The System of Saturn

BY CHRISTIAAN HUYGENS

always to be held This completes the sentence from the previous page: "...always to be held as stationary.". For thereafter, other wonderful and prodigious forms appeared, which we know were first described by Giuseppe Biancani original: "Josepho Blancano," an Italian Jesuit astronomer and Francesco Fontana; they were indeed of such an unusual appearance that many thought them to be optical illusions original: "oculorum ludibria," literally "tricks of the eyes", images clinging to the lenses rather than the sky. This lasted until, as more people saw the same things, it was established by no empty evidence that these forms had truly been revealed.

Therefore, I myself was also driven by a great desire to behold these miracles of the heavens. Since only common telescopes original: "perspicilla," the term used for early spyglasses of five or six feet in length were available to me, I set out to cultivate, with as much care and diligence as I could, the art by which glass is shaped for these purposes. I did not regret setting my own hands to the work; until, having overcome many difficulties (for this art has more hidden challenges than it seems to show at first glance), I finally produced those lenses for myself, through which the subject matter for writing these things was provided.

For immediately directing my telescopes toward Saturn, I found a different face of things there than had been believed by most before this time. For as for those appendages that clung close to it, it appeared that they were certainly not twin planets, but rather something else entirely. And truly distinct from these, I saw a single planet This "planet" is the moon we now call Titan, distant from Saturn by a greater interval, which was seen to go around it in sixteen days; and this was indeed unknown to all previous ages.

Concerning this new observation of ours, I informed astronomers three years ago, following the prudent advice of that illustrious man, conspicuous for his intellect as much as his virtue, Jean Chapelain original: "Joh. Capelani," a French poet and founding member of the Académie Française. For when I was staying in Paris original: "Lutetiæ Parisiorum" and had told him, as well as Pierre Gassendi A renowned French philosopher and astronomer and others, about the companion of Saturn seen by me, he judged for many reasons that such news—which would be so welcome to everyone—should not be kept quiet until I had finished writing the complete System of Saturn that I was contemplating. And so, on the 5th day of March in the year 1656, concerning the Moon of Saturn (for thus I called the new star, and not without merit), [we called]