Author Archives:

Christopher M. Graney

About Christopher M. Graney

Christopher M. Graney is professor of physics and astronomy at Jefferson Community & Technical College in Louisville, Kentucky (USA), where he helps keep the college’s observatory running. For some years now his research focus has been the history of astronomy, especially the late 16th and early 17th centuries. That research has resulted in two books: Setting Aside All Authority: Giovanni Battista Riccioli and the Science Against Copernicus in the Age of Galileo (2015), and Mathematical Disquisitions: The Booklet of Theses Immortalized by Galileo (2017), both published by the University of Notre Dame Press. Graney is also editor of the Vatican Observatory Faith and Science pages.

How a Jesuit Astronomer and His Student beat Isaac Newton to a Key Idea by more than 50 Years

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by

In 1614, well before Isaac Newton was even born, a German Jesuit astronomer named Christoph Scheiner and his student, Johann Georg Locher, developed an explanation for how the Earth could orbit the sun.  Earth, they said, was like a massive ball, perpetually falling toward the sun.  They discussed this in their 1614 book Disquisitiones Mathematicae de Controversiis et Novitatibus Astronomicis, or Mathematical Disquisitions Concerning Astronomical Controversies and Novelties (recently translated by yours truly, and published by the University of Notre Dame Press—click here).  This was Locher’s thesis for his degree from the University of Ingolstadt, where Fr. Scheiner taught. Fr. Scheiner is a relatively well-known figure in the history of astronomy.  He is the astronomer with whom Galileo debated regarding sunspots; he would go on to write a monumental 1630 book based on his long-term, detailed solar observations: Rosa Ursina Sive Sol.  This book would define solar astronomy for decades.  By contrast, not much is known about Locher.  Galileo himself … Continue reading →

How Frs. Riccioli and Dechales Argued that Science Shows the Earth to be at Rest – The Coriolis Effect (re-run)

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by

This is a “re-run” of a post that originally ran on July 19, 2017. My post for next week will feature Fr. Riccioli and the Coriolis Effect, so revisiting this topic seems like a good idea. The Coriolis Effect is an apparent deflection of projectiles and falling bodies that is caused by the rotation of the Earth. It is named for Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis, a French scientist who described it mathematically in the early 19th century. It is responsible for the rotation of weather patterns such as hurricanes. But it turns out that a century and a half before Coriolis did his work, other scientists were discussing the Coriolis Effect. These scientists were Jesuits—Fr. Giovanni Battista Riccioli, who discussed the effect in his 1651 book Almagestum Novum, and Fr. Claude François Milliet Dechales, who discussed the effect and included some nice simple diagrams of it in his 1674 book Cursus seu Mundus Mathematicae. What is interesting about this is that … Continue reading →

Georgios Papanikolaou: Google Doodle Scientist

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by

If you used Google today you certainly noticed today’s Google Doodle scientist—George Nicholas Papanicolaou (Georgios Nikolaou Papanikolaou), inventor of the Pap smear test that enabled the early discovery of cervical cancer and other diseases.  There are a few bits of information that suggests that Papanikolaou was a scientist of faith: He was buried from St. Sophia Orthodox church in Miami. The journal Experimental and Therapeutic Medicine has an interview with Dr. Neda Voutsa-Perdiki, who wrote a 2016 book in Greek whose title in translation is Dr George and Mache-Mary Papanicolaou – As I knew them (published by the Medical Council of Athens, Greece). Dr. Voutsa-Perdiki states that “The secret of his [Papanicolaou’s] scientific success was hard work, dedication, love of research, faith and the courage he gained from his wife and colleagues.”  Dr. Voutsa-Perdiki also states that “He [Papanicolaou] frequently referred to the Easter season, especially to the mystagogy of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday and the byzantine melodies of the church. In Kyme, as a child, he used to sing at the church those days himself. For this reason, he used to spend his Easter holidays with his nephew Vaggelis Stamatiou and his family, who lived close to Dr Papanicolaou’s house in Douglaston.” An article in the Singapore … Continue reading →

Sun & Moon—The Museum and the Market Square

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by

How often do astronomical objects appear in art and architecture?  That seems to depend on where you are.  If you are in a museum in Cincinnati, Ohio, you might see very little.  If you are in a market square in San Antonio, Texas, you might find yourself surrounded by it. When my wife and I were in Cincinnati to visit the observatory there (click here and here for posts on that observatory), we decided to visit the Cincinnati Art Museum.  The goal of our visit was to find astronomical imagery in art work.  Astronomy in art and architecture has always seemed to me to be a great topic for The Catholic Astronomer.  It is something that might appeal to a very broad variety of people (click here for posts on the “Astronomy in Art & Architecture” theme).  Of course it is something that might especially appeal to people interested in astronomy, and to Catholics (given the emphasis on art and … Continue reading →

Scoping Out the Rosette Nebula from Kentucky

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by

Many different astronomers and their work have been featured on this blog.  We’ve seen some of the research being produced by Vatican Observatory astronomers.  Brenda Frye of Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona was a regular contributor to the blog for quite a while.  Fernando Comerón has contributed a guest post about his work at the European Southern Observatory, where he gets to observe with some of the world’s largest telescopes.  Larry Lebofsky has recently written about observing with the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT) on Mt. Graham in Arizona.  But today I would like to give readers of The Catholic Astronomer a different perspective on doing astronomical research. Meet Chad Howard, a colleague of mine at Jefferson Community & Technical College (JCTC) here in Louisville, Kentucky.  He is doing work that I think will be of interest to readers of The Catholic Astronomer, and he is doing it for reasons that readers will also find cool.  Chad is … Continue reading →

Washington Irving’s Columbus and the Flat Earth

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by

  This is a re-posting of a blog written by Dr. Darin Hayton, a historian of science at Haverford College in December 2014.  Darin obtained his Ph.D. from the History and Philosophy of Science program at the University of Notre Dame, and it is through Notre Dame that I got to know him: The University of Notre Dame Press asked him to review my translation of Johann Georg Locher’s Mathematical Disquisitions, which Notre Dame published in 2017. This past semester all my students were certain that Christopher Columbus proved that the world is round, and that prior to Columbus everyone thought that the world was flat.  When I asked Darin if I could use this post, since my students had put this subject on my mind, he noted in response that for over a decade of teaching he has found that nearly all of the students in his introductory-level courses have been taught the flat-earth story.  He added, “Last term one … Continue reading →

Growing Suspect of Religion, not Science

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by

On the Vatican Observatory Faith and Science pages there is a really cool entry that readers of The Catholic Astronomer should take a look at.  The entry consists of an excerpt from the Tahāfut al-falāsifa, or The Incoherence of the Philosophers, of Abu Hāmid Muhammad Ibn Muhammad al-Tūsi al-Ghazālī.  (The excerpt is fully downloadable in PDF format.)  Al-Ghazālī, who lived in the eleventh century, is one of medieval Islam’s best-known religious intellectuals. Al-Ghazālī says that disputing matters of science on the basis of religious texts or ideology is a waste of time.  Moreover, he says the atheists love it when people of faith do such things, because, he says, “then the atheist’s path for refuting religion becomes easy”.  He says that once something is scientifically well-established (for example, the mechanism by which eclipses occur), then whoever inspects them and is convinced by their evidence, deriving for himself information about the extent, times of occurrence, and duration of these two kinds … Continue reading →

The Observatory and The Midnight Mass

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by

In my post last week about the Alvan Clark refractor at the Cincinnati Observatory, I mentioned that the observatory was originally built in the 1840s in a part of Cincinnati called Mt. Adams (located just east of downtown Cincinnati on the Ohio River) but it moved three decades later to its current location.  It is now located in a neighborhood of Cincinnati called Mt. Lookout.  A drawing and photograph of the original observatory building on Mt. Adams are seen below. The observatory was moved on account of pollution.  There is a painting in the Cincinnati Art Museum that illustrates just how bad the pollution at Mt. Adams was, and how difficult it would have been to do astronomy there.  The painting is by Edward Timothy Hurley, painted in oil on canvas in 1911.  Its title is “The Midnight Mass” (it is featured on Google Arts & Culture).  It portrays Immaculata Church, which is still there on Mt. Adams.  The Cincinnati … Continue reading →

Crank It Up: The Cincinnati Observatory’s Alvan Clark Telescope

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by

Readers of The Catholic Astronomer should visit the Cincinnati (Ohio) Observatory—it is a fantastic place to go for anyone who likes astronomy, history, or science education.  The observatory dates back to the 1840s.  It was the creation of Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel, who raised money for the observatory by selling public shares (and who was from Kentucky, I might add).  In 1843, former U.S. president John Quincy Adams traveled to Cincinnati to lay the cornerstone for the observatory on a hill in Cincinnati now known as Mt. Adams (named for the president).  When he was president, Adams had wanted the U.S. to build an observatory but could not persuade the U.S. Congress to do so. The Cincinnati observatory’s first telescope was a large refracting telescope made in Bavaria by Merz and Mahler.  However, as Cincinnati grew, the air at Mt. Adams became more and more polluted, to the point where it interfered with the observatory’s work.  In 1873 the Merz and … Continue reading →

Monsignor Bouchet’s Telescope (re-run)

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by

This is a “re-run” of a post that originally ran on January 18, 2017. My post for next week will feature a cool old telescope, so it seem fitting to re-run this post about a cool old telescope. Astronomy pops up in unexpected places.  Consider, for example, this fantastic old refracting telescope: This telescope has an aperture of roughly 4 inches (10 centimeters).  The tube appears to be brass.  The telescope has a very stout wooden case, visible in the picture above.  The picture below gives another view of the telescope, the case (now open), and an eyepiece for the telescope (lying to the left of the telescope). By now you have probably noticed the telescope’s surroundings, namely the monstrances and crucifix on display in the background.  Why is an old telescope sitting on a table, surrounded by religious articles?  Because this is the telescope of Monsignor Michael Bouchet (1827 to 1903), former vicar-general of the Diocese of Louisville, Kentucky.  … Continue reading →

ⓜ Galileo’s Newly-Discovered Letter: The Scholarship is Published

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by

(ⓜ = members only!) In January I ran a post here at The Catholic Astronomer about the newly-discovered letter that Galileo wrote and (according to the journal Nature) lied about—click here for that post.  The Nature articles concerning Galileo’s letter were “news” or “opinion” articles, written by Nature’s editors and correspondents.  They were not research papers written by the scholars who found the letter: Michele Camerota of the Università degli Studi di Cagliari, and Franco Giudice and Salvatore Ricciardo of Università degli Studi di Bergamo.  Now a scholarly, peer-reviewed paper, written by those scholars regarding the letter, has been published, and so I thought I’d follow up with a little analysis. In order to read the rest of this post, you have to be a paid-up member of Sacred Space, and logged in as such!…     … Continue reading →

Astronomy in Art & Architecture: The Stars of St. Joseph

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by

Here is another “Astronomy in Art & Architecture” discovery (click here for all the “Art & Architecture” posts): St. Joseph Church in Leitchfield, Kentucky (Diocese of Owensboro, Kentucky, USA). St. Joseph is just off the main square in Leitchfield, and it invites the passer-by to stop in and take a look. Hey, if you were touring through a small town in Italy you would want to make a stop in the town church, so of course you want to do the same thing when touring through a small town in Kentucky! Above the altar in St. Joseph, which is a lovely church to stop in and see, is a painting of the death of St. Joseph. According to the book Freely You Have Received, Freely Give: 75 Years of the Diocese of Owensboro Kentucky, this painting came from the cathedral in Bardstown, Kentucky—this being the cathedral when Bardstown was the seat of the first inland diocese in the US (the … Continue reading →