A Catalogue of 1112 Stars, Reduced from Observations made at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, from the Year 1816 to 1833.

Bookseller Notes

This is part of the 16 volume Observations published by Pond, 1812-35, one singled out for presentation. Rare: no copy in the USA in WorldCat (nor is any set of the complete run).'On Maskelyne's death, Pond was appointed astronomer royal by the prince regent, and took up his office at Greenwich on 13 April 1811. The new mural circle by Troughton was delivered in 1812, and for the next few years Pond made an extensive series of observations on bright stars in order to establish a standard catalogue of declinations to complement Maskelyne's catalogue of right ascensions of thirty-six standard stars. In 1816 a new transit instrument, also by Troughton, replaced the one which had been in use for over sixty years. Pond's great contribution to positional astronomy was in the improvement of declination measurements. In 1822 he devised a very elegant method of determining the horizontal reference by combination of observations made directly and by reflection in a mercury horizon; this enabled the true zenith distance to be derived without recourse to the use of a plumb line or spirit level. A second circle, similar in all respects to the Troughton circle, was being constructed by Thomas Jones for the new Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope. In 1823 Pond persuaded the Admiralty that this circle should be set up permanently at Greenwich, and from 1825 he used both circles in parallel, observing directly with one and by reflection with the other. The accuracy achieved by this technique was demonstrated more than sixty years later by S. C. Chandler, who detected variation of latitude in Pond's observations; further evidence is given by the investigation by Richardson, one of Pond's assistants, who derived a value of the constant of aberration of starlight which is very close to the true value. The culmination of Pond's career was the publication in 1833 of a catalogue of the positions of 1113 [sic] stars' (ODNB).A splendid association. Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander of Bonn built substantially on results such as those produced by Pond.Pond's autograph letter, loosely inserted, is, according to a second letter to Henry Warburton ('Philosopher Warburton', and radical MP), one that he was thinking of sending to the President [of the Royal Astronomical Society: Francis Baily had just been elected]. He sent it to Warburton for his perusal before presenting to to the President the next day, or, if it did not meet with his, Warburton's, approval, for its destruction. Pond was doubtful about the contents, and the likelihood of his being able to attend the meeting, due to his chronic ill-health. Pond discusses in some detail his double method observation. The letter is evocative of the political in-fighting that beset the early days of the Royal Observatory.