Preliminary Catalogue of Fixed Stars intended for a Prospectus of a Catalogue of the Stars of the Southern Hemisphere included within the Tropic of Capricorn now reducing from the Observations made in the Observatory at Paramatta [sic]

Large quarto, 252 x 218 mm, pp 20, [ii], XXV; stab-sewn in the original blue-grey limp paper wrappers, with a presentation inscription on the front wrapper; preserved in a fitted quarter morocco bookform case. Very rare, a foundation work of Australian science and important in the history of world astronomy: the first Australian star catalogue, this copy inscribed by the author to Alexander Dallas Bache (1806-1867), scientist and educator, the great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin. This elusive book was probably printed in very small numbers for a specialist audience; just two copies are recorded in Australian libraries (NLA and SLNSW). Christian Carl Ludwig Rümker (1788-1862), German astronomer, arrived in England in 1809, working for the East India Company and the merchant navy, before being press-ganged into the Royal Navy in 1813. Over the next few years he began making observations, including publishing the results of work he did at Malta. Recommended with an introduction - by Captain Peter Heywood, the involuntary participant in the Bounty mutiny - to the incoming Governor of New South Wales, Thomas Macdougall Brisbane, himself a keen astronomer, he arrived as part of the official party in 1821, beginning work at Brisbane's Parramatta observatory, near Sydney, where he made several discoveries including "Encke's Comet". A bitter disagreement with Brisbane led him to resign his post, and to retreat to his new property at Picton, "Stargard". In 1826 he returned to Parramatta at the behest of Alexander Macleay, and was appointed government astronomer in December 1827, the first person to hold that title. He returned to London at the end of the decade, but another quarrel, this time with the president of the Royal Astronomical Society, Sir James South, led to Rümker finally being dismissed from British service and returning to Hamburg. Still working as an astronomer, at some point he became reconciled to Brisbane, as is shown by the present work's dedication to him as "late Governor in Chief of Australia and Founder of the Observatory at Paramatta [sic]". Rümker's later career was prolific, publishing scores of papers and being honoured with many fellowships, and continuing to work on his trail-blazing Parramatta observations. He died at Lisbon in 1862. His catalogue of stars visible in the southern hemisphere had both a purely scientific aim and a practical one. The systematic study and cataloguing of the stars visible with the aid of observatory-based telescopy in the southern hemisphere was in its infancy in the 1820s: The Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope, established in 1820, was the first permanent astronomical observatory in the southern hemisphere, which points to the significance of the Parramatta Observatory being up and working by 1822. "When awarding the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society to Rümker, the astronomer royal, Sir George Biddell Airy, said that Rümker's dismissal was 'the greatest misfortune that happened to Southern Astronomy'" (ADB). --- On the practical side, Governor Brisbane was a naval officer who knew the importance of the stars in navigation. Rümker's work and his catalogue served both science and the Royal Navy, as he offered "Constants of Aberration and Nutation"; a "Comparison of my Observations with those made by La Caille"; and notes on "Double Stars," "Magnitudes and Colour of the Stars, Nebulas, &c" and other similar pieces. Bache, to whom Rümker presented this copy, would later play a significant role as Superintendent of the U.S. Coast Survey, which he built into the foremost scientific institution in the country before the Civil War. At the time of the presentation of this work by Rümker, however, he was a professor of natural philosophy and chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, eventually becoming president of the college. He was "The most dominant figure in American science prior to and during the Civil War. either related to or friends with many high governm.…