Astronomy on the Personal Computer

It is said that a typical astronomer of the 19th century spent seven hours working at a desk for every hour spent at the telescope. That''s how long the routine analysis of data took with pencil, paper, and logarithmic tables. Thus when Wilhelm Olbers discovered the minor planet Vesta in 1807 and gathered the necessary observations, his friend Gauss needed almost 10 hours to hand­ calculate its or...