Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885Various
Science
Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885
Various
Science -- Periodicals
Again, how very much is to be learnt in solar physics from the marvelous
photographs of the sun's spectrum exhibited last summer by Professor
Rowland; photographs that show as many as one hundred and fifty lines
between H and K, and which he is still laboring to improve! The extension,
too, of the visible solar spectrum into the ultra-violet by Corun,
Mascart, and others, adds much to our knowledge of the sun; while the
photographs of Abney in the ultrared increase our information in a
direction less expected and certainly less easy of attainment. Both these
extensions we find most ably utilized in the recent discussion of the very
interesting photographs of the spectra of the prominences and of the
corona taken during the total eclipse of May 18, 1882; and the
photographic results of this eclipse afford ample proof that we can not
only obtain pictures of the corona by photography that it would be
impossible otherwise to procure, but also that in a few seconds
information concerning the nature of the solar atmosphere may be furnished
by photography that it would otherwise take centuries to accumulate, even
under the most favorable circumstances.
The advantages to be gained by accurate photographs of the moon and
planets, that will permit great enlargements, are too obvious to call for
lengthened notice in such a rapid sketch as the present; for it is
principally in the observation of details that the eye cannot grasp with
the required delicacy, or with sufficient rapidity, that photography is so
essential for rapid and sure progress.
Like the sketches of a solar eclipse, the drawings that are made of
comets, and still more of nebulæ, even by the most accomplished artists,
are all, to say the least, open to doubt in their delicate details. And
the truth of this is so obvious, that it is the expressed opinion of an
able astronomer that a single photograph of the nebula of Orion, taken by
Mr. Common, would be of more value to posterity than the collective
drawings of this interesting object so carefully made by Rosse, Bond,
Secchi, and so many others.
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