Halley's Quest: A Selfless Genius and His Troubled Paramore (2005)
Chapter: Plates
A fresco depicting the orbit of Halley’s Comet conveys a 1770 understanding of the solar system. Halley’s namesake reappeared in 1758 to the awe of the world but 16 years after his own death. Source: Meridian Room at the Museum La Specola in Padua, Italy.
An engraving of Halley’s diving bell and helmet, one of a few surviving illustrations. Although he published a description of his invention in a 1689 edition of the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions, this image appeared in a more popular publication decades after his death. His underwater adventures are described in Chapter 8. Source: W. Hooper’s Rational Recreations, 1782, from the British Library collections.
Danzig astronomer Johannes Hevelius and his wife Catherine Elisabeth observing with a sextant. The two-person instrument was likely the same one that Hevelius also used with Halley when he visited in 1679 as detailed in Chapter 7. Source: Hevelius’ 1673 Machina Coelestis at the Royal Astronomical Society.
Photographs of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, today. The core buildings, completed in 1675-1676, remain much as they were when Charles II built the facility for the first Astronomer Royal John Flamsteed. It is the site of the Prime Meridian and also where Halley’s capstone was relocated in 1845. Source: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.