Rough Ways Made Smooth: A series of familiar essays on scientific subjectsProctor, Richard A. (Richard Anthony)
Science
Rough Ways Made Smooth: A series of familiar essays on scientific subjects
Proctor, Richard A. (Richard Anthony)
Science
The following is his account of what he saw:--
'My hampered telescope behaved badly, and no regularity in the sweeps
could be maintained. Almost at once my eye caught two red stars about
three degrees south-west of the sun, with large round and equally
bright discs which I estimated as of the fifth magnitude, appearing
(this was my thought at the time) about as bright in the telescope
as the pole-star does to the naked eye. I then carefully noted their
distance from the sun and from each other, and the direction in which
they pointed, &c., and recorded them in my memory, where, to my mind's
eye, they are still distinctly visible. I then swept southward, not
daring to venture far to the west, for fear I should be unable to get
back again, and soon came upon two stars resembling in every particular
the former two I had found, and, sighting along the outside of the
tube, was surprised to find I was viewing the same objects. Again I
observed them with the utmost care, and then recommenced my sweeps in
another direction; but I soon had them again, and for the third time,
in the field. This was also the last, as a small cloud hindered a final
leave-taking just before the end of totality, as I had intended. I
saw no other star besides these two, not even Delta, so close to the
eastern edge of the sun.'
He adds that the apparent distance between the two bodies was about
one-fourth the sun's diameter. (These are not his words, but convey the
same meaning.)
Again, he adds that, from three careful estimates, he found the two
stars pointed exactly to the sun's centre. He knew one of the two
bodies was Theta; but unfortunately he could not tell which was Theta
and which the new star or planet. 'But,' he says, 'Professor Watson
happily comes to the rescue, and with his means of measuring finds the
planet nearest to the sun.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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