University of Virginia Library

SCHOOL OF PRACTICAL ASTRONOMY.

Prof. Stone.

The courses in this school are arranged primarily for persons proposing
to become practical astronomers. The Junior courses in Spherical and
Practical Astronomy are also recommended to students in Engineering;
the second Junior course in Spherical and Practical Astronomy, and the
courses in Celestial Mechanics and Computing, are recommended to
graduate students in Mathematics.

The courses pursued are as follows:

I. Spherical and Practical Astronomy.—Each twice a week.

1. Junior, first half.—Co-ordinates, their transformations, and their
changes; time, latitude, and longitude.

2. Junior, second half.—Interpolation; mechanical quadratures; least
squares.

3. Senior, first half.—The telescope; the meridian circle; refraction.

4. Senior, second half.—The equatorial; subsidiary instruments; star
catalogues.

Text Books:—Doolittle's Practical Astronomy; Chauvenet's Spherical and
Practical Astronomy; American Ephemeris; various memoirs and volumes of observations
in the observatory library.

II. Celestial Mechanics,—Each twice a week.

1. Junior, first half.—Relations referring to position in orbit and in
space; determination of the elements of a parabolic orbit.

2. Junior, second half.—Determination of the elements of an undisturbed
orbit, no assumption being made in regard to the eccentricity.

3. Senior, first half.—Special perturbations.

4. Senior, second half.—General perturbations.

Text-books:—Oppolzer's Lehrbuch zur Bahnbestimmung; Gauss's Theoria Motus;
Hansen's Auseinandersetzung; various memoirs.

III. Practice in Observing.

Junior.—Observations with the transit instrument for time and latitude;
with the small equatorial, of occultations, positions of comets, etc.

Senior.—Observations with the great equatorial.

IV. Practice in Computing.

Junior.—Reductions of observations; determination of the undisturbed
orbit of an asteroid.

Senior.—Reductions of observations; computation of the perturbations
of the asteroid whose orbit has been determined in the Junior course, up
to the time of the next opposition, including an ephemeris therefor.

Students, upon entering the school, should have a working knowledge
of the fundamental principles of co-ordinate geometry, plane and spherical
trigonometry, and differential and integral calculus. A previous knowledge
of French and German will not be insisted upon; but both of these
languages are continually employed in the work of the school.

For other courses in Astronomy, see Mixed Mathematics, p. 26, and
Senior Natural Philosophy, p. 27.