He accordingly determined to take up this branch of work,
which had been so successfully initiated by Tycho Brahe.
At the present day, astronomers of the great national observatories
are assiduously engaged in the determination of the places of the
stars. A knowledge of the exact positions of these bodies is indeed
of the most fundamental importance, not alone for the purposes of
scientific astronomy, but also for navigation and for extensive
operations of surveying in which accuracy is desired. The fact that
Halley determined to concentrate himself on this work shows clearly
the scientific acumen of the young astronomer.
Halley, however, found that Hevelius, at Dantzig, and Flamsteed, the
Astronomer Royal at Greenwich, were both engaged on work of this
character. He accordingly determined to direct his energies in a way
that he thought would be more useful to science. He resigned to the
two astronomers whom I have named the investigation of the stars in
the northern hemisphere, and he sought for himself a field hitherto
almost entirely unworked. He determined to go to the southern
hemisphere, there to measure and survey those stars which were
invisible in Europe, so that his work should supplement the labours
of the northern astronomers, and that the joint result of his labours
and of theirs might be a complete survey of the most important stars
on the surface of the heavens.
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