Burnham was a talented, self-taught astronomer who was lucky enough to land his job in the days before a formal education was a requirement. As time progressed, though, he was eventually displaced by an attitude that only recognized certifications rather than ability. He finally lost his observing job, and a marketing change by his publisher pretty much dried-up his royalties (it went to the BOM club), leaving him destitute. He died insane, in abject poverty, doing paintings on the boardwalk for pennies. C. --- Jim Gibson <xajax99@yahoo.com> wrote:

Burnham’s has a copyright of 1958-1979 and the NGC 2000.0 has a copyright of 1988. Without deeper research, in other words, taking a guess and applying your descriptions of how magnitudes are derived, I would guess that Burnham took his magnitudes out of the blue (pun intended) and Sinnott’s may align more closely with the visual.

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