SCHOOL OF PRACTICAL ASTRONOMY.
Prof Stone.
The course in this school are arranged primarily for persons proposing to
become practical astronomers. The course in General Astronomy, however,
is adapted to those who desire to pursue the subject as a part of their general
education; while the courses in Celestial Mechanics are recommended to
graduate students in Mathematics. Each class meets twice a week.
The courses pursued are as follows:
I. General Astronomy, with exercises in the use of logarithms and
in the application of trigonometrical formulæ to the solution of astronomical
problems.
Text-book.—Young's General Astronomy.
II. Practical Astronomy, including a systematic training in making
and reducing astronomical observations.
Junior.—Least squares; interpolation; Practical Astronomy as applied to
Geodesy and Navigation.
Senior.—Theory and use of the instruments of a fixed observatory; construction
of star catalogues.
Text-books.—Doolittle's Practical Astronomy; Chauvenet's Spherical and Practical
Astronomy; various memoirs and volumes of observations in the Observatory Library.
III. Celestial Mechanics, with practice in numerical computations.
Junior.—Relations referring to position in orbit and space; determination
of an undisturbed orbit; special perturbations.
Senior.—General laws of equilibrium and motion; formation and
integration of the differential equations of motion of a system of bodies subject
to the law of gravity.
Text-books.—Oppolzer's Lehrbuch zur Bahnbestimmung; Gauss's Theoria Motus; Laplace's
Mécanique Céleste; Dziobek's Mathematische Theorien der Planeten-Bewegungen.
