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Star-land: Being Talks With Young People About the Wonders of the Heavens cover

Star-land: Being Talks With Young People About the Wonders of the Heavens

Chapter 2: PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.
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About This Book

A series of illustrated lectures introduces young readers to fundamental astronomy, explaining the Sun's heat, size, and spots; the Moon's phases, eclipses, and surface features; the inner and outer planets and their satellites; comets, meteors, and their orbits; and the nature and distances of stars and nebulae. Practical methods for measuring celestial distances, using telescopes, and interpreting observations are described alongside accessible accounts of orbital motions, seasons, eclipses, and classification of stellar objects. Concluding guidance covers naming stars. The tone is explanatory and aimed at making observational astronomy intelligible without technical prerequisites.

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.

It has long been the custom at the Royal Institution of Great Britain to provide each Christmastide a course of Lectures specially addressed to a juvenile audience.

On two occasions, namely, in 1881 and in 1887, the Managers entrusted this honorable duty to me. The second course was in the main a repetition of the first; and on my notes and recollections of both the present little volume has been founded.

I am indebted to my friends Rev. Maxwell Close, Mr. Arthur Rambaut, and Dr. John Todhunter for their kindness in reading the proofs.

ROBERT S. BALL.

Observatory,
Co. Dublin
,
Oct. 22, 1889.