24
the moon, for which reason Smyth is considered to be one of the pioneers of
infrared astronomy. They also carried out geophysical and meteorological
observations.
All this served to reinforce the notion that making astronomical observations from high mountain sites indeed had clear advantages and improved
telescopic performance. Piazzi Smyth’s expedition was the precursor and origin of the mountain observatories that began to be built from that time
onwards.
So satisfied was he with his results and the facilities provided by the Spanish
authorities (‘always predisposed on that island to further the aims of the scientists from any country’) that he intended to return in later years.
Piazzi Smyth presented his results in a brief report to the British government in October of that same year; he then gave a more detailed summary on
2 June 1857 before the Royal Astronomical Society. In the following year, he
published his famous book Teneriffe, an Astronomer's Experiment of 1856,
which bore the subtitle Specialities of a Residence above the Clouds. This lavish
publication contained twenty stereoscopic photographic albumen prints,
taken by Jessica Duncan Piazzi Smyth. It was the first book to include stereoscopic photographs and is greatly prized among collectors. I am the proud
owner of a copy, given to me in 1985 by the Royal Greenwich Observatory.
Apart from containing the scientific results of the expedition, it is also a travel
journal, in which the author gives his impressions of his journey through an
exotic land. He described landscapes, peoples, and customs that would have
caught the attention of the English reader of the mid-nineteenth century.
Piazzi Smyth is also known for his detailed measurements of the Great
Pyramid of Giza and its astronomical alignments, for which reason he is a
precursor of archaeoastronomy. Unfortunately, he became so obsessed with
this pyramid that he came to consider it to be of divine origin, even to the
extent that he believed its dimensions to be magic numbers enshrining hidden
prophesies. It was constructed, he asserted, by Jews under the supervision of
Melchizedek himself. Piazzi Smyth defined the ‘divine inch’, on the basis of
relations between the Pyramid’s dimensions and astronomical parameters, to
be equal to 1001 Imperial inches, in the vain hope that this would be the
template for a universal system of measurements. He was therefore a staunch
opponent of the decimal metric system, which he considered to be the work
of French atheists. These matters have besmirched his scientific achievements
(he has a poor reputation among astronomers and Egyptologists alike), while
being eagerly cited by numerologists and esotericists.
The writings of Charles Piazzi Smyth encouraged other astronomers to
come to Tenerife. In 1890, O. Simony studied variations in the solar
F. Sánchez
the moon, for which reason Smyth is considered to be one of the pioneers of
infrared astronomy. They also carried out geophysical and meteorological
observations.
All this served to reinforce the notion that making astronomical observations from high mountain sites indeed had clear advantages and improved
telescopic performance. Piazzi Smyth’s expedition was the precursor and origin of the mountain observatories that began to be built from that time
onwards.
So satisfied was he with his results and the facilities provided by the Spanish
authorities (‘always predisposed on that island to further the aims of the scientists from any country’) that he intended to return in later years.
Piazzi Smyth presented his results in a brief report to the British government in October of that same year; he then gave a more detailed summary on
2 June 1857 before the Royal Astronomical Society. In the following year, he
published his famous book Teneriffe, an Astronomer's Experiment of 1856,
which bore the subtitle Specialities of a Residence above the Clouds. This lavish
publication contained twenty stereoscopic photographic albumen prints,
taken by Jessica Duncan Piazzi Smyth. It was the first book to include stereoscopic photographs and is greatly prized among collectors. I am the proud
owner of a copy, given to me in 1985 by the Royal Greenwich Observatory.
Apart from containing the scientific results of the expedition, it is also a travel
journal, in which the author gives his impressions of his journey through an
exotic land. He described landscapes, peoples, and customs that would have
caught the attention of the English reader of the mid-nineteenth century.
Piazzi Smyth is also known for his detailed measurements of the Great
Pyramid of Giza and its astronomical alignments, for which reason he is a
precursor of archaeoastronomy. Unfortunately, he became so obsessed with
this pyramid that he came to consider it to be of divine origin, even to the
extent that he believed its dimensions to be magic numbers enshrining hidden
prophesies. It was constructed, he asserted, by Jews under the supervision of
Melchizedek himself. Piazzi Smyth defined the ‘divine inch’, on the basis of
relations between the Pyramid’s dimensions and astronomical parameters, to
be equal to 1001 Imperial inches, in the vain hope that this would be the
template for a universal system of measurements. He was therefore a staunch
opponent of the decimal metric system, which he considered to be the work
of French atheists. These matters have besmirched his scientific achievements
(he has a poor reputation among astronomers and Egyptologists alike), while
being eagerly cited by numerologists and esotericists.
The writings of Charles Piazzi Smyth encouraged other astronomers to
come to Tenerife. In 1890, O. Simony studied variations in the solar
F. Sánchez