Home > Timeline of stellar astronomy

• 134 BC - Hipparchus creates the magnitude scale of stellar apparent luminosities
• 1596 - David Fabricius notices that Mira's brightness varies
• 1672 - Geminiano Montanari notices that Algol's brightness varies
• 1686 - Gottfried Kirch notices that Chi Cygni 's brightness varies
• 1718 - Edmund Halley discovers stellar proper motionProper motion is a component of the motion of stars. At first sight the stars seem to be in fixed positions with respect to each other, meaning they always form the same figures, and (for example) Ursa Major looks the same now as forty years ago. More cars by comparing his astrometric measurements with those of the Greeks
• 1782Events January 7 The first American commercial bank opens ( Bank of North America). January 15 Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris goes before the United States Congress to recommend establishment of a national mint and decimal coinage February 5 Span - John GoodrickeJohn Goodricke ( September 17 1764 April 20 1786) was an amateur astronomer. He was born in Groningen in the Netherlands, but lived most of his life in England. He was named after, and was a grandson of, Sir John Goodricke. He is best known for his observ notices that the brightness variations of Algol are periodic and proposes that it is partially eclipsed by a body moving around it
• 1784Events January 6 the Turks agree to Russia's annexation of the Crimea in the Treaty of Constantinople January 14 The U. Congress ratifies the Treaty of Paris with England to end the American Revolutionary War February 27 Count of St Germain dies of pneumo - Edward Piggot discovers the first Cepheid variableA Cepheid variable is a member of a particular class of variable stars, notable for a fairly tight correlation between their period of variability and absolute stellar luminosity. Because of this correlation (discovered by Henrietta Swan Leavitt in 1912), star
• 1838Events January 6 Samuel Morse first publicly demonstrates the telegraph. January 8 Alfred Vail demonstrates a telegraph using dots and dashes (this is the forerunner of Morse code) January 12 Joseph Smith, Jr. and Sidney Rigdon flee Ohio for Missouri Marc - Thomas HendersonThomas Henderson ( December 28, 1798 November 23, 1844) was an astronomer noted for being the first person to measure the distance to Alpha Centauri, the major component of the nearest stellar system to Earth, and for being the first Astronomer Royal of S, Friedrich Struve, and Friedrich Bessel measure stellar parallaxes
• 1844 - Friedrich Bessel explains the wobbling motions of Sirius and Procyon by suggesting that these stars have dark companions
• 1906 - Arthur Eddington begins his statistical study of stellar motions
• 1908 - Henrietta Leavitt discovers the Cepheid period-luminosity relation
• 1910 - Ejnar Hertzsprung and Henry Norris Russell study the relation between magnitudes and spectral types of stars
• 1924 - Arthur Eddington develops the main sequence mass-luminosity relationship
• 1929 - George Gamow proposes hydrogen fusion as the energy source for stars
• 1938 - Hans Bethe and Carl von Weizsacker detail the proton-proton chain and CNO cycle in stars
• 1939 - Rupert Wildt realizes the importance of the negative hydrogen ion for stellar opacity
• 1952 - Walter Baade distinguishes between Cepheid I and Cepheid II variable stars
• 1953 - Fred Hoyle predicts a carbon-12 resonance to allow stellar triple alpha reactions at reasonable stellar interior temperatures
• 1961 - Chushiro Hayashi publishes his work on the Hayashi track of fully convective stars
• 1963 - Fred Hoyle and William Fowler conceive the idea of supermassive stars
• 1964 - Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and Richard Feynman develop a general relativistic theory of stellar pulsations and show that supermassive stars are subject to a general relativistic instability
• 1967 - Gerry Neugebauer and Eric Becklin discover the Becklin-Neugebauer object at 10 micrometres