Book contents
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- List of Figures
- Introduction: Ocular Horizons: Vision, Science and Literature
- Part I Small
- Part II Large
- 3 Optical Shattering: Percival Lowell, Mars and Authorities of Vision
- 4 Lowell's Minimum Visible: Wonder, Imagination and Popular Science
- Part III Past
- Part IV Future
- Afterword
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
3 - Optical Shattering: Percival Lowell, Mars and Authorities of Vision
from Part II - Large
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- List of Figures
- Introduction: Ocular Horizons: Vision, Science and Literature
- Part I Small
- Part II Large
- 3 Optical Shattering: Percival Lowell, Mars and Authorities of Vision
- 4 Lowell's Minimum Visible: Wonder, Imagination and Popular Science
- Part III Past
- Part IV Future
- Afterword
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
Summary
In the summer of 1894 the astronomer Percival Lowell began to construct his new observatory on a peak above the Arizona town of Flagstaff. Lowell's explicit aim was to study the planet Mars in search of the canals described by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli. From the moment of Mars's near approach to Earth later in 1894 until his death twenty-two years later, Lowell looked at the planet and sought out its canals. His work was widely publicized, much debated and continually criticized, yet its impact on Martian astronomy, as well as on a broader public understanding of Mars, was significant and enduring. One of the most consistent keynotes of Lowell's investigations was the role played by vision in the practice of astronomy. In an essay on common errors in Martian observation, for example, Lowell wrote of the problems associated with telescopy:
The matter of having observed the planet with the full aperture of a large telescope is in itself not only not conducive but actually deterrent to seeing the canals of Mars … 1. There are atmospheric waves which interfere always with the performance of a large glass more than with that of a small one, necessitating diaphragming down for definition. Only in the very best air can the full powers of a large glass be used. Such is not the case at Meudon [Observatory], in the immediate vicinity of a large city, the kind of location where definition is notoriously poor. 2. With a large glass there is too much light for Mars causing large spurious disks of every part of the planet which cover over the detail. This light must be reduced either by limiting the aperture or interposing a darkening glass in order to permit the detail to show. 3. The eye also suffers for the like reason and demands a darkening glass to take off the glare and so allow of definition.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Vision, Science and Literature, 1870–1920Ocular Horizons, pp. 57 - 88Publisher: Pickering & ChattoFirst published in: 2014