Spherical and Practical Astronomy as Applied to Geodesy

Mueller, Ivan I., with a contribution by Heinrich Eichhorn

ISBN 10: 0804446679 / ISBN 13: 9780804446679

Published by Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., New York, 1977

About this Item

Highly technical book on the "art and science of determining the precise location of a terrestrial point from measurements on natural celestial bodies", with chapters on the geometrical & physical properties of Earth, spherical astronomy, star catalogues, instrumentation, positional astronomy; some knowledge of calculus, matrix algebra, general physics, the elements of geodetic surveying, and descriptive astronomy is assumed. The author was a professor at The [sic] Ohio State University. Stout hardcover in jacket, as pictured. Light wear to book, spine creased, ink name & address; jacket rubbed with edgewear including short tears, chips, creases; minor edge damage to page 89/90, YELLOW HIGHLIGHTING on about 5 pages, ink notes on one more. Text otherwise appears clean; xxx, 615 pages, index, references, tables, figures, equations. Size: Large Octavo.

Seller Inventory # w0024

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Spherical and Practical Astronomy as Applied to Geodesy
• Publisher: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., New York
• Publication Date: 1977
• ISBN 10: 0804446679
• ISBN 13: 9780804446679
• Binding: Hard Cover
• Edition: Second Printing.
• Condition: Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • History of Science
  • Astronomy
  • Physics

About this title

Synopsis

PREFACE; "The art and science of determining the precise location of a terrestrial point from measurements on natural celestial bodies is the principal subject of this book. Comprehensive treatments of this topic published in English in the past included certain government agency manuals, rather limited in scope, books written mainly for the use of the land surveyor, limited to simple methods of low accuracy, and the practical astronomy books from Chauvenet (1891) to Nassau (1931) which are probably the most comprehensive but for the most part obsolete. Advances in pertinent instrumentation, in computational methods due to the use of computers, and astronomic discoveries and the resolution new concepts and conventions made it necessary to prepare this text. The book is an outgrowth of lecture material presented in courses at the Ohio State University over a period of years. The aim of this book is to bring together an up-to-date balanced selection and treatment of the subject that can serve as an introduction yet is sufficiently detailed to be also used as a teaching text and reference work. A review on the geometric and physical properties of the earth is given in the second chapter. This is followed by three chapters which deal with topics commonly known as spherical astronomy-subjects such as the various celestial coordinate systems and their relation to each other; the variations of star coordinates due to precession, nutation, polar motion, aberration, parallax, refraction, and proper motion; the different time systems including ephemeris and atomic times. The next three chapters describe the various star catalogues and their accuracies, the instrumentation as used in the observatories and in the field, international time coordination and dissemination. The final chapters deal with topics known as 'positional astronomy,' treating first and second order position determination methods. References and numerical examples are included throughout.