On Fri, 24 Oct 2014 20:54:37 +0100, "Lord Androcles"
wrote this crap:



"Bill Owen" wrote in message ...

On 10/23/14 12:43, Lord Androcles wrote:


"Quadibloc" wrote in message
...
You want astronomy to remain simply an inspirational pastime, with a
"thus far
and no further" to serious investigation of planetary motions. We would
never
have discovered Neptune listening to people like you.

John Savard

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Funny, I don't recall seeing "Savard" as a co-discoverer of Neptune in
any 1846 newspaper. Perhaps one need to be a pompous arsehole to belong
to "we".

Neptune would have been swept up by the Bonner Durchmusterung in the
1850s, although they might have mistaken it for a star. Certainly a
comparison of the BD to the plates of the Astrographic Catalogue
(difficult but not impossible in the 1890s) would have done the trick.
In other words, its discovery would have been like that of Uranus.

BTW, I can claim to be a co-discoverer of Neptune in a strange sort of
way. A few years ago I took a few exposures of Neptune (and Triton) and
submitted the astrometry to the Minor Planet Center along with all my
other asteroid observations that night -- and the MPC gave Neptune a
provisional designation! Gareth and I had a good chuckle about it, and
then he went off and upgraded the software so it wouldn't happen again.

-- Bill
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Why are planetary orbits so damned circular?

We only know about the ones around our star.

This signature is now the ultimate
power in the universe