Pleasures of the telescope: An Illustrated Guide for Amateur Astronomers and a Popular Description of the Chief Wonders of the Heavens for General ReadersServiss, Garrett Putman
Science
Pleasures of the telescope: An Illustrated Guide for Amateur Astronomers and a Popular Description of the Chief Wonders of the Heavens for General Readers
We find an interesting triple in psi, the magnitudes of the larger
components being four and a half and eight and a half, distance 30". The
smaller star has a nine-and-a-half-magnitude companion, distance 3". A
more beautiful triple is iota, magnitudes four, seven, and eight,
distances 2", p. 256 deg., and 7.5", p. 112 deg.. Cassiopeia contains many
star clusters, three of which are indicated in the map. Of these 392 is
perhaps the most interesting, as it includes stars of many magnitudes,
among which are a red one of the eighth magnitude, and a ninth-magnitude
double whose components are 8" apart. Not far from the star kappa we
find the spot where the most brilliant temporary star on record made its
appearance on November 11, 1572. Tycho Brahe studied this phenomenon
during the entire period of its visibility, which lasted until March,
1574. It burst out suddenly with overpowering splendor, far outshining
every fixed star, and even equaling Venus at her brightest. In a very
short time it began to fade, regularly diminishing in brightness, and at
the same time undergoing changes of color, ending in red, until it
disappeared. It has never been seen since, and the suspicion once
entertained that it was a variable with a period considerably exceeding
three hundred years has not been confirmed. There is a tenth-magnitude
star near the place given by Tycho as that occupied by the stranger.
Many other faint stars are scattered about, however, and Tycho's
measures were not sufficiently exact to enable us to identify the
precise position of his star. If the phenomenon was due to a collision,
no reappearance of the star is to be expected.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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