Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.14622

    Saturn's ring

    Date
    18 May 1666
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p325a
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 83mm
    width (page): 110mm
    Subject
    Content object
    space
       > Solar system
          > planet
             > Saturn
    Description
    An image on a separate slip of paper with text at the top, 'Le 5 Octobre 1665, Campani sic delineavit' [On 5 October 1665. Campani drew [Saturn's ring] thus].

    This is a copy of the figure printed in Guiseppe Campani, Lettro ... intorno alle ombre delle stelle Medicee nel volte di Giove ... (1665), where Saturn is shown to cast a shadow on its ring (see Cl.P/8i/8/001).

    In 1663, Giussepe Campani observed Saturn as a central globe surrounded by a ring, which he published as Ragguaglio di due nuove osservazioni (1664). Adrian Auzout agreed with the shadow on the lower part, but objected to the continuous dark band on the interior edge of the ring at the top of the figure. Auzout expressed his objections in his Lettre à M. l’Abbé Charles (1665). Campani had in fact observed what is now known as the crêpe ring of Saturn. (Albert Van Helden, 'Annulo Cingitur: The Solution of the Problem of Saturn', Journal of the History of Astronomy, 5 (1974), 155-74 (pp. 167-68).)

    This figure is copied in LBC/1/384. There are other versions of the image in LBO/1/186, EL/H1/35/005 and EL/H1/36/004.
    Related fellows
    Adrian Auzout (1622 - 1691, French) , Physician and Astronomer, Physician
    Henry Oldenburg (1612 - 1677, German) , Scientific correspondent
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > France
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > Italy
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