[P]erhaps one of the most valuable results to be derived from a truly intellectual study of Astronomy is, the habit of keeping up a sustained attenti… - George Biddell Airy

[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...

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.

Complete knowledge of every theoretical and instrumental detail can only be obtained by those who will devote... a large portion of their lives; but sound knowledge of the principles... can be obtained by the reasonable efforts of persons possessing common opportunities for general knowledge.