Happy Birth Year to the astronomical telescope

[BaalChatzaf]

It was four hundred years ago, this year that Galileo Galilee got hold of a spy

glass of Dutch manufacture and started to play with it. Being a skilled

craftsman and experimenter he even figured out how to grind his own lneses

(about 30 x) and he made his own. Galileo, at this point, just on the edge

of poverty was always looking for a chance to make a few extra scudi and he

saw that a glass which could see ships at see from the highest tower in town

three hours before anyone else, should be worth something. This was a worthy

effort, but he did something much, much more profitable and important. On

a dark clear night (of which there were many) he turned his spy glass up toward

the sky. This was probably the most fortunate change of direction that happened

in the last four hundred years. Within a few weeks he determined that the Milky

Way consisted of millions and millions of stars. He discovered the four major moons

of Jupiter (which he cleverly named after Duke Medici's sons). He opened the

sky for us and he discovered that the universe visible to his crude 30 X glass was

far more vast than the glass paper-weight cosmos that the ancient Greeks

believed in and that the Church look on with favor. It was the beginning of the end

for the Ptolemaic cosmology and the kick-start for modern astronomy.

At the time Galileo lived, the best astronomer in Europe was Tycho De Brahe, a

naked eye astronomer who built gigantic astrolabes and quandrants to get a two

degree resolution. De Brahe was a numbers freak. He and his people took frequent

nightly readings and wrote down the measurements carefully. Once Galileo's glass

was improved slightly much more accurate readings could be had. Galileo's upward

move was the beginning of modern astronomy and the springboard for modern

cosmology.

As time moved better clearer glass was made and the wretched chromatic aberration

was eliminated. By the early 19-th century other galaxies could be seen, but they were

identified as such until Hubble had use of the 100 inch Hale Reflector. Within 69 years of

Galileo's 30 X glass, Newton invented the reflecting telescope, with none of the aberrations

of the early glass refractors. The move toward modern astronomy proceeded apace.

Happy Birthyear Telescope!

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Ross Barlow]

Bob,

Nice post. Thanks so much for stating this. I am sure that you already know the additional items I bring up below, but allow me to rhapsodize on this theme. I agree fully about what an important event it was when Galileo turned the telescope up to the skies. It was a riveting point in the human adventure. 400 years ago. Just think: this was even 100 years after Columbus.

Galileo saw through his scope the mountains, valleys and craters of the Moon, and he said it looked very Earth-like, like a world of its own. He saw four of the bigger moons of Jupiter and concluded that they orbited Jupiter, another world of its own. He observed the phases of Venus for the first time, and this was an important confirmation of Copernican theory because, earlier, enemies of Copernicus had confronted him by reasoning that if his theory (i.e., heliocentrism) were true then Venus should show phases just as the Moon does; and since no one could see them before the telescope, Copernicus admitted that this was a “problem” for his theory but that he hoped that future scientific work would resolve this. (Does this not sound a lot like Darwin’s hopes/predictions about many early “problems” with his initial theories and that perhaps future scientific work would throw light on them?)

I am an amateur star-gazer. Very amateur, but long dedicated. Growing up as a boy on our family farm, we were too poor to buy a tent, so I slept out under the open summer skies. I would fall asleep looking up at stars and constellations; wake up later to see a distinct “shifting” of the starry skies as the earth turned. It almost made me dizzy with the whole spinning changing spectacle of it all.

In the long dark of cold crisp winter evenings, as I carried milk from barn to milk-house, I would pause to look with amazement at Orion and the bright and bold winter constellations that absolutely blazed in the sky. The Pleiades, Taurus and the bright star Sirius riding with him from east to west. I knew the seasonal skies quite well at 42* North latitude.

As a 19-year-old Marine newly arrived in Vietnam (at 16* North latitude) one night, my relatively more “salty” (i.e., experienced veteran) buddy and I took our turn to sleep inside the perimeter while others kept watch on its outer rim. I looked up to see a small constellation totally unknown to me. I was disoriented and actually alarmed and almost dizzy. I pointed and asked, “What in the Hell is that?” My buddy – Floyd, a black guy (a “Brother”) from St. Louis who took me, a newly-arrived boot, under his wing and advised me and oriented me to the combat zone, a sterling character – simply said, “That is the Southern Cross.” A new world indeed.

Later, back Stateside, I owned two telescopes, both kids’ instruments but good enough for me and the hard use I gave them. The first was a small refractor (which was of the type Galileo used) that had a small 60mm of objective lens, or “aperture,” out front and a highest useful magnification of somewhere around x120 power.

(The advertising claimed that this reflector was a x300 power magnification scope, and, although you could indeed combine lenses to magnify up to x300, you see no sharp definition at those high powers simply because the aperture of 60mm is too small to let in enough light to focus on. Only by staying below x120 power could you really see sharp images. Beware ads; do your research; aspire to larger apertures in scopes to gather more light, and ignore ad claims about absurdly high magnifications. The bigger the aperture, the more light enters the scope and thus the more useful magnification you can wring out of the thing. In this situation, the bigger it is out in front, the better -- front telescope apertures, that is.)

Because of its small aperture, but reasonably good optics, this typical 60mm child’s reflector was mostly limited to “bright” objects, i.e., close planets, the Moon, etc., that had the Sun’s light reflected back to us. After exploring its limits to my own curiosity, I held “star parties” where I would show friends the mountains and craters of the Moon, a few double-stars, the four “Galilean” moons of Jupiter plus Jupiter’s cloud bands, and the rings of Saturn.

My second scope was bought right before the last appearance of Halley’s Comet in the 1980s and was a very cheap and simple Newtonian reflector with a 4-inch aperture (i.e., about 102mm of front opening to gather light) and a low magnification of only x16 power. I think this one was called the Astroscan and it was a bomb-proof child’s instrument, rugged, simple and portable. Beautiful in its simplicity. It was a “light-bucket” that collected a lot of light (102mm) for viewing dimmer objects such as comets under dark skies with no light pollution. The combination of large aperture and low magnification made it perfect for Halley’s very faint image that time around as well as for star clusters and endless dark-sky targets.

For one’s first astronomy instrumentation, get a star chart (or, better yet, several of them) and go out into the nighttime shadows and learn the sky through the seasons. Moonless nights reveal more. The star chart is fundamental, because even if you buy an expensive telescope it will be useless unless you know your skies. (Use red light to preserve your night-vision, e.g., by using a red flashlight lens attachment or by taping red cellophane over your flashlight.)

Keep an informal log in which you record the date and time and what you see. E.g.: in late winter Orion is in the south after dark; on spring evenings, Leo should be coming up in the east; in summer near midnight the “Summer Triangle” consisting of the three brightest stars from three separate constellations is visible overhead through the summer haze. All stars rise about 3 minutes earlier each evening as the seasons progress.

Above all, identify the 12 pathway constellations of the “ecliptic,” the path where you will find the planets, the Moon and the Sun. If a “star” appears in an ecliptic constellation that is an extra one not in the charts, then it is a planet. (“Planet” is an Arab word for “wanderer,” as they move independently of the fixed stars. Can you imagine star gazing in the desert, free of humidity, haze or clouds?) Forget the old nonsense about “astrological” properties assigned to the 12 “signs” or constellations of the ecliptic, and just identify them for crucial observational purposes.

For a second astronomical instrument, I recommend the humble 7x50 binocular or field glass. (It is still a standard military tool despite new-fangled night-vision instruments.) Only x7 power, but with a relatively wide aperture (50mm) for the low magnification, it is an excellent instrument for “dark sky” observing (i.e., when there are no artificial lights around polluting the view) when you can look at dim, faint objects such as comets, star clusters, nebulae, etc. It also gives you decent limited views of bright objects like the Moon, Venus (see if you can see its crescent phases that were predicted but unseen by Copernicus and first viewed by Galileo), and possibly some of Jupiter’s bigger moons. And these 7x50 field glasses are portable.

For those of you who are loathsomely perverted voyeurs – and I know that this applies to some of you out there reading this -- the 7x50 field glass is your first optical tool of choice, as it is excellent in night vision viewing from the shadows. It may be old-school, but it is simple, reliable, and it is easier to carry when running from cops – or so I am told. Caveat: I am in no way responsible for illicit uses of any of my amateur astronomical advice here.

Re: Tycho Brahe (1546-1601). He was the finest of the naked-eye observers, with no telescope but with very excellent self-designed observational instruments including unique astrolabes, quadrants and other devices. He doggedly observed and recorded, giving later theorists like his onetime assistant Kepler the empirical material to work with. He measured celestial movements with an exactitude far more than anyone before him. The Supernova of 1572 really had caught his attention, as it contradicted all astronomical received wisdom, therefore, he resolved to observe even more closely. Newton acknowledged “standing on the shoulders of giants,” such as Copernicus, Tycho, Kepler, Galileo, etc.

Tycho himself was still a geocentrist in theory (or a “geo-heliocentrist”) believing that the Earth was the center of the universe, with all bodies ultimately orbiting around the Earth. But, in contrast to Ptolemy, his system had the Sun orbiting the Earth (with the Moon doing so as well) while the five visible planets orbited the Sun. This was different, and he justified it by his observations and measurements. He also eliminated the contrivance of crystalline spheres rotating around the Earth, which was not only a basic part of Greek/Ptolemaic theory but also one that Copernicus (1543) had still accepted. But Tycho still said that the Earth does not move, either in rotation or revolution. It was static. He thought the Earth was too weighty to move so quickly, while the Church was to maintain that saying that the Earth moved contradicted Holy Scripture.

Galileo’s telescopic discovery of the phases of Venus would later give Tycho’s theories a big problem. This was after Tycho’s death, so we can only speculate about what he might have thought of the newer observations. As a man of science, he might have been rather objective about it in his own way, but we will never know.

One other thing about Galileo’s first telescopic astronomical observations always makes me chuckle as an amateur star gazer myself. He looked at Jupiter for the first time and saw a few “bright stars” very close to the planet and all in the same plane with one another. Hmm, very, very interesting. What is this all about? The next night he looked again and saw that some of these “stars” closest to Jupiter had changed position. What the heck? On the third night he eagerly waited for night and the chance to look again, but the entire sky was clouded over! I know this frustration in a much lesser degree myself, when exploration is hindered. It is maddening. Of course, on another night and on subsequent nights, Galileo was to see the four bigger moons of Jupiter orbiting the planet in an orderly manner just as the Earth’s Moon orbits Earth, yet there were 4 of them moving in harmony. Jupiter was a new world entirely of its own.

The acceptance and refinement of new technologies, careful empirical observation, use of all intellectual tools available (e.g., mathematics as well as prior scientific works in both theory and empirical observation), an independent and objectively oriented attitude toward one’s rational theorizing – all of this is exemplified in Galileo’s glances upward through the glass as well as what he thought about it all.

The man was definitely a Giant, and he deserves our admiration, gratitude and respect. Bravo!

.

-Ross Barlow.

[Chris Grieb]

Baal; Thank you for your post. Good reminder!

Ross; Great and interesting post. Thanks!

[Dragonfly]

(The advertising claimed that this reflector was a x300 power magnification scope, and, although you could indeed combine lenses to magnify up to x300

Yup. That's done with a Barlow lens.

[Ross Barlow]

(The advertising claimed that this reflector was a x300 power magnification scope, and, although you could indeed combine lenses to magnify up to x300

Yup. That's done with a Barlow lens.

That's right. A Barlow lens will double the magnification of the ocular/eyepiece you attach it to. Named after some Barlow in England, I think.

Unfortunately, my reflector scope came with a 56x ocular and a 150x one. Doubled with the Barlow lens, this came out to the magnifications of 112x for the one and 300x for the other. But the highest useful magnification for my 60mm scope was somewhere much lower than even 150x. I am thinking that it was in the 120x range. So even using the 150x ocular by itself was useless because it lacked a sharp image and definition. 300x was like looking at an object under murky water. I found I had my best luck by first sighting in with the 56x and then attaching that to the doubling Barlow lens for 112x, making the image crisp and clear. This company had sold me, a novice, a kit with one ocular that was in practice unusable. I had not done my homework.

Dragonfly, now I just remembered that you had a thread here on star gazing a long time ago. I had meant to participate, but I did not get a chance to. I may search for it later.

The night sky is really great, isn't it?

-Ross Barlow.

[BaalChatzaf]

(The advertising claimed that this reflector was a x300 power magnification scope, and, although you could indeed combine lenses to magnify up to x300

Yup. That's done with a Barlow lens.

That's right. A Barlow lens will double the magnification of the ocular/eyepiece you attach it to. Named after some Barlow in England, I think.

Unfortunately, my reflector scope came with a 56x ocular and a 150x one. Doubled with the Barlow lens, this came out to the magnifications of 112x for the one and 300x for the other. But the highest useful magnification for my 60mm scope was somewhere much lower than even 150x. I am thinking that it was in the 120x range. So even using the 150x ocular by itself was useless because it lacked a sharp image and definition. 300x was like looking at an object under murky water. I found I had my best luck by first sighting in with the 56x and then attaching that to the doubling Barlow lens for 112x, making the image crisp and clear. This company had sold me, a novice, a kit with one ocular that was in practice unusable. I had not done my homework.

Dragonfly, now I just remembered that you had a thread here on star gazing a long time ago. I had meant to participate, but I did not get a chance to. I may search for it later.

The night sky is really great, isn't it?

-Ross Barlow.

It would be even greater if people used lights that put 95 percent of their luminosity in the downward direction. A few years ago I had to drive 75 miles to see the Milky Way. It was worth the trip. I remember when I was a kid, a mile out of town I could see the milky way with no difficulty at all.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[galtgulch]

It would be even greater if people used lights that put 95 percent of their luminosity in the downward direction. A few years ago I had to drive 75 miles to see the Milky Way. It was worth the trip. I remember when I was a kid, a mile out of town I could see the milky way with no difficulty at all.

Ba'al Chatzaf

The Holy Roman Catholic Church tormented Galileo and imprisoned him in his home for years. They lured Giordano Bruno back to Venice on the pretense that he would have a patron only to be arrested and imprisoned for eight years before they offered to garrot him after they tied him to a stake and burned him alive in 1600. His crime was to teach the Copernican theory across Europe and England contrary to the primitive dogma of the Church.

Recently the Pope has forgiven Galileo and I suppose the Church in the process. The Church refused to look through Galileo's telescope calling it an instrument of the Devil.

I wish the American Psychiatric Association would create a category of mental illness categorized by accepting false beliefs on faith.

gulch

[anonrobt]

I wish the American Psychiatric Association would create a category of mental illness categorized by accepting false beliefs on faith.

They can't - that would be putting themselves out of business...

[galtgulch]

I wish the American Psychiatric Association would create a category of mental illness categorized by accepting false beliefs on faith.

They can't - that would be putting themselves out of business...

Are you kidding? This country is full of people who suffer from the fact that they have accepted the prevailing religion, probably from the time they were small children. They may seem to function fairly well in the world to the extent that they use their heads in their business or job.

Can you imagine the outrage which would ensue if psychiatrists made any statement to the effect that religion as it is practiced does more harm than good?

Religion has outlived its usefulness. It was a mistaken philosophy to begin with.

Individual suffering is seen everyday by psychiatrists.

gulch

[BaalChatzaf]

Religion has outlived its usefulness. It was a mistaken philosophy to begin with.

Individual suffering is seen everyday by psychiatrists.

gulch

Not nearly as mistaken as total abject terror with no mitigation. In addition to which, religions (some of them) have associated themselves with correct moral principles. For example: Judaism in it mature form (rabinical Judaism) is mostly an ethical system based on a sane version of the the golden rule. Varieties of Christianity and Deism have also reached this ethically based level. For example the Quaker and Unitarian faiths. Also Bahai is in this class. Practicioners of the ethically advanced religions tend to be quite reasonable over a large range of issues. All of these faiths respect life and property. That is a pretty good place to be.

From a Unitarian or Bahai I would expect ethical behavior, unless facts convinced me otherwise (for example).

Ba'al Chatzaf

[galtgulch]

Religion has outlived its usefulness. It was a mistaken philosophy to begin with.

Individual suffering is seen everyday by psychiatrists.

gulch

Not nearly as mistaken as total abject terror with no mitigation. In addition to which, religions (some of them) have associated themselves with correct moral principles. For example: Judaism in it mature form (rabinical Judaism) is mostly an ethical system based on a sane version of the the golden rule. Varieties of Christianity and Deism have also reached this ethically based level. For example the Quaker and Unitarian faiths. Also Bahai is in this class. Practicioners of the ethically advanced religions tend to be quite reasonable over a large range of issues. All of these faiths respect life and property. That is a pretty good place to be.

From a Unitarian or Bahai I would expect ethical behavior, unless facts convinced me otherwise (for example).

Ba'al Chatzaf

Ba'al,

I tend to pull my punches. Mistaken is a euphemism for the most brutal oppression of the minds of children. See! I am still pulling my punches. In fact there are no words to describe the horrors inflicted on mankind by the religions of the world. I do consider that the so called atheistic societies such as the USSR actually glorified the state and their leaders such as Stalin were treated as if they were gods.

www.campaignforliberty.com 2Mar 7PM 105439, 10PM 105468; 4Mar 6AM 105631

gulch

Edited March 4, 2009 by galtgulch

[Guyau]

The Long View

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/researchers/conferenc...ars/thelongview

[Neil Parille]

Galt,

Most historians are of the opinion that Bruno was not burned at the stake for teaching heliciocentrism. In addition, the idea that churchmen refused to look into Galileo's telescope appears to be a myth.

I get the impression that the Galileo issue was just as much an issue of arrogant personalities on both sides as a dispute over religion/science.

-NEIL PARILLE

[BaalChatzaf]

Galt,

Most historians are of the opinion that Bruno was not burned at the stake for teaching heliciocentrism. In addition, the idea that churchmen refused to look into Galileo's telescope appears to be a myth.

I get the impression that the Galileo issue was just as much an issue of arrogant personalities on both sides as a dispute over religion/science.

-NEIL PARILLE

The Galileo Affair was not the simple minded myth that many make of it. The child's story is that the Church was managed by men implacably at war with any free intellect. That was not it at all. The Church Visible was first and foremost a political institution and had the task of maintaining its temporal power in the face of a rising mercantile class as embodied by the trading cities in Italy, in particular Venince, Florence and Padua who grew wealthy on trade and production and a blooming Protestant Rebellion. Its management consisted of mostly intelligent capable men who know how to run the corporation.

Galileo was a peculiar type. He was brilliant, combative and by his nature a blazing pain in the ass. His nickname was "wrangler" and he not only was smart and was not shy to show it, but was inclined to make anyone who disagreed with him look stupid. But Galileo liked the company of intelligent men and he became fiends with Mateo Barbarini who later became Pope Urban VIII. Before Barbarini became Pope he had many long talks with Galileo on matters of science, philosophy, logic and mathematics. Galileo was also encouraged in his mathematical researches by Father Clavius an ueber intelligent man and a priest of the Church. Clavius encouraged Galileo's work (a fact which Galileo appreciated as evidenced by Galileo's own letters). After Galileo discovered that the spy glass (invented by a Dutchman) could be improved and pointed up, Fra Clavius was one of the first to sign on to get one for himself. Fra Clavius saw immediately that the upward pointing spy glass (later to be called a telescope) could be put to immediate use in observing planetary and lunar motion and a much more accurate calendar could be formulated. In particular the time of Easter could be predicted accurately for many years ahead. Knowing the Day of the Lord's Ressurection was of particular importance to a churchman.

After Galileo's friend Barbarini became Pope Urban VIII, Barbarini and Galileo reached an understanding that Galileo may write about Copernicus' theory that the Earth moves about the Sun (actually about a central point near the Sun). The catch was that Barbarini could accept this provided it was presented as a hypothesis, rather than a fact. Galileo agreed, or seemed to agree with this caveat. In 1616 Galileo received the imprimatur of the Church for his work in progress "Dialogues Concerning the Two Chief World Systems" which contrasted the Aristotelian Geocentric world view with the Copernican World View.

Now the plot thickens. If you read a copy of this work it is a three way dialogue between Salvati (who is Galileo), Sagrido a very intelligent layman non-philosopher, non-scientist and Simplicio who is an lightly disguised persona for Mateo Barbarini himself, Pope Urban VIII. The way the book unfolds, Simplicio is portrayed as an Aristotelian dunce-clone touting the party line in spite of proofs to the contrary. Salvati (Galileo) triumphantly touts his experiments which utterly destroy and deconstruct Aristotelian physics. Naturally Barbarini is royally pissed off. He has been held up to ridicule by his friend Galileo (some friend!) and rightly feels betrayed. In addition the Church has some real problems. The Protestants are on the rise, the Church's grip is slipping and Spain is pushing on the Pope to do something about these pesky Protestants. Factions within the Church despise Galileo because he is attacking the Aristotelian world view which is the very pillar on which the Church has rested its theology (this mostly due to Acquinas). Barbarini, as Pope, is forced to do something to save face so he approves a series of moves among Galileo's enemies in the Church to examine his work very carefully for evidence of heresy. Now recall that Galileo is very smart and very arrogant. He presents Copernicus' hypothesis as a proven fact (which it really is not). Further Galileo is convinced in his heart that his theory of tides is the Killer Proof for the Copernicus view that the Earth moves (both in rotation and revolution). So Galileo is happy to present his views in such a way that shows anyone opposing the Copernican view is not only wrong, but a dunce (this is Galileo in essence).

Things come to a boil and Galileo ultimately is compelled to retract his statements for fear of being tortured by the Inquisition. This part of the story you know as history..

He are the basic facts. Galileo did not prove the Copernican Hypothesis a fact. What he did was show Aristotle's physics was nonsense. Galileo's theory of tides was flat out wrong (according to said theory there be only one tide a day). Galileo's arrogance with respect to his tidal theory caused him to show the same sort of blindness that the Aristotelians exhibited with respect to earth being in motion. Galileo had such an ego that he broke a promise he made to Barbarini to modestly propose the Copernican model as a hypothesis which indeed it was, and an incorrect hypothesis at that. Copernicus insisted that the planets move about the sun in circular orbits with constant linear speed or constant angular speed (neither is the case). Furthermore Galileo's physics was not sufficient to account for the motion of planets although he did get the law of inertia established and the first version of a theory of relativity. So Galileo in his arrogance and error put the Pope in a position such that the Pope could not ignore Galileo's arrogance and cheek. Galileo was truly a Ba'al Chatzaf (Lord of Cheeky Impudence).

Here is an interesting side light. Galileo corresponded with Kepler, who without a telescope but with Tycho Brahe's excellent naked eye observations gathered enough evidence to show the motions of planets but they were not according to the Copernican scheme. Kepler got Planetary motion version 1.0 by showing planets move in elliptical orbits and not with uniform speed as Copernicus assumed. Furthermore he knew that Galileo's theory of tides was flat out wrong. In one letter Kepler suggested to Galileo that the Moon must be a dynamical factor in the tides because of monthly variations and there were two tides a day, not just one. Galileo responded in a prickly way suggesting that Kepler was too intelligent to believe the Moon has some occult influence on the tides. Galileo called that notion Moonshine (literally and in Latin). Galileo was no where near a universal notion of gravitation, whereas Kepler was fumbling in that direction. Newton later completed the task.

And now, as the late Paul Harvey often said -- You know the rest of the story.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited March 30, 2009 by BaalChatzaf

[Matus1976]

Tycho himself was still a geocentrist in theory (or a “geo-heliocentrist”) believing that the Earth was the center of the universe, with all bodies ultimately orbiting around the Earth

Actually Tycho was a supporter of Copernican Heliocentrism when he begin he decades of detailed observations, but begrudgingly came out of it as a geo-centrist because he did not observer *any* stellar parallax. People of that time, even the most wise and prescient, did not conceive of the universe as more than 100 or 1000 times the distance of the earth to the moon, and expected to see stellar parallax. Stellar parallax is so small however that it was not empirically observed until the mid 1800's.

[BaalChatzaf]

Tycho himself was still a geocentrist in theory (or a “geo-heliocentrist”) believing that the Earth was the center of the universe, with all bodies ultimately orbiting around the Earth

Actually Tycho was a supporter of Copernican Heliocentrism when he begin he decades of detailed observations, but begrudgingly came out of it as a geo-centrist because he did not observer *any* stellar parallax. People of that time, even the most wise and prescient, did not conceive of the universe as more than 100 or 1000 times the distance of the earth to the moon, and expected to see stellar parallax. Stellar parallax is so small however that it was not empirically observed until the mid 1800's.

Tycho had a modified geocentric model. The earth was fixed but the sun went around the earth and the rest of the planets went around the sun. It turns out that this is mathematically equivalent to Ptolemaic geocentrism. So Tycho tried to have it both ways.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

Tycho himself was still a geocentrist in theory (or a “geo-heliocentrist”) believing that the Earth was the center of the universe, with all bodies ultimately orbiting around the Earth

Actually Tycho was a supporter of Copernican Heliocentrism when he begin he decades of detailed observations, but begrudgingly came out of it as a geo-centrist because he did not observer *any* stellar parallax. People of that time, even the most wise and prescient, did not conceive of the universe as more than 100 or 1000 times the distance of the earth to the moon, and expected to see stellar parallax. Stellar parallax is so small however that it was not empirically observed until the mid 1800's.

The Greek astronomer Aristarchus proposed a heliocentric model but the other philosophers rejected it because no parallax was observed. In a way, this is a reasonable objection. No one had any idea just how big the galaxy is.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[galtgulch]

Tycho himself was still a geocentrist in theory (or a “geo-heliocentrist”) believing that the Earth was the center of the universe, with all bodies ultimately orbiting around the Earth

Actually Tycho was a supporter of Copernican Heliocentrism when he begin he decades of detailed observations, but begrudgingly came out of it as a geo-centrist because he did not observer *any* stellar parallax. People of that time, even the most wise and prescient, did not conceive of the universe as more than 100 or 1000 times the distance of the earth to the moon, and expected to see stellar parallax. Stellar parallax is so small however that it was not empirically observed until the mid 1800's.

The Greek astronomer Aristarchus proposed a heliocentric model but the other philosophers rejected it because no parallax was observed. In a way, this is a reasonable objection. No one had any idea just how big the galaxy is.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Ba'al,

I thought that Galileo observed the four moons he could see with his primitive telescope which moved about Jupiter. That in itself was contrary to the dogma of the Church. In addition he did contend that the earth moved and is said to have whispered "The earth still moves!" after his apology during his trial before the Inquisition. He spoke truth to power which remains an inspiration to this day.

www.campaignforliberty.com 132365, 1Apr 9PM 132675

gulch

Edited April 2, 2009 by galtgulch

[tjohnson]

He spoke truth to power which remains an inspiration to this day.

I appreciate your sentiment Gulch, but he did not speak truth, he spoke an alternative theory which fits the fact better. Unqualified "truth" is a figment of man's imagination.

[Guyau]

Galileo, the Medici, and the Age of Astronomy

http://www2.fi.edu/exhibits/traveling/galileo/

[BaalChatzaf]

Tycho himself was still a geocentrist in theory (or a “geo-heliocentrist”) believing that the Earth was the center of the universe, with all bodies ultimately orbiting around the Earth

Actually Tycho was a supporter of Copernican Heliocentrism when he begin he decades of detailed observations, but begrudgingly came out of it as a geo-centrist because he did not observer *any* stellar parallax. People of that time, even the most wise and prescient, did not conceive of the universe as more than 100 or 1000 times the distance of the earth to the moon, and expected to see stellar parallax. Stellar parallax is so small however that it was not empirically observed until the mid 1800's.

The Greek astronomer Aristarchus proposed a heliocentric model but the other philosophers rejected it because no parallax was observed. In a way, this is a reasonable objection. No one had any idea just how big the galaxy is.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Ba'al,

I thought that Galileo observed the four moons he could see with his primitive telescope which moved about Jupiter. That in itself was contrary to the dogma of the Church. In addition he did contend that the earth moved and is said to have whispered "The earth still moves!" after his apology during his trial before the Inquisition. He spoke truth to power which remains an inspiration to this day.

www.campaignforliberty.com 132365

gulch

He also saw the phases of the planet Venus. Both results contradicted the Ptolemaic (geocentric) hypothesis, but do not really prove the Copernican Hypothesis. It turns out Copernicus was incorrect in asserting the orbits of the planets around a central point near the Sun are circular and that the motion at a constant angular speed. The "Eppur si mouve" story is a tale since no one heard him say it. By the time the Inquisition got through humiliating Galileo and scaring the sh*t out of him (he was show the torture instruments and he did not want to become another Bruno), Galileo was probably not in any shape to be defiant. It is a grand story and it is one that ought to be true, but probably isn't.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited April 1, 2009 by BaalChatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

He spoke truth to power which remains an inspiration to this day.

I appreciate your sentiment Gulch, but he did not speak truth, he spoke an alternative theory which fits the fact better. Unqualified "truth" is a figment of man's imagination.

What is your statement's qualification?

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

It's simply the truth, of course.

Michael

[tjohnson]

He spoke truth to power which remains an inspiration to this day.

I appreciate your sentiment Gulch, but he did not speak truth, he spoke an alternative theory which fits the fact better. Unqualified "truth" is a figment of man's imagination.

What is your statement's qualification?

--Brant

If you try to apply a statement to itself it leads to contradictions. If I say "all my statement are lies" then it cannot apply to that statement as well. That is my qualification.

[tjohnson]

Brant,

It's simply the truth, of course.

Michael

See above.