University of Virginia Library

SCHOOL OF PRACTICAL ASTRONOMY.

Professor Stone.

The courses 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.—Candidates for the degree of Bachelor of
Arts are permitted to select this course as an alternate for Mathematics.
Its aim is to give such a knowledge of the facts, principles, and
methods of Astronomy as every well-educated person should possess,
and as will form a suitable introduction to the technical courses of the
School. The preparation desirable is the same as that for Intermediate
Mathematics.

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 laws of gravity.

Text-books.—Gauss's Theoria Motus; Tisserand's Mécanique Céleste; Dziobek's
Mathematischen Theorien der Planeten-Bewegungen.

A prescribed course in this School, to be agreed upon in a conference
of the Professors interested, will be considered as the equivalent
of the graduate course in either Mathematics or Natural Philosophy
for graduates of these schools.

The Astronomical Observatory is situated upon an elevation
known as Mount Jefferson, which furnishes an unobstructed horizon.
The principal building is a rotunda, forty-five feet in diameter, and
contains the great Clark refractor of twenty-six-inch aperture. The
building and instrument are the gift of Leander J. McCormick, Esq.,
of Chicago. The computing rooms are adjoining, and contain clock,
chronograph, etc., and a working library. In a smaller building are a
three-inch Fauth transit and a four-inch Kahler equatorial.