8vo. 1/2 calf leather. Oxford University Press, 1881. 696 pp. Color frontispiece entitled “Sidereal Chromatics.” 51 plates. Clean, unmarked pages. 2nd edition. Good binding. Hardcover. Rubbing to cover, leather edges. Minor soiling. Ex-library stamps and markings.
In 1825, Smyth retired from the Royal Navy and settled in Bedford, England, where he established a fine private observatory, equipped with a 6-inch refractor. During the 1830s, he used this instrument for observing a variety of deep-sky objects, including double stars, clusters and nebulae, and kept careful records of his observations. He published his observations in 1844 in his still famous Cycle of Celestial Objects. This work was awarded with the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society and a presidency of this society for one two-years term. The first volume of this work was on general astronomy, but the second volume became known as the Bedford Catalogue and contains Smyth's observations of 850 deep-sky objects (as well as comments of some more), a source of exhaustive information on deep-sky objects as it was available at its time. This book was published several times, the last edition by George F. Chambers in 1881. The astronomical value of this work results from the high accuracy of the positions which Smyth had obtained by his micrometer measurements.” |
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