What do you think?
Rate this book
Starlight Detectives: How Astronomers, Inventors, and Eccentrics Discovered the Modern Universe
“With this highly readable and cosmically accessible book, Alan Hirshfeld has done for the measurement of the cosmos what Dava Sobel did for the measurement of longitude. . . . Readers will never again look into the night sky the same way.” —MICHAEL SHERMER, author of The Believing Brain on Parallax: The Race to Measure the Cosmos
In 1930, Edwin Hubble announced the greatest discovery in the history of astronomy since Galileo first turned a telescope to the heavens. The galaxies, previously believed to float serenely in the void, are in fact hurtling apart at an incredible speed; the universe is expanding. This stunning discovery was the culmination of a decades-long arc of scientific and technical advancement. In its shadow lies an untold, yet equally fascinating, backstory whose cast of characters illuminates the gritty, hard-won nature of scientific progress.
The path to a broader mode of cosmic observation was blazed by a cadre of 19th-century amateur astronomers and inventors, galvanized by the advent of photography, spectral analysis, and innovative technology to create the entirely new field of astrophysics. From William Bond, who turned his home into a functional observatory, to John and Henry Draper, a father and son team who were trailblazers of astrophotography and spectroscopy, to geniuses of invention such as Léon Foucault, and George Hale, who founded the Mount Wilson Observatory, Hirshfeld reveals the incredible stories—and the ambitious dreamers—behind the birth of modern astronomy.
Alan Hirshfeld, Professor of Physics at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and an Associate of the Harvard College Observatory, is the author of Parallax: The Race to Measure the Cosmos, The Electric Life of Michael Faraday, and Eureka Man: The Life and Legacy of Archimedes.
In 1930, Edwin Hubble announced the greatest discovery in the history of astronomy since Galileo first turned a telescope to the heavens. The galaxies, previously believed to float serenely in the void, are in fact hurtling apart at an incredible speed; the universe is expanding. This stunning discovery was the culmination of a decades-long arc of scientific and technical advancement. In its shadow lies an untold, yet equally fascinating, backstory whose cast of characters illuminates the gritty, hard-won nature of scientific progress.
The path to a broader mode of cosmic observation was blazed by a cadre of 19th-century amateur astronomers and inventors, galvanized by the advent of photography, spectral analysis, and innovative technology to create the entirely new field of astrophysics. From William Bond, who turned his home into a functional observatory, to John and Henry Draper, a father and son team who were trailblazers of astrophotography and spectroscopy, to geniuses of invention such as Léon Foucault, and George Hale, who founded the Mount Wilson Observatory, Hirshfeld reveals the incredible stories—and the ambitious dreamers—behind the birth of modern astronomy.
Alan Hirshfeld, Professor of Physics at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and an Associate of the Harvard College Observatory, is the author of Parallax: The Race to Measure the Cosmos, The Electric Life of Michael Faraday, and Eureka Man: The Life and Legacy of Archimedes.
400 pages, Paperback
First published May 19, 2014
26 people are currently reading
531 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
June 26, 2014
I received Starlight Detectives through the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program.
Author Alan Hirshfeld tells how, from about 1840 to 1940, an accelerating series of discoveries pushed the frontiers of astronomical research beyond the reach of amateurs. Photography played a critical role: as it developed :) ever fainter objects could be observed. Taking advantage of their new capabilities, ever larger telescopes, situated in more and more advantageous locations, opened the depths of space to the privileged few who had access to them.
Hirshfeld shows vividly how difficult it was to construct the equipment that effected this change, to learn to use it, and to decide what should be done with it.
Author Alan Hirshfeld tells how, from about 1840 to 1940, an accelerating series of discoveries pushed the frontiers of astronomical research beyond the reach of amateurs. Photography played a critical role: as it developed :) ever fainter objects could be observed. Taking advantage of their new capabilities, ever larger telescopes, situated in more and more advantageous locations, opened the depths of space to the privileged few who had access to them.
Hirshfeld shows vividly how difficult it was to construct the equipment that effected this change, to learn to use it, and to decide what should be done with it.
Read
December 10, 2014Featured on Science for the People show #279 on August 22, 2014, during an interview with author Alan Hirshfeld. http://www.scienceforthepeople.ca/epi...
December 24, 2017
I’m not sure exactly what the problem was, but Starlight Detectives simply didn’t engage me. I listened on Audible, and most of the time the text simply washed over me with little, if anything, sticking in my memory. Most of the parts that were interesting—discussions of great discoveries in astronomy or astrophysics—were things I had already read about in greater detail elsewhere.
To be fair, the book was competently written and well researched. The problem may have been that the author seemed uncertain whether this was a history of scientific ideas or the hardware and technology that enabled such discoveries. Or it may just have been that the book was a bit dull.
To be fair, the book was competently written and well researched. The problem may have been that the author seemed uncertain whether this was a history of scientific ideas or the hardware and technology that enabled such discoveries. Or it may just have been that the book was a bit dull.
July 26, 2022
Did not quite work for me but we'll written
February 15, 2015
An amazing story starting at the birth of celestial photography with images of the Moon all the way to the discovery of the expansion of space. Whether you are an astronomer or just curious about astronomy, this will be an immensely satisfying and delicious read. Many parts of the book brought a tear to my eye (I am very sentimental about astronomy though). Some of my favourite bits are below (I tried not to include too many).
"Hubble's stark, pen-and-ink diagram, with its canted, empirically derived line, endowed James Keeler's turn-of-the-century extragalactic spacescapes with profound meaning. The line and its associated mathematical formula, V=HR, later dubbed Hubble's law, became twin avatars of what astronomers took to be an expanding universe. The universe is dynamic, they asserted, space itself billowing to vaster proportions, sweeping apart its luminous points of reference - the galaxies. In the time machine of one's imagination, the cosmic clock can be driven backwards, the observed dispersal of galaxies reversed until atoms and photons meld into an infinitesimal, primeval amalgam. Thus, universal expansion compels a beginning: an ab initio, hyperdense fireball from which all cosmic energy and matter emerged - in modern-day parlance, the Big Bang."
"It wasn't long before he (Henry Draper) started to dream, as astronomers will, of remote mountaintops, swathed nightly in utter blackness and desiccated air, a truly hospitable home for a telescope."
"On August 1, 1872, Draper pointed the twenty-eight-inch telescope, equipped with a camera, toward the bright star Vega. He inserted a small quartz prism into the light path and took an exposure. The recorded spectrum was a hazy slash of light, a mere half inch long and one-thirty-second-inch wide. Microscopic examination revealed the presence of four dark gaps, like those Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff had found in the solar spectrum - gaps they had identified with chemical elements found on Earth. On the glass plate was objective, hold-in-your-hand confirmation of what visual spectrum studies had found: atoms in the atmospheres of remote stars are no different than those that constitute the Sun or our own bodies. Frederick Barnard, president of Columbia University, characterized the achievement as "probably the most difficult and costly experiment in celestial chemistry ever made.""
"Like a cognitive cornucopia, science pours forth new questions as rapidly as it lays aside the old. This endless stream of conundrums has sustained inquiring minds for thousands of years. The amateurs and professionals who together strove to modernise astronomy exemplify the scientist's ineffable need to confront and vanquish the unknown."
"Other desires perish in the gratification, but the desire of knowledge never: the eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear filled with hearing... The sum of things to be known is inexhaustible, and however long we read we shall never come to the end of our storybook."
James Keeler on Lick Observatory: "All around the closed-packed hive of high technology was a "sparsely wooded mountain land where are met only deer, skunks, squirrels, roaming astronomers, coyotes, an occasional mountain lion, a few horses, and, in summer time, rattle snakes, while the big, black buzzards sail high in the air on the lookout for a little God.""
"A rainbow is nature's most flamboyant expression of the broad phenomenon of colour, an aspect of light that astronomers gradually harnessed to great advantage."
"While solar researchers haggled over the nature of our nearest star, a handful of adventurous astronomers aimed their spectroscopes in the opposite direction, toward deep space. The challenge to see, much less photograph, a stellar spectrum using 1860s technology seemed ludicrous to most telescopic observers. Even the brightest star in the night sky is one ten-billionth the brilliance of the Sun. To steer a star's feeble glimmer into the guts of a spectroscope, disperse its aggregated wavelengths to the point of near invisibility, and then seek to extract any datum of scientific value strains the very definition of optimism. To seek such an outcome, not just for a star, but for a faint, diffuse nebula, enters the realm of delusion. Yet every uncharted realm draws its explorers. And the more distant the realm, the more intrepid the explorer."
"A feeling as of inspiration seized me: I felt as if I had it now in my power to lift a veil which has never before been lifted; as if a key has been put into my hands which would unlock the unknown mystery of the true nature of the heavenly bodies."
"Hubble's stark, pen-and-ink diagram, with its canted, empirically derived line, endowed James Keeler's turn-of-the-century extragalactic spacescapes with profound meaning. The line and its associated mathematical formula, V=HR, later dubbed Hubble's law, became twin avatars of what astronomers took to be an expanding universe. The universe is dynamic, they asserted, space itself billowing to vaster proportions, sweeping apart its luminous points of reference - the galaxies. In the time machine of one's imagination, the cosmic clock can be driven backwards, the observed dispersal of galaxies reversed until atoms and photons meld into an infinitesimal, primeval amalgam. Thus, universal expansion compels a beginning: an ab initio, hyperdense fireball from which all cosmic energy and matter emerged - in modern-day parlance, the Big Bang."
"It wasn't long before he (Henry Draper) started to dream, as astronomers will, of remote mountaintops, swathed nightly in utter blackness and desiccated air, a truly hospitable home for a telescope."
"On August 1, 1872, Draper pointed the twenty-eight-inch telescope, equipped with a camera, toward the bright star Vega. He inserted a small quartz prism into the light path and took an exposure. The recorded spectrum was a hazy slash of light, a mere half inch long and one-thirty-second-inch wide. Microscopic examination revealed the presence of four dark gaps, like those Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff had found in the solar spectrum - gaps they had identified with chemical elements found on Earth. On the glass plate was objective, hold-in-your-hand confirmation of what visual spectrum studies had found: atoms in the atmospheres of remote stars are no different than those that constitute the Sun or our own bodies. Frederick Barnard, president of Columbia University, characterized the achievement as "probably the most difficult and costly experiment in celestial chemistry ever made.""
"Like a cognitive cornucopia, science pours forth new questions as rapidly as it lays aside the old. This endless stream of conundrums has sustained inquiring minds for thousands of years. The amateurs and professionals who together strove to modernise astronomy exemplify the scientist's ineffable need to confront and vanquish the unknown."
"Other desires perish in the gratification, but the desire of knowledge never: the eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear filled with hearing... The sum of things to be known is inexhaustible, and however long we read we shall never come to the end of our storybook."
James Keeler on Lick Observatory: "All around the closed-packed hive of high technology was a "sparsely wooded mountain land where are met only deer, skunks, squirrels, roaming astronomers, coyotes, an occasional mountain lion, a few horses, and, in summer time, rattle snakes, while the big, black buzzards sail high in the air on the lookout for a little God.""
"A rainbow is nature's most flamboyant expression of the broad phenomenon of colour, an aspect of light that astronomers gradually harnessed to great advantage."
"While solar researchers haggled over the nature of our nearest star, a handful of adventurous astronomers aimed their spectroscopes in the opposite direction, toward deep space. The challenge to see, much less photograph, a stellar spectrum using 1860s technology seemed ludicrous to most telescopic observers. Even the brightest star in the night sky is one ten-billionth the brilliance of the Sun. To steer a star's feeble glimmer into the guts of a spectroscope, disperse its aggregated wavelengths to the point of near invisibility, and then seek to extract any datum of scientific value strains the very definition of optimism. To seek such an outcome, not just for a star, but for a faint, diffuse nebula, enters the realm of delusion. Yet every uncharted realm draws its explorers. And the more distant the realm, the more intrepid the explorer."
"A feeling as of inspiration seized me: I felt as if I had it now in my power to lift a veil which has never before been lifted; as if a key has been put into my hands which would unlock the unknown mystery of the true nature of the heavenly bodies."
March 15, 2015
I'm almost finished with this book - Recommended by dorjan over on the SDMB, my own very amateur interest in astronomy made this worth checking out of the local library.
Hershfeld takes us back to the 19th century (and occasionally, the tail of the 18th), when men of education, money and leisure were instrumental in making scientific discoveries and progress, and how the addition of photography and spectroscopy to traditional observation sparked the new field of astrophysics.
Not only does he provide background on the development of both reflector and refractor telescopes, but gives a history of photography as it relates to astronomical observations, from the first use of daguerreotypes to dry plate technology. Hershfeld also discusses the development of the spectroscope and how its use allowed not only for chemical analysis of the Sun and stars, but also for studying the Doppler effect to examine the speed of stars relative to the Earth.
In addition, Hershfeld also provides a look into the lives of the men (and occasional woman) whose efforts made this new field possible. Among the individuals highlighted were William Bond, originally a clockmaker whose home observatory earned him an (albeit unpaid) position at Harvard, and with his son discovered Hyperion, one of Saturn's moons. We also meet John and Henry Draper, a father and son team who were trailblazers of astrophotography and spectroscopy. I was particularly intrigued to learn about Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff - and how their partnership helped develop the science of spectral analysis. He also touches on some of the professional rivalries and finagling - the story of George Ellery Hale and how he was involved in the founding both the Yerkes Observatory and Mount Wilson Observatory rather interesting!
Hershfeld also recognizes some of the women who made contributions to the discipline, including Maria Mitchell, Annie Cannon and Williamina Stevens Fleming. If anyone can recommend a good "women in astronomy" overview, I'd be interested!
While some of the technical discussion got a bit tedious for my personal taste, Hershfeld's writing was engaging overall, with a nice blend of biographic and historic detail. I definitely feel as if I learned something, and may pursue further reading regarding some of the men & women I was introduced to here.
Hershfeld takes us back to the 19th century (and occasionally, the tail of the 18th), when men of education, money and leisure were instrumental in making scientific discoveries and progress, and how the addition of photography and spectroscopy to traditional observation sparked the new field of astrophysics.
Not only does he provide background on the development of both reflector and refractor telescopes, but gives a history of photography as it relates to astronomical observations, from the first use of daguerreotypes to dry plate technology. Hershfeld also discusses the development of the spectroscope and how its use allowed not only for chemical analysis of the Sun and stars, but also for studying the Doppler effect to examine the speed of stars relative to the Earth.
In addition, Hershfeld also provides a look into the lives of the men (and occasional woman) whose efforts made this new field possible. Among the individuals highlighted were William Bond, originally a clockmaker whose home observatory earned him an (albeit unpaid) position at Harvard, and with his son discovered Hyperion, one of Saturn's moons. We also meet John and Henry Draper, a father and son team who were trailblazers of astrophotography and spectroscopy. I was particularly intrigued to learn about Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff - and how their partnership helped develop the science of spectral analysis. He also touches on some of the professional rivalries and finagling - the story of George Ellery Hale and how he was involved in the founding both the Yerkes Observatory and Mount Wilson Observatory rather interesting!
Hershfeld also recognizes some of the women who made contributions to the discipline, including Maria Mitchell, Annie Cannon and Williamina Stevens Fleming. If anyone can recommend a good "women in astronomy" overview, I'd be interested!
While some of the technical discussion got a bit tedious for my personal taste, Hershfeld's writing was engaging overall, with a nice blend of biographic and historic detail. I definitely feel as if I learned something, and may pursue further reading regarding some of the men & women I was introduced to here.
June 8, 2014
I got this book through first reads, and found it quite informative. For someone with only the most minor of astronomy backgrounds like myself, the text gets a bit dry at times, and it isn't really a heart-pounding adventure, but it did teach me a number of things I didn't know about how we reached our current place in the stars. It starts of with a detailed description on the history of photography and how much that shaped how we view the stars. It shows me how much I take for granted looking at pictures of distant galaxies and not fully understanding how many lives have been devoted to acquiring those pictures. It also elevated Edwin Hubble to that mythic status with Teddy Roosevelt and Nicola Tesla.
The book is probably meant for someone with a much stronger interest and background in the field, so I found it a little slow-going, but if you have more than a passing interest in those who came before, it's a solid read.
The book is probably meant for someone with a much stronger interest and background in the field, so I found it a little slow-going, but if you have more than a passing interest in those who came before, it's a solid read.
May 14, 2016
A nice diversion from the heavy doses of criminal justice and political reading over the past several months, Starlight Detectives chronicles the progression of astronomy in the 19th century, as the field shifted from astronomers telling others what they saw to the use of photography to capture celestial images so that all could see the same thing, and then, to find that the camera captured images unseen by the naked eye.
Hirshfeld explains many of the technical dimension of the advancements, and I could not listen closely enough to understand it all, but I got the sense of the developments that led to the discovery of other galaxies and to the Big Bang. It was also nice to learn what Hubble did to get a telescope soaring through space named after him!
Maybe I would have known more of this if I could have stayed awake in that Tues/Thursday 8 am astronomy class during my sophomore year of college... And maybe not...
Hirshfeld explains many of the technical dimension of the advancements, and I could not listen closely enough to understand it all, but I got the sense of the developments that led to the discovery of other galaxies and to the Big Bang. It was also nice to learn what Hubble did to get a telescope soaring through space named after him!
Maybe I would have known more of this if I could have stayed awake in that Tues/Thursday 8 am astronomy class during my sophomore year of college... And maybe not...
January 23, 2015
Traces the characters, advances, and technology that helped turn astronomy into astrophysics. Spanning roughly eighty years from the early eighteen hundreds to the beginning of the twentieth century, Hirshfield traces the history of photography as it is applied to celestial objects, shows us how better and better telescopes were developed, and explains how the business of fixated stars in the universe came to spur much larger questions about what they are, what our universe is.
Along the way we encounter the amateurs, passionate kooks with too much money and time, and those who slowly turn astronomy into an academic field.
Long, detailed, and for those truly interested. The reader with only a passing interest may find boredom rather than see stars.
Along the way we encounter the amateurs, passionate kooks with too much money and time, and those who slowly turn astronomy into an academic field.
Long, detailed, and for those truly interested. The reader with only a passing interest may find boredom rather than see stars.
May 26, 2016
Starlight Detectives follows the telescope arms race during the age of large optical telescopes. From the name I thought it'd extend the race into other spectra but that didn't much happen. The book tracks the passing of the torch for biggest from telescope to telescope as well as tracking the people that made them happen. The book isn't bad, but I just expected more. The technical details seemed to be secondary to the personalities which is fine and some of the characters involved were notable, but the feuding between scientific societies and egos got boring. I was hoping the book would follow into more recent telescope advances but that didn't happen.
This is more for fans specifically of telescopes than for fans of astronomy.
This is more for fans specifically of telescopes than for fans of astronomy.
July 29, 2014
I received this book through Goodreads First Reads. This book is packed with information about the birth of modern astronomy. It is very detailed and brings in a lot of background on how other fields influenced and were influenced by astronomy, such as photography. Anyone interested in the historical study of science of astronomy will love this book. The only issue I had with this book is how dry it is. It is seriously dry. Worth it, if you're interested.
May 9, 2016
Not really my cup of tea. I was hoping to learn more about the stars and the universe, but this book focuses more on the science of stargazing: photography, telescopes and observatories. For someone who wants to learn about these subjects, this will be an interesting book. Otherwise, it's just boring.
April 9, 2016
Zzzzzzzzzzzzz
March 16, 2016
Another daily deal from Audible, and what a great book, and I immediately developed a serious crush on Edwin Hubble.
September 15, 2016
Not enough technology, too much history, for me.
April 3, 2016
lot of detail
July 4, 2016
It is wonderful to learn about how astronomy progressed and the technology that helped it advance.
April 15, 2017
Sobre lo que más habla es sobre la historia de la astrofotografía.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews