The Immortal Fire Within
The Life and Work of Edward Emerson Barnard

A full-length biography of Barnard, one of the leading astronomers of the late nineteenth century.

William Sheehan (Author)

9780521046015, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 5 November 2007

444 pages, 64 b/w illus.
24.1 x 17.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.719 kg

' … a brilliant and a highly readable account of the great man. I found it read almost like a popular novel … amateurs of all persuasions will find the passages from his observing notebooks irresistible … a great book for a great man … it will prove invaluable to historians of astronomy.' Astronomy Now

This full-length biography of Edward Emerson Barnard, tells the remarkable tale of endurance and achievement of one of the leading astronomers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As a 'man who was never known to sleep', Barnard scoured the heavens endlessly, leaving an astonishing legacy of observations – of planets, satellites, comets, double stars, bright and dark nebulae and globular clusters – that make him one of the greatest observers of all time. This book traces Barnard's life from poverty to international recognition. We are told how he grew up fatherless and in hardship during the American Civil War; that he later acquired a small telescope and discovered so many comets that, despite his lack of formal education, he won a position at the Lick Observatory, California. His success as a professional astronomer then unfolds, and we are told, in particular, how he discovered the fifth satellite of Jupiter and pioneered wide-angle photography of comets and the Milky Way.

Preface
Key to abbreviations in notes
1. Through rugged ways
2. Ardent and faithful work with a telescope
3. Mars
his moons and his heavens
4. A seeker of comets
5. Vanderbilt astronomer
6. In the realm of the nebulae
7. Go west, young man!
8. Hanging fire
9. On Mt. Hamilton
10. A year of wonders
11. The young rebel
12. 'I am tired here'
13. Immortality
14. Travels and travails
15. Barnard and Mars
16. Nature's true artisan
17. A tide in his affairs
18. Yerkes observatory
19. Disappointments and triumphs
20. The comet and Milky Way photographs
21. Comet tales
22. Observer of all that shines - or obscures
23. Eclipse and decline
24. Ad astra
Index.

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX]