Sign up to save your podcastsEmail addressPasswordRegisterOrContinue with GoogleAlready have an account? Log in here.
Stories of the RASC, based on the surviving artifacts, the members who made and used them, and what we’re learned—and haven’t learned—about doing citizen science.... more
FAQs about RASC History Podcast:How many episodes does RASC History Podcast have?The podcast currently has 14 episodes available.
June 21, 2019Cultural AstronomyAre we really better at making space for other traditions to express themselves? What ought we to do about representing and promoting astronomy and astronomies in a multi-cultural society heading towards our second centenary?...more14minPlay
January 03, 2019Podcast DiscussionSpecial bonus episode: Heather and Randall talk about some of things that have been discussed so far in the podcast....more14minPlay
December 24, 2018Spectacles of NatureWhat is the RASC's tradition of encountering the Grand Astronomical spectacles of nature? Are there constants? What use is made of them? Are there limits to what advocates of astronomy can expect in the wake of major, and rare celestial events? Why?...more24minPlay
November 02, 2018Buried Treasure, Lost TreasureThe Society was founded in the tradition of learned societies which were repositories of material objects, from contemporary apparatus for loan in current experimental programs, to historic apparatus hallowed as relics of science past. How and why artifacts were kept can tell us what and how the past thought about its past. We explore these questions through several artifacts we've carefully retained, and others we've carelessly lost....more17minPlay
October 10, 2018Gender, 'Race', and AstronomyIs the gender history of the RASC a warning that "progress" in the social life of science is not always in the same direction, or at the same rate? And where are the invisible astronomers—LGBTQIA members, non-white members—in the RASC's past? Can they be identified, and their stories recovered?...more11minPlay
October 09, 2018The Republic of Letters, and the Invisible CollegeCommunities and the contacts which form and sustain them play a large role in astronomy. Of course, technologies and styles of communication change over time. The paper artifacts of the collaborative and social life of astronomy from the earlier periods of the RASC have a beguiling aura not of the present....more20minPlay
July 30, 2018Making Stuff to Do StuffOver most of the time-span of the RASC, procuring the tools to do astronomy was radically different from what it is now. Telescopes were proportionally much more expensive, and wages lower than at present. Faced with those circumstances, many amateurs had little choice but to build their own equipment. And many did....more22minPlay
June 28, 2018Mapping the HeavensAssigning coordinates to stuff in the sky has been a lasting concern of astronomy for millennia. The ends served are numerous, including mythography, commerce, and astrophysics. We explore the inherited and RASC-created artifacts of such activity to sketch the range and style of uranography (celestial cartography) in the Society....more21minPlay
May 30, 2018Doing Science, or Scientific Sightseeing?The nature of amateur astronomy—what it has been, what it is, and what it might aspire to be—has occasionally been contested within the community. From afar this may look like naval gazing by stargazers, but it can be seen to touch the heart and soul of amateur astronomy......more21minPlay
April 24, 2018Personal Records of the SkyAmateur astronomers are often counselled to keep records of their observations. From a scientific standpoint, the observation in the log book is the primary record of a phenomenon visually observed, and for phenomena detected by other means......more21minPlay
FAQs about RASC History Podcast:How many episodes does RASC History Podcast have?The podcast currently has 14 episodes available.