Martian canals
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During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was erroneously believed that there were "canals" on the planet Mars. These were a network of long straight lines in the equatorial regions from 60° north to 60° south latitude on Mars, observed by astronomers using early telescopes without photography.
This is a modern ground-based telescope picture of Mars which uses lucky imaging to achieve a near perfect theoretical resolution. However, due to astronomical seeing, it is extremely difficult to see finer details.
Martian canals depicted by Percival Lowell
Angelo Secchi
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Angelo Secchi was an Italian Catholic priest, astronomer from the Italian region of Emilia. He was director of the observatory at the Pontifical Gregorian University for 28 years. He was a pioneer in astronomical spectroscopy, and was one of the first scientists to state authoritatively that the Sun is a star.
bust by Giuseppe Prinzi at Pincio, Rome
Le Soleil: Exposé des Principales Découvertes Modernes (The Sun: Presentation of the Major Modern Discoveries). Cover.
Sui recenti progressi della meteorologia (1861)