Catalogus Novus Stellarum Duplicium et Multiplicum
Doprati: Typis J. C. Schuenmanni, typographi academici, 1827. Item #567 Folio. 340 x 210 mm., [13 ½ x 8 ¼ inches]. [8], lii, 88 pp. With two plates, one folding. Original blue paper wrappers, white paper spine, paper label with title on upper board; boards a bit soiled, paper at spine chipped in places; text clean and bright, some foxing and tide marks to two plates; sound and attractive copy. First edition. Star catalogue compiled by Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve, Director of the Observatory at the Imperial University of Dorpat in Russia. Struve was the founding father of a family of astronomers whose impact on the field covered over 150 years. His original research focused on the study of ‘double stars” or stars that were situated in the heavens so close together that the appeared to be of the same source. His Catalogus Novus, published in 1827, contains the classification of the angular separation of 3,112 double stars from his observations of over 122,000 stars. He began his research on the subject in 1820 and ending with the publication of this work. Struve was elected to membership in academies of science in Russia, England, Sweden and the United States (1834) for his astronomical work and his research continued into the 1860’s when he died in St. Petersburg in 1864. He is perhaps most well know for his study of geodesy, or the study of the earth, its orientation in space, and the gravitational field in which is exerted in the solar system. Dictionary of Scientific Biography XIII, pp. 108-113.
Price: $750.00