Polity, Precision and the Stellar Heavens: The Royal Astronomical Observatory of Lisbon (1857--1910) (cited 2010)
The Royal Astronomical Observatory of Lisbon (RAOL), founded in 1857, materialized a networking effort towards the development of stellar astronomy promoted by the Observatory of Pulkovo, but the transposition of the latter¿s Tsarist polity into the Portuguese liberal monarchy compromised the undertaking, which was nonetheless revamped into a traditional meridian observatory. Three aspects are especially valued in this thesis: the importance of specific forms of polity in the development of scientific institutions; the nineteenth-century culture of precision; the attempt to foster stellar astronomy on the basis of visual measurement. The foundation of the RAOL resulted from the local willingness to emulate the administrative modernity and cultural production of developed Europe, through the engagement with the international astronomical community following a controversy over the annual parallax of the star 1830 Groombridge (or Argelander¿s star). The European apprenticeship and fact-finding mission (1858-1863) of the RAOL¿s first director, Frederico Augusto Oom (1830-1890), is shown to have had a crucial importance. Although the RAOL was strongly modelled on the Observatory of Pulkovo, it is argued that its design represented a creative and innovative process. The clash of the imported formulation of the RAOL¿s project with the local polity and customs is illustrated by analysing the elaboration of its statutory decree and the constitution of its scientific staff. It is shown that, in order to secure a niche in international astronomy while functioning as the Portuguese national observatory, the RAOL was worked as a traditional meridian observatory relying on the local refiguring of its original equipment.
...MoreDescription Defense date not indicated; cited by UMI in 2010. Cited in ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing. Proquest Document ID: 1314574838.
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