Talk:Sidereus Nuncius

AstroJodi (talk) 00:38, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Language
The language is said to be "Italian (New Latin)". The book seems to have been written in Latin. "Italian" has now been eliminated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.34.71 (talk) 16:44, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Removal of external link
A few days ago I added an external link to a copy of an English translation of Sidereus Nuncius. The site hosting this copy gives no indication of the original source or its author, nor that it has the permission of any copyright holder to make the translation available on the web. I took this to mean that the website's proprietor was also the copyright holder. However, I have since discovered that at least the first page and a bit of this translation is word for word identical to Stillman Drake's translation in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo. Part of Wikipedia's policy on linking to external sites says:
 * " ... if you know that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work."

While I cannot claim to know that the above-mentioned website is violating Drake's copyright, I nevertheless believe it would be improper for the article to include a link to it until it has been clearly established that it does have the copyright holder's permission to make its copy of the work available on the web. I have therefore now removed the link. &mdash;David Wilson (talk · cont) 13:18, 3 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I have just re-removed a reinsertion of this link. Since neither the document itself nor the website where it resides seems to give any credit to Stillman Drake for the translation, it is very likely an unlicensed copy.  Unless someone can provide some solid evidence that it's properly licensed, or that either Drake or his heirs have released the text into the public domain, Wikipedia should not be providing a link to it.
 * David Wilson (talk · cont) 09:33, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Possible early translation
Sidereus Nuncius might have been translated into Manchu in the 17th. century. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.97.55.83 (talk) 17:01, 27 March 2010 (UTC) I can't find any Manchu version with a Google search. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.30.71.244 (talk) 15:35, 13 May 2010 (UTC) Schall von Bell was in the Manchu Court in the 17th. century. He seems not to have translated Sidereus Nuncius. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.97.194.200 (talk) 14:58, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Inserted external link and corrected grammar
Dr. Albert Van Helden, the individual who published an English translation of Sidereus Nuncius, has since retired as a professor of Rice University and currently holds the position of Professor Emeritus. I have added an external reference to his Rice faculty page.

In addition, I have linked the University of Padua in the fifth paragraph to its Wikipedia page, and corrected several grammatical errors.

AstroJodi (talk) 00:11, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia class project
I have chosen this article to expand for a Wikipedia class project: Education Program:University of Oklahoma/History of Science from Antiquity to Newton (Summer 2013). My intended provisions and additions are as follows:

Table of Contents: Telescope, Content (Subcategories: Moon, Stars, Medicean Stars (Moons of Jupiter)), Reception, Controversy with the Church, Translations.

My plan for this article is to touch briefly on the content of the book itself, but mostly cover the reactions and feedback that the book received. Since the content is common knowledge in the 21st century, I believe this article could most benefit others by displaying how the book was received during the time period by the common people, the church, and astronomers to come.

AstroJodi (talk) 19:45, 31 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Looks really good, I like the new flow of the article with use of categories.
 * In the 2nd paragraph under Telescope/Background you might consider changing the " to inches after the 3/4 for clarity purposes.
 * Dradoowdrad (talk) 05:19, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

"Optical Canon"
The expression "Optical Canon" is a ludicrously inappropriate translation (and misspelt, to boot) of the Italian expression "cannone occhiale". I have therefore removed the aside that Galileo referred to it as such, and replaced the expression itself with "telescope".

It is true that Galileo did occasionally use the term "cannone" in his correspondence to refer to the telescope (but not the expression "cannone occhiale", as far as I have been able to determine), and that one of the meanings of this Italian word is the artillery piece referred to in English as a "cannon" (N.B.not "canon", which does not have that meaning). However, unlike its English counterpart, the Italian word "cannone" also had, in Galileo's time, the specific meaning of "telescope" (and there is no evidence I know of that Galileo himself was responsible for coining that usage), and a more general meaning of "large tube", from which its more specific meanings are derived. The word "cannone" is, in fact, just an accrescitive of "canna", meaning "tube". David Wilson (talk · cont) 12:03, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Quintessence
Article currently reads: "Galileo’s drawings of an imperfect moon directly contradicted Ptolemy’s and Aristotle’s cosmological descriptions of perfect and unchanging heavenly bodies made of quintessence (the fifth element in ancient and medieval philosophy of which the celestial bodies are composed). ". This mixes up classical and medieval concepts of the "fifth element"? I don't think Ptolemy and Aristotle stated the bodies themselves are made of aether/quintessence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_(classical_element)#Fifth_element BjornVDM (talk) 12:01, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

A new version of this article suitable for college and high school teachers.
I just created a somewhat condensed clone of a permalink to this article. It is accompanied by a collection of True-False questions presented in a format that facilitates the use of these questions in an introductory astronomy course.

Would you be willing to let me place a link to it under your External links?

The questions are Creative Commons licensed. Except for my hosting my college courses on https://www.myopenmath.com, I currently have absolutely no role in this organization (financial or otherwise). Access to this website is absolutely free to everybody, and it's sponsors haven't even asked me for a donation to use it.

This article is currently posted Q1 on the "Wikipedia" question set. To see it you need to become a member of MOM (MyOpenMath) and enter course ID 63705. The enrollment key is 123. One version of this quiz is posted on Commons is shown to the right, but keep in mind that since each question comes in two versions, this version only hosts half of the true-false questions. To see all versions, visit the following site and use the course ID and enrollment key mentioned above:


 * https://www.myopenmath.com

--Guy vandegrift (talk) 19:29, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Translations
I have seen it said that Sidereus Nuncius was translated immediately into several languages. The only translations I can find are recent ones, into English and French. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:7C87:4F00:8156:D470:EDE7:E0C6 (talk) 09:09, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Number of copies
It seems that 550 copies were produced, originally. This was a large number, for a scientific book at the time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:7C87:4F00:8156:D470:EDE7:E0C6 (talk) 09:18, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
 * A pirate edition was also produced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:7C87:4F00:8156:D470:EDE7:E0C6 (talk) 10:51, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
 * A pirate edition was produced in 1610 in Frankfurt. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:7C87:4F00:8156:D470:EDE7:E0C6 (talk) 10:56, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

New light
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Telescope. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:7C87:4F00:8156:D470:EDE7:E0C6 (talk) 11:45, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

forgeries
There is a 2019 "Secrets of the Dead" program about a very realistic forgery of this book, that fooled many. Should the article mention it? Or link to a related page? Gah4 (talk) 09:54, 27 October 2021 (UTC)