A short history of Astronomy

Bernie BrennerPostGrad Cert Astronomy (Swinburne)

Pelvic Floor ClinicNorth Shore

Stonehenge

Chinese

• Guest star Comet Halley ?1059 BC

• Guest star – supernova Crab Nebula July 1054

Greeks

• Pythagoras of Samos 580 BC

• Aristotle 384 BC

• Aristarchus 310 BC

• Eratosthenes 276 BC

• Ptolemy 85 AD

Islamic Astronomy

• 8th to 14th century

• Contributions – Equatorium (analog computer)– Planisphere– Mechanical lunisolar calendar

computer– Spherical astrolabe– Many stars have Arabic names

Nicolas Copernicus 1473

• Mathematician, physician, canon

• De Revolutionibus – published on his death bed

Age of Empirism

• Tycho Brahe

1546 -1601

• Johannes Kepler

1571 – 1630

• Galileo Galilei

1564 - 1642

Isaac Newton 1643 - 1727

• “Principia”– Universal gravitation– 3 laws of motion

• Every body remains at rest unless acted on by an external force

• F = ma• Action – reaction law

Albert Einstein 1879 - 1955

• E = mc^2

• Laws of general and special relativity

Spectroscopy

• Newton 1666 – prism• Wollaston 1801 –

dark lines• Fraunhofer lines 1821• Doppler 1840• Draper Catalog 1918• Hertzsprung-Russell

diagram 1922

Astronomer Doctors

• Ibn al-Haytham 965 AD• Abu ibn Sina 980 AD• Jacob ben Machir 1236 AD• Nicholas Copernicus 1473• Galileo Galilei 1564• Heinrich Olbers 1758• William Wollaston 1766• Henry Draper 1837