Afterward the tube and lenses were put in place, and the clock
properly attached inside the big cast-iron base. This clock-work
looked more like a piece of heavy machinery than a delicate clock
mechanism. But it had heavy work to do, carrying the massive
telescope with its weighty lenses, and needed to be correspondingly
strong. It had a driving-weight of about 2,000 pounds, and was so
powerful that turning the telescope affected it no more than the
hour-hand of an ordinary clock affects the mechanism within its
case.
The final test of the whole adjustment consisted in noting whether
stars once brought into the telescopic field of view could be
maintained there automatically by means of the clock. This object
having been attained successfully, the instrument stood ready to be
used in the routine business of the observatory.
Before leaving the subject of telescope-mountings, we must mention
the giant instrument set up at the Paris Exposition of 1900. The
project of having a _Grande Lunette_ had been hailed by newspapers
throughout the world and by the general public in their customary
excitable way. It was tremendously over-advertised; exaggerated
notions of the instrument's powers were spread abroad and eagerly
credited; the moon was to be dragged down, as it were, from its
customary place in the sky, so near that we should be able almost
to touch its surface. As to the planets--free license was given to
the journalistic imagination, and there was no effective limitation
to the magnificence of astronomical discovery practically within
our grasp, beyond the necessity for printed space demanded by
sundry wars, pestilences, and other mundane trifles.
[Illustration: Yerkes Observatory, University of Chicago.]
Now, the present writer is very far from advocating a lessening of
the attention devoted to astronomy. Rather would he magnify his
office than diminish it. But let journalistic astronomy be as good
an imitation of sober scientific truth as can be procured at space
rates; let editors encourage the public to study those things
in the science that are ennobling and cultivating to the mind;
let there be an end to the frenzied effort to fabricate a highly
colored account of alleged discoveries of yesterday, capable of
masquerading to-day under heavy head-lines as News.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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