This article places the famous images of Johannes Hevelius's instruments in his Machina Coelestis in the context of Hevelius's contested cometary observations and his debate with Hooke over telescopic sights. Seen thus, the images promote a crafted vision of Hevelius's astronomical practice and skills, constituting a careful self-presentation to his distant professional network and a claim as to which instrumental techniques guarantee accurate observations. Reviewing the reception of the images, the article explores how visual rhetoric may be invoked and challenged (...) in the context of controversy, and suggests renewed analytical attention to the role of laboratory imagery in instrumental cultures in the history of science. (shrink)

Centring on John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal, this paper investigates the ways in which astronomers of the late seventeenth century worked to build and maintain their reputations by demonstrating, for their peers and for posterity, their proficiency in managing visual technologies. By looking at his correspondence and by offering a graphic and textual analysis of the preface to his posthumousHistoria Coelestis Britannica, I argue that Flamsteed based the legitimacy of his life's work on his capacity to serve as a (...) skilful astronomer who could coordinate the production and proper use of astronomical sighting instruments. Technological advances in astrometry were, for Flamsteed, a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the advancement of astronomy. Technological resources needed to be used by the right person. The work of the skilful astronomer was a necessary precondition for the mobilization and proper management of astronomical technologies. Flamsteed's understanding of the astronomer as a skilled actor importantly shifted the emphasis in precision astronomical work away from the individual observer's ability to see well and toward the astronomer's ability to ensure that instruments guaranteed accurate vision. (shrink)

ArgumentDrawing and writing number among the most widespread scientific practices of representation. Neither photography, graphic recording apparatuses, typewriters, nor digital word- and image-processing ever completely replaced drawing and writing by hand. The interaction of hand, paper, and pen indeed involves much more than simply recording or visualizing what was previously thought, observed, or imagined. Both writing and drawing have the power to translate concepts and observations into two-dimensional, manageable, reproducible objects. They help to develop research questions and they open up (...) an interaction between the gathering of phenomena and the formation of theses. Related to the manifold studies of representational activities in the sciences and the humanities, this topical issue tries to refine our understanding of the capacities of drawing and writing as research techniques; i.e. as productive epistemic practices. In particular the contributions address three aspects: the material conditions and configurations of the “scene of drawing and writing,” the involved procedures of production, and the languages of inscription. (shrink)

While Newton tried to make his telescope into a proof of the supremacy of his theory of colours over older theories, his instrument was welcomed as a way to shorten telescopes, not as a way to solve the problem of chromatic aberration. This paper argues that the image published together with the report on Newton’s telescope in Philosophical Transactions (1672) encouraged this reception. The differences between this visualization and other images of Newton’s telescope, especially that published in Opticks (1704), are (...) discussed. This paper shows that the image in Opticks adopted characteristics of a Cartesian program of visualization of machines and instruments which complemented a rhetoric which attributed primacy to theory over practice. The differences between the images in Philosophical Transactions and Opticks are also considered within the broader institutional context of Newton’s attitude towards the Royal Society. (shrink)

Résumé En 1665, Robert Hooke fait paraître son grand ouvrage de microscopie, _Micrographia_, véritable défense et illustration de la philosophie expérimentale. L’année suivante, Margaret Cavendish, duchesse de Newcastle, publie à compte d’auteur un traité et un roman qui attaquent les fondements mêmes de cette science nouvelle. La dispute qui s’engage à l’initiative de la duchesse s’inscrit dans le contexte d’une plus vaste controverse sur la légitimité et l’efficacité des instruments optiques en philosophie naturelle. Toutes les figures de la controverse scientifique (...) y sont déployées. Toutes, sauf une : la riposte. Car Margaret Cavendish est seule dans l’arène. Peut-on parler de duel lorsque seule l’une des deux parties attaque? C’est ce cas particulier de dispute qui s’achève faute de combattant que cet article propose d’étudier. (shrink)

Résumé En 1665, Robert Hooke fait paraître son grand ouvrage de microscopie, _Micrographia_, véritable défense et illustration de la philosophie expérimentale. L’année suivante, Margaret Cavendish, duchesse de Newcastle, publie à compte d’auteur un traité et un roman qui attaquent les fondements mêmes de cette science nouvelle. La dispute qui s’engage à l’initiative de la duchesse s’inscrit dans le contexte d’une plus vaste controverse sur la légitimité et l’efficacité des instruments optiques en philosophie naturelle. Toutes les figures de la controverse scientifique (...) y sont déployées. Toutes, sauf une : la riposte. Car Margaret Cavendish est seule dans l’arène. Peut-on parler de duel lorsque seule l’une des deux parties attaque? C’est ce cas particulier de dispute qui s’achève faute de combattant que cet article propose d’étudier. (shrink)