Astronomy with an Opera-glass: A Popular Introduction to the Study of the Starry Heavens with the Simplest of Optical InstrumentsServiss, Garrett Putman
Science
Astronomy with an Opera-glass: A Popular Introduction to the Study of the Starry Heavens with the Simplest of Optical Instruments
Serviss, Garrett Putman
Astronomy
The Caucasus Mountains (38) are a mass of highlands and peaks, which
introduce us to a series of formations resembling those of the
mountainous regions of the earth. The highest peak in this range is
about nineteen thousand feet. Between the Caucasus and the Apennines
(44) lies a level pass, or strait, connecting the Sea of Serenity with
the Sea of Showers. The Apennines are the greatest of the lunar
mountain-chains, extending some four hundred and sixty miles in length,
and containing one peak twenty-one thousand feet high, and many varying
from twelve thousand to nearly twenty thousand. It will thus be seen
that the Apennines of the earth sink into insignificance in comparison
with their gigantic namesakes on the moon. As this range runs at a
considerable angle to the line of sunrise, its high peaks are seen
tipped with sunlight for a long distance beyond the generally
illuminated edge about the time of first quarter. Even with the naked
eye the sun-touched summits of the lunar Apennines may at that time be
detected as a tongue of light projecting into the dark side of the moon.
The Alps (41) are another mountain-mass of great elevation, whose
highest peak is a good match for the Mont Blanc of the earth, after
which it has been named.
Plato (42) is a very celebrated dark and level plain, surrounded by a
mountain-ring, and presenting in its interior many puzzling and
apparently changeable phenomena which have given rise to much
speculation, but which, of course, lie far beyond the reach of
opera-glasses. Plato is seen in the picture of "Sunrise on Clavius,"
etc., on page 133, being the second ring from the top.
If Ariosto had had a telescope, we might have suspected that it was this
curious plain that he had in mind when he described that strange valley
in the moon, in which was to be found everything that was lost from the
earth, including lost wits; and where the redoubtable knight Astolpho,
having been sent in search of the missing wit of the great Orlando, was
astonished to find what he sought carefully preserved in a vial along
with other similar vials belonging to many supposedly wise people of the
earth, whom nobody suspected of keeping a good part of their sapience in
the moon.
Copernicus (46) is the last of the lunar formations that we shall
describe. It bears a general resemblance to Tycho, and is slightly
greater in diameter; it is, however, not quite so deep. It has a cluster
of peaks in the center, whose tops may be detected with a field-glass,
as a speck of light when the rays of the morning sun, slanting across
the valley, illuminate them while their environs are yet buried in
night. Copernicus is the center of a system of light-streaks somewhat
resembling those of Tycho, but very much shorter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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