It is not simply that a clear understanding is acquired of the movements of the great bodies which we regard as the system of the world, but it is th… - George Biddell Airy

In conversing with persons who are not officially attached to Observatories or in other ways professionally cognizant of the technicalities of practical Astronomy but who nevertheless display great interest... these persons appear to regard the determination of measures like those of the distance of the Sun and Moon as mysteries beyond ordinary comprehension... [and] when persons well acquainted with the general facts of Astronomy are introduced into an Observatory, they are for the most part utterly unable to understand anything which they see...
The measure of the Moon's distance involves no principle more abstruse than the measure of the distance of a tree on the opposite bank of a river. The principles of construction of the best Astronomical instruments are as simple and as closely referred to matters of common school-education and familiar experience, as are those of the common globes, the steam engine, or the turning-lathe; the details are usually less complicated.

[T]he methods used for measuring Astronomical distances are in some applications absolutely the same as the methods of ordinary -surveying, and are in other applications equivalent to them...

[T]his Fifth Edition is required to meet the demand of a somewhat wider class of students than those for whom the Lectures were originally intended. ...Mr. Stirling has been at liberty to prepare the modifications and additions ...