A good astronomical read...

[ixalon]

Whilst on a wild Wikipedia goose chase, I came across a reference to an interesting sounding book "Teneriffe, an astronomer's experience" by the 2nd Astronomer Royal for Scotland, Charles Piazzi Smythe.

It's his personal record of his 1856 expedition to Tenerife to test Newton's suggestion that telescopes would best be placed at higher altitudes in order to avoid atmospheric distortion (and clouds!)

It's a good read - not too taxing (for its age) and a nice mix of his personal wonder of the voyage and the experiments they undertook. For example he experimented with a new-fangled thing (a gyroscope) in an attempt to stabilise a telescope on the deck of their ship. It was so successful and such a wonder to the crew that they attempted to spin it too fast and ended up flat on their backs after breaking it. I'm sure many of us can relate to such astro experimentation and mishaps :-)

You can read it online (or download it) for free from here:

Teneriffe, an astronomer's experiment - C. Piazzi Smyth - Google eBookstore