80
5 Nearly Half a Million Stars
had exposed again because the first ones were of insufficient quality. Initially
Kapteyn himself was involved in the execution of the measuring, but later he
left it to de Vries and his assistants. Numerical work still had to be done before
a catalog could be produced. Continuous quality control was also necessary to
keep the whole consistent. The story goes that inmates from the local prison
helped to measure the plates, but that is unlikely (they mostly had very little
schooling) and no record of it has been found in the prison’s archives.
The Cape Photographic Durchmusterung was finally published in three thick
volumes in 1896, 1897 and 1900, as parts of the Annals of the Cape Observatory.
In total it contained the positions and magnitudes of 454,875, almost half a
million, stars. The completeness was up to magnitude 9.2, positions were
accurate to 3 or 4 arcseconds and magnitudes up to 0.06 mag (corresponding
to 6% in brightness). The number of plates measured eventually amounted to
613, but more than a thousand had been rejected (in most cases after they had
already been measured); they were listed in the CPD in order for others to be
able to search for variable stars later on.
This work received quite a lot of attention from astronomers worldwide.
Kapteyn’s star was already rising through his participation in international
conferences and publications, but the CPD made him a leading astronomer.
He was almost fifty in 1900, when the last volume came out, so it took some
time before he got to that status. But he still had twenty years to go until his
retirement. In a way, all the above had only been preparation for the real thing
to come.
5.5 France and the International Organization
of Science
The production of the Cape Photographic Durchmusterung was quite an undertaking. But an even larger, international project arose at about the same
time, and eventually even became a threat to the completion of the CPD. That
was the Carte du Ciel. But before I into that in more detail, I must first say
something about the French role in the international organization of science. 3
In the second half of the nineteenth century, France was very keen to structure global science and technology according to its insights. Some French
initiatives were accepted internationally, but often things turned out differently than the French had imagined. Here are a few examples. In the course
of the nineteenth century, increasing mobility, especially by train, made it in3 An excellent account of this can be found in the book Einstein’s Clocks, Poincaré’s Maps, Empires of Time
by Peter Galison [51].
5 Nearly Half a Million Stars
had exposed again because the first ones were of insufficient quality. Initially
Kapteyn himself was involved in the execution of the measuring, but later he
left it to de Vries and his assistants. Numerical work still had to be done before
a catalog could be produced. Continuous quality control was also necessary to
keep the whole consistent. The story goes that inmates from the local prison
helped to measure the plates, but that is unlikely (they mostly had very little
schooling) and no record of it has been found in the prison’s archives.
The Cape Photographic Durchmusterung was finally published in three thick
volumes in 1896, 1897 and 1900, as parts of the Annals of the Cape Observatory.
In total it contained the positions and magnitudes of 454,875, almost half a
million, stars. The completeness was up to magnitude 9.2, positions were
accurate to 3 or 4 arcseconds and magnitudes up to 0.06 mag (corresponding
to 6% in brightness). The number of plates measured eventually amounted to
613, but more than a thousand had been rejected (in most cases after they had
already been measured); they were listed in the CPD in order for others to be
able to search for variable stars later on.
This work received quite a lot of attention from astronomers worldwide.
Kapteyn’s star was already rising through his participation in international
conferences and publications, but the CPD made him a leading astronomer.
He was almost fifty in 1900, when the last volume came out, so it took some
time before he got to that status. But he still had twenty years to go until his
retirement. In a way, all the above had only been preparation for the real thing
to come.
5.5 France and the International Organization
of Science
The production of the Cape Photographic Durchmusterung was quite an undertaking. But an even larger, international project arose at about the same
time, and eventually even became a threat to the completion of the CPD. That
was the Carte du Ciel. But before I into that in more detail, I must first say
something about the French role in the international organization of science. 3
In the second half of the nineteenth century, France was very keen to structure global science and technology according to its insights. Some French
initiatives were accepted internationally, but often things turned out differently than the French had imagined. Here are a few examples. In the course
of the nineteenth century, increasing mobility, especially by train, made it in3 An excellent account of this can be found in the book Einstein’s Clocks, Poincaré’s Maps, Empires of Time
by Peter Galison [51].