Overview
- Provides a look at Lewis Swift's life, career, and scientific accomplishments as an astronomer, including his discovery of the Swift-Tuttle comet named after him
- Discusses Swift's influence on the lives of others, including amateur astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard, who turned professional during the late 19th century
- Equips readers with a complete list of Swift's deep sky objects
- Includes extensive quotes from Swift that provide details about his life, astronomy, and other topics
- Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
Part of the book series: Historical & Cultural Astronomy (HCA)
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Table of contents (14 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
Swift's enthusiasm and success as an amateur astronomer helped make him famous in the United States. With the help of others, Swift was able to buy a 16-inch refractor, the third largest telescope in the United States at the time. Hulbert Harrington Warner built "Warner Observatory" to house this telescope. As a prolific writer and lecturer, Swift's stories appeared in newspapers and magazines, while his lectures showed that he was able to explain anything in a way that everyone could understand.
When Warner went broke during the "Panic of 1893," Swift was forced to leave his home. Almost two dozen invitations arrived from aroundthe United States asking him to bring his telescope to their city, and he eventually accepted the invitation of Californian Thaddeus Sobieski Constantin Lowe.
This book highlights Swift's valuable contributions to astronomy before failing eyesight forced him to give up this profession. In addition to detailing Swift's life, biographical material is also provided for a number of individuals who were influenced by Swift. This includes his son, Edward, who was discovering deep sky objects as a teenager.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Observing, researching, and writing about comets is an activity the author has participated in for most of his life, with over 2,000 observations of over 130 comets. He is the author of seven titles, and has been published in “Sky & Telescope,” “Astronomy,” “Icarus,” “the Journal of the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers” and more. His books include “Comets: A Descriptive Catalog” (Enslow Publishers, 1984), “Meteor Showers” (Enslow, 1988), and a six volume series title “Cometography” with Cambridge University Press. The 5th volume was published in 2010. In 2004, the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center announced that minor planet number 48300 was being giventhe name “Kronk” in honor of the author’s extensive research for his Cometography series.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Lewis Swift
Book Subtitle: Celebrated Comet Hunter and the People's Astronomer
Authors: Gary W. Kronk
Series Title: Historical & Cultural Astronomy
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63721-1
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Physics and Astronomy, Physics and Astronomy (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing AG 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-63720-4Published: 27 September 2017
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-87619-1Published: 18 August 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-63721-1Published: 19 September 2017
Series ISSN: 2509-310X
Series E-ISSN: 2509-3118
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVI, 428
Number of Illustrations: 17 b/w illustrations
Topics: Astronomy, Observations and Techniques, History and Philosophical Foundations of Physics, History of Science, Planetary Sciences