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DE LA RUE, WARREN; BALFOUR STEWART and BENJAMIN LOEWY. Researches on Solar Physics. (First Series. On the Nature of Sun-Spots Second Series. Area-Measurements of the Sun-Spots Appendix to Second Series... On the Distribution in Heliographic Latitude of the Sun-Spots observed by Carrington). London: Printed for private circulation by Taylor and Francis, 1865-66-68. 4to, 259 x 210 mm. (10 3/16 x 8 1/4 in.), modern boards, covers gilt-ruled, spine gilt, edges red-sprinkled, slight soiling to first title and to fore-margin of plate IV, a few tiny marginal tears, plate 5 creased. FIRST EDITION, 3 parts in one, separate title-pages, continuous pagination ([2] 1-34 [2] 35-76 [2] 77-84 pp.), 5 lithographed plates (3 folding), one illustrating sun-spots, the remainder being charts of various aspects of sun-spot activity from 1854 through 1860, numerous letterpress tables in text. Asimov, Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, no. 488.
THE BIRTH OF ASTROPHYSICS. The British chemist Warren De La Rue (1815-1889), "took up astronomy with the purpose of producing more accurate and detailed pictures of the nearby heavenly bodies. He... was an excellent draftsman and his drawings of Saturn, the moon, and the sun are superb... His real ability, however, was revealed only when he turned his talents to the application of photography to astronomy.... He invented a photoheliographic telescope that permitted the sun's surface to be mapped photographically... "(DSB). De La Rue's observations of a full eclipse in 1860 permitted him to prove conclusively that the "prominences" (red flames) visible around the edge of the moon's disk during an eclipse belong to the sun and not the moon, a discovery that "may be considered as initiating astrophysics (the study of the constitution of stars and of the physical processes within them" (Asimov). "In 1861 De La Rue obtained a stereoscopic view of a sun-spot, and this and further observations by himself and his colleagues [Balfour Stewart and Benjamin Loewy, respectively the superintendent of and observer to the Kew Observatory] strongly supported the suggestion of Alexander Wilson...that sun-spots are depressions in the sun's atmosphere..."(DNB, 17:388). In the present Researches, published for private circulation only, the three astronomers studied over 660 sun-spots and attempted to show a connection between the frequency of sun-spot activity and planetary movement; in so doing they "confirmed R. Wolf's expression for the total area of sun-spots in terms of the number of groups of spots and of isolated spots, and the total number of spots visible" (DNB).
THE BIRTH OF ASTROPHYSICS. The British chemist Warren De La Rue (1815-1889), "took up astronomy with the purpose of producing more accurate and detailed pictures of the nearby heavenly bodies. He... was an excellent draftsman and his drawings of Saturn, the moon, and the sun are superb... His real ability, however, was revealed only when he turned his talents to the application of photography to astronomy.... He invented a photoheliographic telescope that permitted the sun's surface to be mapped photographically... "(DSB). De La Rue's observations of a full eclipse in 1860 permitted him to prove conclusively that the "prominences" (red flames) visible around the edge of the moon's disk during an eclipse belong to the sun and not the moon, a discovery that "may be considered as initiating astrophysics (the study of the constitution of stars and of the physical processes within them" (Asimov). "In 1861 De La Rue obtained a stereoscopic view of a sun-spot, and this and further observations by himself and his colleagues [Balfour Stewart and Benjamin Loewy, respectively the superintendent of and observer to the Kew Observatory] strongly supported the suggestion of Alexander Wilson...that sun-spots are depressions in the sun's atmosphere..."(DNB, 17:388). In the present Researches, published for private circulation only, the three astronomers studied over 660 sun-spots and attempted to show a connection between the frequency of sun-spot activity and planetary movement; in so doing they "confirmed R. Wolf's expression for the total area of sun-spots in terms of the number of groups of spots and of isolated spots, and the total number of spots visible" (DNB).