No astronomer since Galileo has escaped the influence of the telescope.
Astronomy Before the Telescope, edited by Christopher Walker (British Museum
Press, £25, ISBN 0 7141 1746 3), transports us back to those ancient times
when the naked eye, coupled with crude instrumentation, saw only seven objects
wandering against the celestial graph paper of the fixed stars. The supposed
significance of these wanderings, the use of stars to tell time, and the
influence of solar and lunar eclipses on ancient beliefs and measurements, are
discussed by 16 academics in this beautifully illustrated, erudite tome.
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