Quite Interesting : Sidereus Nuncius

[JamesK]

Apoligies if this has been posted before but I did a search and found nothing. While researching for homework, I came across scans of Galileo's original Sidereus Nuncius, in which he documents his first looks through a telescope - his obsevations of the moons of Jupiter, the Moon, and several clusters including the Plaedies. I found it quite interesting, again apoligies if this isn't anything new, feel free to delete but here is the link:

Thumbnail Page

and an english translation (unsure of quality):

http://hsci.ou.edu/images/barker/5990/Sidereus-Nuncius-whole.pdf

I've scanned through it - not read it properly, but it's fun to see how he interpreted the earliest optically aided observations. Maybe a bit sad, but it's been a slow day here...

James.

[ashenlight]

What a cool find James, I've bookmarked that to have a look at when I've got some spare time.

Amanda

[Talitha]

Thanks so much, James!!

I'm going to print the book, it's the best observing report i've ever read.

[ejp]

As a historian I find it extremely exciting that I am able to sort of copy Galileo's work, that I can see what he described over 400 years ago. Especially when taken the historical significance of his work into account. This a a fine translation of Sidereus Nuncius. The link above didn't work.
http://homepages.wmich.edu/~mcgrew/Siderius.pdf

- Eric

[Space Beagle]

A very good find, thanks for posting!

Doc

[JB80]

Excellent find!

This is the sort of thing I have been looking for is translations of the old texts, I like physical copies myself but this is pretty neat.

edit: Just realised this threads age but kudos to ejp for updating the link as the original is broken.

[Wikiastro]

That confused me until I got to the new link and spotted the date!  Wow, the only thing older than this thread is the document contained within it.  Nice doc though, I'll have a read later.  Thanks.