A Treatise on Spherical Astronomy (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from A Treatise on Spherical Astronomy

Astronomy on the one hand and the multitudinous details of Practical Astronomy on the other.

I have aimed at providing for the student a book on Spherical Astronomy which is generally within the limits thus indicated, but I have not hesitated to transgress those limits now and then when there seemed to be good reason for doing so. For example I have just crossed the border of Dynamical Astronomy in Chapter VII., and in two concluding chapters I have so far entered on Practical Astronomy as to give some account of the fundamental geometrical principles of astronomical instruments.

It has been assumed that the reader of this book is already acquainted with the main facts of Descriptive Astronomy. The reader is also expected to be familiar with the ordinary processes of Plane and Spherical Trigonometry and he should have at least an elementary knowledge of Analytic Geometry and Conic Sections as well as of the Differential and Integral Calculus. It need hardly be added that the student of any branch of Mathematical Astro nomy should also know the principles of Statics and Dynamics.

As a guide to the student who is making his first acquaintance with Spherical Astronomy, I have affixed an asterisk to the titles of those articles which he may omit on a first reading; the articles so indicated being rather more advanced than the articles which precede or follow.

Such articles as relate to the more important subjects are generally illustrated by exercises. In making a selection from the large amount of available material I have endeavoured to choose exercises which not only bear directly on the text, but also have some special astronomical or mathematical interest. It will be seen that the Tripos examinations at Cambridge and many. College examinations at Cambridge and elsewhere have provided a large proportion of the exercises. I have also obtained exercises from many other sources which are duly indicated.

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