Astronomical Curiosities: Facts and FallaciesGore, J. Ellard (John Ellard)
Science
Astronomical Curiosities: Facts and Fallacies
Gore, J. Ellard (John Ellard)
Astronomy -- Miscellanea; Solar system -- Miscellanea
The so-called "globular clusters" usually include stars of different
brightness; comparatively bright telescopic stars of the 10th to 13th
magnitude with faint stars of the 15th to 17th magnitude. Prof. Perrine of
the Lick Observatory finds that (_a_) "the division of the stars in
globular clusters into groups, differing widely in brightness, is
characteristic of these objects"; (_b_) "the globular clusters are devoid
of true nebulosity"; and (_c_) "stars fainter than 15th magnitude
predominate in the Milky Way and globular clusters, but elsewhere are
relatively scarce." He found that "exposures of one hour or thereabouts
showed as many stars as exposures four to six times as long; the only
effect of the longer exposures being in the matter of density." This last
result confirms the late Dr. Roberts' conclusions. Perrine finds that for
clusters in the Milky Way, the faint stars (15th to 17th magnitude) "are
about as numerous in proportion to the bright stars (10th to 13th
magnitude) as in the globular clusters themselves." This is, however, not
the case with globular clusters at a distance from the Milky Way. In these
latter clusters he found that "in the regions outside the limits of the
cluster there are usually very few faint stars, hardly more than
one-fourth or one-tenth as many as there are bright stars"; and he thinks
that "this paucity of faint stars" in the vicinity of these clusters
"gives rise to the suspicion that all regions at a distance from the
Galaxy may be almost devoid of these very faint stars." The late Prof.
Keeler's series of nebular photographs "in or near the Milky Way" tend to
confirm the above conclusions. Perrine finds the northernmost region of
the Milky Way "to be almost, if not entirely, devoid of globular
clusters."[380]
According to Sir John Herschel, "the sublimity of the spectacle afforded"
by Lord Rosse's great telescope of 6 feet in diameter of some of the
"larger globular and other clusters" "is declared by all who have
witnessed it, to be such that no words can express."[381]
In his address to the British Association at Leicester in 1907, Sir David
Gill said--
"Evidence upon evidence has accumulated to show that nebulæ consist of
the matter out of which stars have been and are being evolved.... The
fact of such an evolution with the evidence before us, can hardly be
doubted. I most fully believe that, when the modifications of
terrestrial spectra under sufficiently varied conditions of
temperature, pressure, and environment, have been further studied,
this connection will be greatly strengthened."
CHAPTER XVIII
Historical
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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