

ON RESERVE 

An incredible archive documenting the work of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory between 1965 and 1984, the golden age of uncrewed space exploration, compiled by female control room mission specialist Mary Catherine Grady Beight (1917-2012). The heart of the archive are the 148 photographs taken during the Apollo, Mariner, Pioneer, Viking, Voyager, and Galileo missions, some of which were only released in-house, rather than as public relations packets. There are also congratulatory printed letters to staff from JPL directors, staff newsletters, certificates of achievement, and a small number of souvenirs.

NASA’s Jet propulsion Laboratory was founded in the 1930s as a Caltech student club for amateur rocketry. During the Second World War it was sponsored by the US Army and became a fully-fledged research centre focusing on rocketry. Within three months of Sputnik’s launch in October 1957, JPL had built the United States’ first satellite, Explorer 1, and in 1958 the organisation was transferred to the control of the new civilian space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, while remaining under the management of Caltech. “The Laboratory began to turn its attention from the rockets themselves to the payloads they would carry. Developing these payloads - scientific spacecraft - would become the new focus and place JPL at the center of the Space Race with the Soviet Union... Thus commenced a long series of "first ever" accomplishments by JPL that helped define history's first five decades of space exploration” (JPL website “History & Archives” page).

Women were key employees of JPL from the very beginning of its life as a government research centre. The first was Barbara Canright, hired in 1939 as a mathematical computer to work on the first federal grant project, the development of a rocket plane. More female computers, and eventually engineers and mission specialists, quickly followed (see Holt, Rise of the Rocket Girls, 2016). The compiler of this archive, Mary Catherine Beight, was born in 1917 and attended the LA Business College. Though it is unclear what her previous career was, she joined JPL at age 47 in 1964, and worked as a control room mission specialist for the Deep Space Network before retiring in the mid-1980s. Founded in 1958, the DSN is a world-wide array of communications facilities that support NASA’s interplanetary missions by monitoring and communicating with uncrewed spacecraft. Beight’s role on this team meant her involvement with almost every major mission undertaken during her two decades with JPL, and this probably accounts for the great breadth of her archive.

The archive begins with Apollo missions 5, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, and 17. Apollo 8 was the first manned mission to orbit the Moon, and included here are photographs of its launch (the first using a Saturn V rocket); the Western hemisphere as seen from the capsule on December 21st; and the full Moon and images of the lunar surface, including the far side. Apollo 10, the “dress rehearsal” for the Moon landing is represented with a photo of the Lunar Module in its practice descent orbit, and the Apollo 11 vehicle is depicted on the launch pad in the early morning. Four photos depict lift-off of Apollo 14 and the equipment and activity on the Lunar surface during Apollo 14, 15, and 17. Additionally, there are photographs of some of the astronauts and the mission patches, a booklet on Apollo 8, and two NASA fact sheets for schools about “Weightlessness” and “Telemetry”. The Deep Space Network was not the primary means of communication for the Apollo missions, but did contribute and served as the primary backup for the main network.

The next major missions represented are Mariner VI and VII, the first dual mission to Mars, in which the two probes studied the surface and atmosphere. Beight has kept a printed booklet of photos, daily status bulletins, and two silver gelatine prints showing the surface of the planet, with dittoed text on the backs. Beight was probably involved with Mariner VI and VII, and it’s clear that she was directly involved with Mariner VIII in 1971, as she has received two photocopied letters from mission manager Dan Schneiderman, one congratulating the team on a “highly successful Mars Orbit Insertion and Orbit Trim Maneuver” (in other words, positioning the satellite in the correct orbit), the second explaining that after the end of a global dust storm the satellite is beginning its mapping and “during the remainder of our mission, lithos of the most noteworth pictures will be forwarded to you on a periodic basis”. These are presumably the 27 photographic prints depicting the surface of the planet included here. There are also three photographs, a silver gelatine print of the control room with dittoed text on the back, and two colour photos of the launch without text, daily status updates, a DSN newsletter discussing the Mars antenna, and some booklets and colour illustrations produced for the public.

In 1972 the first probe to Jupiter, Pioneer 10, was launched, and the archive contains a colour photo titled “Historic photograph taken from NASA’s Pioneer 10 spacecraft, showing the red Spot and Cloud Structure of Jupiter, plus the shadow of its Moon Io”, taken on December 1st, 1973. Two photos are included depicting Jupiter as seen from Pioneer 11, including a close-up of the Red Spot. All three of these images seem to have been produced for internal consumption, particularly the final two, which included technical data in the print.

Next Viking I and II, launched in 1975, became the first probes to land on Mars. This is another program that Beight was clearly involved with, as she has received three certificates of achievement, a congratulatory printed letter from manager Henry W. Norris, ”In spite of the challenges, you have performed in an exemplary manner and two beautiful Viking Orbiters are on their way to Mars, flying with very few concerns”, as well as one from the heads of the Mission Control and Computer Center, in which they extend their appreciation for “your efforts in making the Data Systems Division 91 contributions to the Viking Project such as success”. Included with these letters are 17 colour and black and white photographic prints of the Martian surface, including the “first panoramic view by Viking 1 from the surface of Mars”, dated July 20, 1976. Together with two status bulletins, a photocopied Christmas message from Bruce Murray, a commemorative statement by the Viking scientists, mission stickers, and a published booklet of technical information about Viking. Most interestingly, there is a small black and white Polaroid snapshot of the control room, probably taken with a personal camera.

The Voyager I and II probes were launched in 1977 to explore the outer solar system, in particular Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, and then continue into interstellar space. Both are still operational, with Voyager I having travelled further than any other manmade object. Beight received two congratulatory letters for her participation with Voyager, and her archive includes 61 colour and black and white prints from photographs of this mission, including the Titan rockets and a capsule before launch, one of the probes in the laboratory before encapsulation, the Golden record and a copy of the signature plates, and beautiful colour images taken by the probes, including shots of Jupiter, its Great Red Spot, and its ring and planets, including an enormous out-gassing from Io, and Saturn and its rings and planets. There are also four published booklets on Voyager.

Finally, there is material, including photographs, connected with the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, the first space telescope to perform a survey of the entire night sky at infrared wavelengths; SEASAT, the first satellite designed to monitor the Earth’s oceans, the Deep Space Network itself (a colour photograph depicting all four antennas), several copies of “Lab-Oratory” and other JPL staff newsletters, a metal plaque commemorating PlanetFest ‘81, and five original JPL mailing envelopes, many with Beight’s name.

First edition, first printing of this “extraordinarily detailed and prescient scientific study of the nature of worlds that might support life in the universe”, for many years the standard authority on the subject (Scharf, “The Habitable Planets”, Life, Unbounded blog, Scientific American, September 13, 2011). Copies of the first edition are rare on the market, particularly in the dust jacket.

Between 1959 and 1968 Dole was head of the Human Engineering Group at the Rand Corporation, where he “carried out studies on the physical and physiological requirements of human beings in the spacecraft environment, the use of inorganic reactions for recovery of oxygen in life-support systems and assessments of the radiation environment in space. He also directed a number of studies sponsored by NASA, including reports on contingency planning for spaceflight emergencies. Dole also contributed to the NASA Life Sciences Date Book and the Bioastronautics Data Book and was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science” (LA Times obituary).

Habitable Planets for Man explores the “intrinsic properties of planets, which are mass, rate of rotation, and age; and positional properties, which are distance from the primary star, orbital eccentricity, inclination of equator, satellite relationships, and properties of the primary star” and he also discusses ways of estimating and determining the number of potentially habitable worlds. “In the final chapters, Star Hopping, An Appreciation of the Earth, and Human Destiny, the author outlines those classes of data required for unequivocal knowledge that a habitable planet exists elsewhere. He discusses the characteristics of such planets and speculates on the alterations men may experience in these new environments... The closing chapter is a treatment of the little likelihood of utilizing space colonization as a solution to terrestrial population problems” (Tyson, review of Habitable Planets for Man in The Quarterly Review of Biology, vol. 40, no. 2, June 1965).

Second, revised edition of this “extraordinarily detailed and prescient scientific study of the nature of worlds that might support life in the universe”, for many years the standard authority on the subject (Scharf, “The Habitable Planets”, Life, Unbounded Blog, Scientific American, September 13, 2011).

Between 1959 and 1968 Dole was head of the Human Engineering Group at the Rand Corporation, where he “carried out studies on the physical and physiological requirements of human beings in the spacecraft environment, the use of inorganic reactions for recovery of oxygen in life-support systems and assessments of the radiation environment in space. He also directed a number of studies sponsored by NASA, including reports on contingency planning for spaceflight emergencies. Dole also contributed to the NASA Life Sciences Date Book and the Bioastronautics Data Book and was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science” (LA Times obituary).

Habitable Planets for Man explores the “intrinsic properties of planets, which are mass, rate of rotation, and age; and positional properties, which are distance from the primary star, orbital eccentricity, inclination of equator, satellite relationships, and properties of the primary star” and he also discusses ways of estimating and determining the number of potentially habitable worlds. “In the final chapters, Star Hopping, An Appreciation of the Earth, and Human Destiny, the author outlines those classes of data required for unequivocal knowledge that a habitable planet exists elsewhere. He discusses the characteristics of such planets and speculates on the alterations men may experience in these new environments... The closing chapter is a treatment of the little likelihood of utilizing space colonization as a solution to terrestrial population problems” (Tyson, review of Habitable Planets for Man in The Quarterly Review of Biology, vol. 40, no. 2, June 1965).

First edition of this assembly of texts on an astronomical instrument, a ring-dial that was a precursor of the equatorial. It was intended as a navigational aid and could be adjusted for different latitudes including, according to the author, the Moluccas and Hispaniola. Dyrander had published his first account a few months earlier in 1536 (Novi annuli astronomici, Marburg 1536), but quickly reprinted it with three other related texts in order to defend himself against the charges of plagiarism. These texts describe other forms of astronomical ring-dials The first is a letter from Regiomontanus to Cardinal Bessarion, the second a short treatise by Bonetus de Latis, Jewish physician to Pope Alexander VI, and the third by an anonymous author “M.T.”.

Johannes Dryander (1500–1560) was a Marburg professor of mathematics and medicine, a noted pre-Vesalian anatomist, and astronomer. In 1536 he published his Anatomia capitis humani, the first major work on the anatomy of the head, based upon his own dissections. It was illustrated by the German artist Hans Brosamer. This was followed by an expanded anatomy of the whole human body published the following year.

First edition of this rare work on the proportional compass, the first to describe both its construction and application. A very attractive copy in handsome contemporary calf. Rare, only one copy appears in recent auction records, at Sothebys in 2018, and WorldCat locates around fifteen copies.

The proportional compass, a forerunner of the Galilean compass, was one of the first mathematical calculating instruments. It allowed volumes of solids to be calculated and compared, lines to be divided according to a given proportion, circles and curves to be divided proportionally, surfaces of a given shape to be multiplied or reduced, π to be approximated, shapes to be transformed into other shapes of equal surface area, and spheres and the five regular solids to be transformed. It was invented in antiquity, and later developed by Leonardo da Vinci who referred to it specifically as a proportional compass.

The instrument described by Horcher had its genesis in the observatory of Wilhelm IV, Landgraave of Hesse, at Kassel. He employed Joost Bürgi as an instrument maker, and it is believed that Bürgi devised the instrument described by Horcher. It was first publicised in a work by Levinus Hulsius entitled Dritter Tractat der mechanischen Instrumente... Beschreibung und Unterricht dess Jobst Burgi Proportional Circkels (Frankfurt 1604). Hulsius had been a student of Galileo’s at Padua. However, Hulsius withheld details of the compass’s construction, as he was offering the instrument for sale. Horcher here gives the first account of its construction, as well as numerous examples of its use in calculating and scaling.

”Important for our purposes is how these new instruments effectively mechanized the basic processes of the geometric game: two-dimensional quadrature of the circle, three-dimensional cubature of the sphere, problems of doubling the volume of a cube or transforming one regular solid into another were now operations which could be analyzed quantitatively. They were physical, mechanical problems which could be reduced to numerical ratios and these could happen without the aid of three-dimensional representations. Hence it was paradoxically the very study of the regular and irregular solids as concrete physical models that brought about a new level of abstraction, which resembled the earlier neo-Platonic interpretation but was in fact fundamentally different because it assumed a new mechanistic view of the universe. Indeed, where the geometrical game had been an intellectual play of geometrical forms in mediaeval times, it now involved nature itself” (Kim H. Veltman, Geometric Games: A Brief History of the Not so Regular Solids).

Second printing, in the rare and evocative Raymond McGrath-designed dust jacket.

Author James Jeans (1877-1946) was a respected Cambridge mathematician and astronomer, best known for his work on rotating, gravitational bodies, "a problem of fundamental importance that had already been tackled by some of the leading mathematicians" (ODNB), and the motions, structures, and life-cycles of stars and stellar clusters.

"In 1928 Jeans's academic work Astronomy and Cosmogony came to the attention of S. C. Roberts, the secretary of Cambridge University Press, who appreciated the general interest of its subject matter and the attraction of Jeans's writing style. He persuaded Jeans to write a popular account, The Universe Around Us, which was published by the press in 1929" (ODNB). Jeans's popularity as a writer "depended partly on his topic-new, thought provoking views of the universe-and partly on his style, which combined an authoritative knowledge of the subject with a vivid turn of phrase" (ODNB).

As Jeans describes it in the introduction, The Universe Around Us is “a brief account, written in simple language, of the methods and results of modern astronomical research, both observational and theoretical. Special attention has been given to problems of cosmology and evolution, and to the general structure of the universe.”

The dust jacket designer, Raymond McGrath (1903-1977) was a printmaker, illustrator, architect, and interior designer whose first commission was the interior of the BBC’s Broadcasting House in 1930. He later completed commissions for Imperial Airways and the War Artists’ Advisory Committee, and spent the latter part of his career as Senior and the Principal Architect at the Office of Public Works in Dublin.

RESERVED First edition, first printing of an autobiography for young readers by the first Black woman to travel into space. Signed by the author on the front free endpaper in metallic blue ink. A beautiful, fresh copy and rare signed.

Born in Alabama in 1956 and raised in Chicago, Jemison was interested in science and space from an early age, but felt frustrated by the absence of female astronauts in the space program. In 1977 she graduated from Stanford with two undergraduate degrees, in chemical engineering and African and Afro-American studies, and then earned her M.D. from Cornell. During and after medical school she studied in Cuba and Kenya, worked in a refugee camp in Thailand, and served for two and a half years as a Peace Corps medical officer in Sierra Leone and Liberia (Krapp, Notable Black American Scientists, p. 177).

Though Jemison opened a private practice in 1985, she was inspired by the space flights of Guion Bluford and Sally Ride to pursue her childhood dream of becoming an astronaut. She first applied to the astronaut training program shortly before the Challenger disaster, which halted the NASA recruitment process, but on reapplying the following year she was selected as one of only 15 candidates from a pool of 2,000, becoming the first Black woman admitted to astronaut training.

“After more than a year of training, she became an astronaut with the title of science-mission specialist, a job which would make her responsible for conducting crew-related scientific experiments on the space shuttle” (Krapp). Jemison’s mission, STS-47 aboard the Endeavour, took off on September 12th, 1992 and lasted for 190 hours. During that time Jemison was responsible for research on managing motion sickness and anxiety; the production of sterile saline solution for medical use in space; bone cell studies; and an investigation of frog reproduction and development.

“After leaving NASA in 1993, Jemison established the Jemison Group, Inc., a private organisation founded to integrate socially responsible principles with technology,” (Spangenburg, African Americans in Science, Math and Invention, p. 132) and she has taught at Dartmouth and Cornell.

The rare first edition of this popular work by the professional astronomer Annie S. D. Maunder (1868-1947), who began her career as a computer at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. The copiously illustrated contents first explore the solar system in depth, and then expand outward to discuss the Milky Way, distant stars, and nebulae.

At her graduation from Girton College in 1886 Maunder was awarded the highest mathematical honour then available to women, Senior Optime in the Mathematical Tripos. When a position as “lady computer” at the Royal Observatory became vacant she signed on, despite the “discouragingly low” pay, and began her career examining daily sunspots. It was at Greenwich that she met Edward Maunder, head of the solar photography department and founder of the British Astronomical Union. The two married in 1895 and also began a productive scientific partnership, particularly within the BAA, which encouraged the participation of women and amateurs. The Maunders “worked together on the association’s journal; she was its first editor, from 1894 to 1896, and served again as editor from 1917 to 1930” (Ogilvie, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, p. 856).

Maunder herself “made many contributions to astronomy, including a photographic survey of the Milky Way and eclipse observations and photographs, made during BAA eclipse expeditions. Although much of her work was in collaboration with her husband, she worked independently of him as well. The sun was her favourite subject. She theorized that the earth influences the numbers and areas of sunspots and that sunspot frequency decreases from the eastern to the western edge of the sun’s disk as viewed from the earth. She postulated that changes in the sun trigger climactic changes on the earth. Maunder was also interested in the history of astronomy, particularly in early records of the constellations, and published numerous papers” (Ogilvie). This volume includes seven chapters on the sun, including chapters on its surface and sunspots, what the spectroscopic analysis of its light reveals, and its relationship with the Earth and Moon.

First edition and a beautiful copy of this book celebrating the Space Shuttle’s scientific mission and laboratory capabilities, copiously illustrated in full colour. Among the topics covered in this technically advanced volume are studying the human body in space; materials and chemical processes in microgravity; observing the Sun; plasma physics in space; atmospheric science and Earth observations; and astronomy and astrophysics.

First edition and an excellent copy of this book of space-related mathematics for high school teachers.

This volume was published as part of NASA’s drive to incorporate space science into American curriculums during the Space Race. As Michael J. Vaccaro, chairman of the Committee on Space Science Oriented Mathematics, writes in the introduction, “Surrounded by a changing world, the teacher of today must relate new knowledge and new experiences to his students. However, there is a gap between teacher needs and available textbook material. This problem is particularly acute in the areas affected by our efforts in the scientific exploration of space due to the exponential growth of scientific and technical information. Until the results of this research can be incorporated into textbooks for classroom use, supplemental material must provide a partial solution to meeting these needs.” The contents begin with lesson plans on the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems, the solar system, and observing the stars and planets, and go on to cover basic rocketry, gravity and motion, navigation, and studying the weather from space.

ON RESERVE. A very attractive copy, with the rare suite of fifteen folding plates which missing from almost all copies, of this magnificently illustrated treatise on the construction and use of astrolabes. These fifteen plates appear first in this edition. In an attractive binding incorporating a late-medieval manuscript leaf, and from the library of astrolabe collector Samuel Verplank Hoffman with what is presumably his typescript translation into English.

Franz Ritter (b. Nuremberg, d. 1640) was an astronomer and innovative cartographer, famous for his ‘sundial’ world map. He had studied under Johann Praetorius at the University of Altdorf and specialized in the design and manufacture of astrolabes, sundials, and other astronomical, horological and cartographical instruments.

The two parts of this text were first published separately in Nuremberg in 1613, and there appear to be numerous variant editions. This one conforms to that of Yale and Brown, which they date to the 1640s, but other authorities give 1659 and 1660 as the dates of publication. The plates in the first part are printed from the same coppers used in the 1613 edition. The second part of the 1613 edition was unillustrated and the publisher of this edition, Paul Fürst (1608-1666), added the suite of engravings and signed the first plate. The fourth plate is a map of the southern hemisphere.

The previous owner, Samuel Verplank Hoffman (1866-1942) studied and taught astronomy at Johns Hopkins University until his father’s business interests commanded his full attention. He was president of the New York Historical Society between 1903 and 1912 and his exceptional collection of astrolabes was acquired by the Smithsonian in 1959. The typescript translation with this volume was presumably by, or commissioned by, him.

A rare and evocative lithograph of the Great Comet of 1843 as seen from the Cape of Good Hope, observed and, most unusually, also lithographed by the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, Charles Piazzi Smyth (1819-1900). Copies of this print are exceptionally scarce, with none recorded in COPAC, WorldCat, or auction records. Given that the paper was never published, it seems unlikely that more than a handful were produced.

Smyth was born to well-connected British parents in Naples, his father being a naval officer and respected amateur astronomer, and his mother the daughter of the British Consul to the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Smyth’s godfather was the famous Sicilian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi, from whom he received his middle name. Thanks to his father’s connections, at age sixteen Smyth was made assistant to Thomas Maclear, HM Astronomer at the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope. “He spent ten years in southern Africa working in positional astronomy and in arduous geodetic surveys of the province. Encouraged by John Herschel, he experimented in early photography and in 1843 succeeded in producing the oldest known calotypes of people and scenes in southern Africa” (ODNB).

During Smyth’s time in the Cape a remarkable comet appeared in the skies. “The Great March Comet of 1843 was so bright that it was seen in the daytime sky by many people on every continent”, though its brightest and largest appearance was in the southern hemisphere (Stoyan, Atlas of Great Comets). Its tail, measuring up to 70° (more than 350 million kilometers in length), still holds the record for length, and John Herschel described it in 1849 as “by far the most remarkable comet of the century” (Stoyan).

Smyth was a talented amateur artist who frequently painted and sketched, both in connection with his astronomical work and as an observer of the people and landscapes around him. “The naturalistic representations and watercolours by Chales Piazzi Smyth, who was working at the Cape of Good Hope when the comet appeared, are the most impressive reproductions of this apparition of a comet” (Stoyan). Smyth was particularly interested in printing techniques and their applications to scientific illustration. His first major published work was a paper submitted to the Royal Astronomical Society on this subject, in which he “reviews critically the illustrations in several recent publications and discourses with apparent authority on the processes of engraving, aquatintintg and mezzotinting. He suggests modifications that might be used to yield more subtle effects” (Warner, Charles Pizaai Smyth: Astronomer-Artist, His Cape Years, p. 113).

Smyth’s proficiency with lithography and copperplate engraving allowed him to print the illustrations for his own papers, a practice that was (and indeed, still is) unusual (Warner, p. 113). In 1846 he was appointed Astronomer Royal at Edinburgh, “the hub of the printing and illustration industry... in these circumstances he did not need to acquire a press, but bought or hired stones on which he could draw his pictures and then send the stones to the nearest printer. Piazzi was engaged in lithographing of his sketches ‘The Zodiacal Light as Seen at the Cape of Good Hope’ and ‘The Great Comet of 1843’ —to be used in his published accounts— when [his friend from South Africa, the artist] Charles Bell arrived in 1847”. At first, Piazzi sent his stones to the printer W. Walton, who was probably responsible for this print, but later Bell purchased a press which he and Piazzi shared (Warner, pp. 114-115).

Both The Great Comet and The Zodiacal Light were meant to illustrate Smyth’s unpublished paper “Attempt to apply instrumental measurement to the zodiacal light”, which was completed on March 25th, 1848, received by the Royal Society on the 13th of April, and withdrawn on the 2nd of November. The manuscript and the original painting are still at the Royal Society and have been digitised (references AP/30/18 and AP/30/18/5), and two oil paintings of the comet by Smyth are held at the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich (object ID BHC4148 and BHC4147). This copy of the lithograph is especially intriguing because of the pencilled annotation where Smith’s printed initials should be: “CPS del[iniavit] & lit”, indicating that he made the lithograph himself. Though the writing is dissimilar to Smyth’s formal hand, the likeliest explanation is that it was inserted by himself or someone close to him.

A rare and evocative lithograph of the zodiacal light as seen from the Breede River in South Africa, observed and, most unusually, lithographed by the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, Charles Piazzi Smyth (1819-1900). Smyth’s print was “the first attempt to furnish a realistic depiction of this elusive feature” of the night sky (Warner, Charles Pizaai Smyth: Astronomer-Artist, His Cape Years, p. 101). Copies of this lithograph are exceptionally scarce. We can locate only one, in the Herschel family collection at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich (object ID PAH6023). Searches of COPAC, WorldCat, and auction records trace no others. Given that the paper they were designed to illustrate was never published, it seems unlikely that more than a handful were ever produced.

Smyth was born to well-connected British parents in Naples, his father being a naval officer and respected amateur astronomer, and his mother the daughter of the British Consul to the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Smyth’s godfather was the famous Sicilian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi, from whom he received his middle name. Thanks to his father’s connections, at age sixteen Smyth was made assistant to Thomas Maclear, HM Astronomer at the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope. “He spent ten years in southern Africa working in positional astronomy and in arduous geodetic surveys of the province. Encouraged by John Herschel, he experimented in early photography and in 1843 succeeded in producing the oldest known calotypes of people and scenes in southern Africa” (ODNB). It was during this period that Smyth attempted observations of the zodiacal light. This is the glow, also known as the false dawn, which appears along the ecliptic at twilight and just before sunrise, and is caused by light from the sun reflecting off interplanetary dust.

In addition to photography, Smyth was a talented amateur artist who frequently painted and sketched, both in connection with his astronomical work and as an observer of the people and landscapes around him. His depictions of the Great Comet of 1843 are now considered “the most impressive” illustrations of that apparition (Stoyan, Atlas of Great Comets). Smyth was particularly interested in printing techniques and their applications to scientific illustration. His first major published work was a paper submitted to the Royal Astronomical Society on this subject, in which he “reviews critically the illustrations in several recent publications and discourses with apparent authority on the processes of engraving, aquatintintg and mezzotinting. He suggests modifications that might be used to yield more subtle effects” (Warner, p. 113).

Smyth’s proficiency with lithography and copperplate engraving allowed him to print the illustrations for his own papers, a practice that was (and indeed, still is) unusual (Warner, p. 113). In 1846 he was appointed Astronomer Royal at Edinburgh, “the hub of the printing and illustration industry... in these circumstances he did not need to acquire a press, but bought or hired stones on which he could draw his pictures and then send the stones to the nearest printer. Piazzi was engaged in lithographing of his sketches ‘The Zodiacal Light as Seen at the Cape of Good Hope’ and ‘The Great Comet of 1843’ —to be used in his published accounts— when [his friend from South Africa, the artist] Charles Bell arrived in 1847”. At first, Piazzi sent his stones to the printer W. Walton, who was probably responsible for this print, but later Bell purchased a press which he and Piazzi shared (Warner, pp. 114-115).

Both The Zodiacial Light and Great Comet were meant to illustrate Smyth’s unpublished paper “Attempt to apply instrumental measurement to the zodiacal light”, which was completed on March 25th, 1848, received by the Royal Society on the 13th of April, and withdrawn on the 2nd of November. The manuscript and the original painting are still at the Royal Society and have been digitised (references AP/30/18 and AP/30/18/7). This copy of the lithograph is especially intriguing because of the pencilled annotation next to Smith’s printed initials, “del[iniavit] & lit”, indicating that Smyth made the lithograph himself. Though the writing is dissimilar to Smyth’s formal hand, the likeliest explanation is that it was inserted by himself or someone close to him. This annotation does not appear in the NMM copy.

The zodiacal light continued to be an interest of Smyth’s throughout his career, particularly in the 1870s when he turned his attention to “spectroscopy and the ‘new astronomy’, a term used to denote the area of astronomy later known as astrophysics... One of his aims, successfully carried out, was to discriminate in the sun's spectrum between absorption lines of purely solar origin and those produced in the earth's atmosphere. Among other researches were studies of the spectra of the aurora (observed from Edinburgh), the zodiacal light (observed from Palermo), and the so-called rainband, due to atmospheric water vapour. In the laboratory he concentrated on the spectra of diatomic molecules and, in collaboration with Alexander Stewart Herschel, deciphered the harmonic structure of the green carbon monoxide band” (ODNB).

Sixth printing, published in the same year as the first. Presentation copy inscribed by the author in elaborate calligraphy on the half title, “To: Ravonne, Welcome to the Universe, Neil D. Tyson, May 2007”. Uncommon signed. The present volume is a collection of forty-two essays originally published in Tyson’s “Universe” column in Natural History Magazine between 1995 and 2005.

Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s (1958 - ) interest in astronomy began during childhood, when he viewed the Moon’s surface through a friend’s binoculars. Tyson studied at Harvard, the University of Texas, and Columbia, then joined the faculty of Princeton, where “many students found him a particularly inspiring professor” (Krapp, Notable Black American Scientists, p. 304). His academic research has been focused on cosmology, particularly star births and supernovae, and the structure of the Milky Way and other galaxies.

Throughout his career Tyson has also been focused on sharing astronomy with the general public, leading to him becoming one of the world’s most famous scientists. Since 1996 he has been the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York; written columns in popular magazines; published sixteen books; become a popular figure on Twitter; and hosted several television shows, including the 2004 PBS series Origins and the 2014 reboot of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. His reputation, however, has been affected by rape and sexual harassment allegations made public by fellow graduate student Thchiya Amet El Maat, professor Katelyn Allers, former assistant Ashley Watson, and an anonymous woman in late 2018.

First edition, and a lovely copy, of the classic guide that served as the standard text for amateur astronomers into the 20th century.

The Reverend Thomas William Webb (1807-1885) spent much of his career as the Curate and Vicar of Hardwick in Herefordshire. A devoted servant of his parish, he was also a member of the Royal Astronomical Society and “considered an expert in optics and other fields of science, and took a keen interest in the flora and fauna of his native Hereford” (Moore, “The Rev. Thomas William Webb”, Journal of the British Astronomical Association, vol. 85, pp. 426-429).

Webb’s interest in astronomy dated to around 1825, and blossomed once he was appointed to Hardwick, where he acquired progressively larger reflectors and refractors to make a series of significant observations over the next thirty years. “Webb kept notes of his observations in four large notebooks, of which he filled four, his observations of stellar and nebulous objects alone totalling 3463. His earliest recorded manuscript observation was of Jupiter, on 1834 December 2. In the latter years of his life he worked on the observation of red stars for Birmingham’s catalogue and discovered a considerable number of new ones, including the detection of the variability of S Orionis, on Christmas Day 1869” (Moore).

Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes was written to fill the need for a concise guide for amateurs, after Admiral William Henry Smyth’s Cycle of Celestial Objects (1844) had become outdated and gone out of print. “It is indeed not wholly correct to speak of Webb's “Celestial Objects” as an abridgement of Smyth's older, larger, and more expensive volume. It was this; but it was also a good deal more, for whilst it offered to the possessors of small telescopes convenient lists of objects deserving of their attention, it also supplied an enormous amount of original information connected with the sun, moon, and planets, and the use of telescopes. This information... represented the personal experience of an intensely industrious and persevering man working under great difficulties through lack of instrumental means” (Chambers, “The Rev. T. W. Webb”, Nature, vol. 32, no. 130, 1885).

A dramatic and uncommon mezzotint depicting the spectacular meteor seen in London on February 11th, 1850, by the prominent court artist Matthew Coates Wyatt (1777-1862). One other copy of this print appears in recent auction records, sold at Galerie Bassenge in 2016, and institutional copies are held at the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, Museum Bojmans in Rotterdam, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and the British Museum, which has George Cruikshank’s copy, presented to him by the artist.

“In 1850 a huge meteor appeared over England and was visible in London. It was captured dramatically by Matthew Coates Wyatt over Paddington in a mezzotint that suggests, due to the explosion and sparks of its head, that it was a bolide... Other accounts and representations from various locations were reported in the Illustrated London News... as well as in other periodicals. James Glaisher, the assistant to the Astronomer Royal, published an appeal for additional reports in the same issue, and consequently so many accounts were sent in that Glaisher had them published in the Philosophical Magazine” (Olson & Pasachoff, Fire in the Sky: Comets and Meteors, the Decisive Centuries in British Art and Science, pp. 213-214).

“By good luck, the painter and sculptor Matthew Cotes Wyatt happened to witness the meteor over Paddington; sensing a market, he published this velvety mezzotint of the view two months later... The technique had largely gone out of fashion by 1850, but the rich darks and brilliant lights that it allows were a perfect choice for this dramatic nighttime scene” (Museum of Fine Arts Boston).

Wyatt was the youngest son of the architect James Wyatt and a favourite in the court of George III. “His designs represented a dramatic and full-blooded union of neo-classicism and baroque revival. He was more a theatrical designer than a sculptor in the conventional sense” (ODNB). Wyatt was responsible for a number of significant commissions, including the ceiling of the concert room at Hanover Square; the Nelson monument in the Exchange Flags at Liverpool; Princess Charlotte’s marble cenotaph in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor; the bronze equestrian statue of George III that stands in Pall Mall East; and extensive decorative work at Belvoir Castle, home of the Duke of Rutland.

First and only edition of this rare guide to memorising timekeeping rules and astronomical tables, from the library of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann (1929-2019), with his bookplate on the front pastedown. Only one copy of this book appears in auction records, sold at Dominic Winter in 2004, and WorldCat locates five institutional copies, at the British Library, St. Andrews, Cambridge, Glasgow, and the Open University.

Murray Gell-Mann was one of the founders of the standard model of physics, responsible for predicting the existence of both quarks and gluons. “To bring order to a plethora of recently discovered subatomic particles, in 1961 Gell-Mann proposed a set of rules based on symmetries in the fundamental forces of nature. The rules classified subatomic particles called hadrons into eight groups, a scheme he named the eightfold way in a reference to Buddhist philosophy. In 1964, he realized that such rules would naturally arise if the particles were composed of two, three or more fundamental particles, held together by the strong nuclear force... protons and neutrons, for example, would be made up of three of these more fundamental particles, which Gell-Man named quarks, inspired by a quote — ‘Three quarks for Muster Mark!’ — from James Joyce’s 1939 novel Finnegans Wake (Nature obituary, 28 May, 2019).

As is apparent from his esoteric naming conventions, Gell-Man was a polymath with extremely wide-ranging interests, foremost among them linguistics and archaeology. Novelist Cormac McCarthy described him as knowing “more things about more things than anyone I’ve ever met”. Gell-Mann “wanted to understand the ‘chain of relationships’ that connected the universal laws of physics to complex systems like economies and human cultures. He described these two extremes of interest in his 1994 book, The Quark and the Jaguar, as ‘two aspects of nature…on the one hand, the underlying physical laws of matter and the universe, and on the other, the rich fabric of the world that we perceive directly and of which we are a part’” (Santa Fe Institute obituary, 24 May, 2019). These interests led him to found the Santa Fe Institute to collaborate with “economists, linguists, biologists, computer scientists, and with other physicists who shared his passion for finding fundamental principles in learning, evolving systems” (Santa Fe Institute obituary). It may have been Gell-Mann’s interest in linguistics or a related field that attracted him to this volume.

Little is known of the author of this work, W. D. Snooke, but he was apparently a professor of mathematics and was also responsible for a volume on the botany of the Isle of Wight and a selection of Psalms. The Calendar of Memory was well-reviewed by Mechanic’s Magazine, which reported that “we earnestly recommend this work to all who have ever experienced the benefit of the old verse beginning with ‘thirty days hath September’, which is much the same thing, we presume, as if we were to recommend it to every man, woman, and child, in the three kingdoms... Although the memorial verses form, of course, the peculiar feature of Mr. Snooke’s Calendar, they are far from being its only recommendation. The rules embodied in them, and the explanations by which they are accompanied, are distinguished by great simplicity, conciseness, and accuracy” (Mechanic’s Magazine, Museum Register, Journal and Gazette, no., 309, July 11, 1829, p. 352).