Getting started with the history of astronomy

Journal issue: 2013 October
Pages: 298–299

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Most of the readers of this article are probably dedicated observers. But what can you do when the weather is cloudy, or raining, or snowing, or cloudy (again)? Or put it another way. On a cold, wet night, where would you sooner be? Outside, shivering, at the eye of a telescope? Or in a nice warm library, snuggled up with a book?

Yes, I know that most would prefer observing. But let me try again. Have you ever wondered about your fellow observers from time past; the people you look up to; the pioneers of your discipline? Do you know their stories? – how they came to study the same objects as you, what difficulties they had to overcome, what tales they had to tell?

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