The Sidereal messenger of Galileo Galilei, and a part of the preface to Kepler's Dioptrics, a tr. with notes by E.S. Carlos

This volume, published in 1880 by Rivingtons in London, provides an essential English translation of Galileo Galilei’s 1610 treatise Sidereus Nuncius. The work was originally composed by Galileo to document his groundbreaking telescopic observations of the moon, the Medicean stars orbiting Jupiter, and the composition of the Milky Way, forever altering the trajectory of observational astronomy. By pairing this with excerpts from Johannes Kepler’s Dioptrics, the volume highlights the critical intellectual exchange between two of the most significant figures of the Scientific Revolution.

The translation and scholarly apparatus were provided by Edward Stafford Carlos. His work was intended to make these foundational Latin texts accessible to a late Victorian audience, providing context for the shift from Aristotelian physics to the Copernican heliocentric model. The publication was well-received by the academic community of the era as a reliable primary source for students of the history of science, serving as a bridge between the Renaissance discoveries and the burgeoning scientific inquiry of the nineteenth century.