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
On a photographic plate of the Pleiades taken with the Bruce telescope and
an exposure of 6 hours, Prof. Bailey of Harvard has counted "3972 stars
within an area 2° square, having Alcyone at its centre."[274] This would
give a total of about 41 millions for the whole sky, if of the same
richness.
With an exposure of 16 hours, Prof. H. C. Wilson finds on an area of less
that 110' square a total of 4621 stars. He thinks, "That all of these
stars belong to the Pleiades group is not at all probable. The great
majority of them probably lie at immense distances beyond the group, and
simply appear in it by projection."[274] He adds, "It has been found,
however, by very careful measurements made during the last 75 years at the
Königsbergh and Yale Observatories, that of the sixty-nine brighter stars,
including those down to the 9th magnitude, only eight show any certain
movement with reference to Alcyone. Since Alcyone has a proper motion or
drift of 6" per century, this means that all the brightest stars except
the eight mentioned are drifting with Alcyone and so form a true cluster,
at approximately the same distance from the earth. Six of the eight stars
which show relative drift are moving in the opposite direction to the
movement of Alcyone, and at nearly the same rate, so that their motion is
only apparent. They are really stationary, while Alcyone and the rest of
the cluster are moving past them."[275] This tends to show that the faint
stars are really _behind_ the cluster, and are unconnected with it.
It is a popular idea with some people that the Pole Star is the nearest of
all the stars to the celestial pole. But photographs show that there are
many faint stars nearer to the pole than the Pole Star. The Pole Star is
at present at a distance of 1° 13' from the real pole of the heavens, but
it is slowly approaching it. The minimum distance will be reached in the
year 2104. From photographs taken by M. Flammarion at the Juvisy
Observatory, he finds that there are at least 128 stars nearer to the pole
than the Pole Star! The nearest star to the pole was, in the year 1902, a
small star of about 12½ magnitude, which was distant about 4 minutes of
arc from the pole.[276] The estimated magnitude shows that the Pole Star
is nearly 10,000 times brighter than this faint star!
It has been found that Sirius is bright enough to cast a shadow under
favourable conditions. On March 22, 1903, the distinguished French
astronomer Touchet succeeded in photographing the shadow of a brooch cast
by this brilliant star. The exposure was 1{h} 5{m}.
Martinus Hortensius seems to have been the first to see stars in daylight,
perhaps early in the seventeenth century. He mentions the fact in a letter
to Gassendi dated October 12, 1636, but does not give the date of his
observation. Schickard saw Arcturus in broad daylight early in 1632. Morin
saw the same bright star half an hour after sunset in March, 1635.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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