Witches and Cyriptids on the Moone! 🌝 Scientific Dichotomies 1571 - 1835 A tale in three Parts. 📚 Part I 📖 🔭 23rd December, 1672 Giovanni Cassini discovers Rhea, a satellite of Saturn. On the same day in 1690 English astronomer John Flamsteed observes Uranus without realizing it was at that point still undiscovered. The discovery would later be credited to Sir William Herschel on March 13th, 1781, William Herschel believed that life existed on other planets, and in 1778 wrote that he had observed lunar towns. The idea however that life existed on the moon, or on these newly discovered planets was already by Herschel time an old idea. On the night of the 26th July 1609, English astronomer, mathematician, and ethnographer, Thomas Harriot made the first map of the moon, followed by Galileo’s map four months later, and Italian astronomer Geminiano Montanari 1662 map. At this same time in the late 1620’s, English bishop Francis Godwin, writing under the pseudonym of Domingo Gonsales, wrote what is considered as the first science fiction novel ‘The Man in the Moone’. The story describes Gonsales’ twelve day journey to the moon, using a flying machine tethered to a species of powerful swans he calls the ‘gansa 🦢 . On the surface he encounters the Lunars, inhabiting a utopian paradise. 🎈 The 18th and 19th century saw an increase in folklore and scientific speculation, including the possibility of life on other planets, aided by the first accessions of balloons, the first experiments with flight; and with men and woman leaving the earth’s surface for the first time, William Blake mocked the balloon fascination in his unfinished “An Island in the Moon” written in 1784. 📖 Part II & III in the comments. #historyofastronomy #williamherschel #issacnewton #johanneskepler #historyofscience #greatmoonhoax #illustration #illustrationartist #darkillustration #strangehistory #weirdhistory #themaninthemoon #scientificrevolution #witchcrafthistory #witchart #balloonartist #lifeonthemoon #edgarallenpoeart #edgarallenpoe #historicalillustration #interestingfinds #interestingart #cryptids #cryptidsighting #johnherschel #ballonmania https://www.instagram.com/p/CJTo5KmHvFp/?igshid=19yismmj2h1t7
