The Path, Vol. I.—1886-'7.: A Magazine Devoted to the Brotherhood of Humanity, Theosophy in America, and the Study of Occult Science, Philosophy, and Aryan Literature.Various
Religion
The Path, Vol. I.—1886-'7.: A Magazine Devoted to the Brotherhood of Humanity, Theosophy in America, and the Study of Occult Science, Philosophy, and Aryan Literature.
Various
Theosophy -- Periodicals
It is well known that yellow is the complementary of blue, and red
of green, color, and it struck me that, relating to this subject,
the remarks of Mr. Isaac Sharpless, who is an undoubted authority in
astronomical matters, are of some importance. Writing from Haverford
College Observatory, June 3d, instant, he says:
“The question of star colors has been receiving attention from the
hand of an English gentleman, W. S. Franks. He has examined carefully
the colors of a list of 1893 of the brightest stars, with especial
reference to the distribution in the heavens of the different colors.
He finds 962 white stars, 614 yellow, 168 orange, 10 red, 15 green, 59
blue, 58 purple and 7, for some reason, have no colors given. He finds
that the constellations which contain a large percentage of white
stars are in or near the Milky Way, and wherever stars are closely
associated together; while the yellow and orange stars are most
plentiful in large straggling constellations.
“It is well known that a certain kind of spectrum is connected with
certain star colors. The yellow stars belong to the class of our
sun and include such bright stars as Capella. The white stars, like
Vega, have a spectrum of a great number of fine lines, and the red
gives a banded spectrum. It has been a favorite theory that the
colors indicate the age of the stars, if not in years, at least in
development. That the white are the youngest: as they cool they become
yellow, then red, and, finally invisible, just as a piece of iron
would in cooling down from a white heat. There is much to commend this
idea, though, of course, as to the relative ages of the stars we know
very little, and some changes appear to be in the opposite direction.
Perhaps there are people to whom the idea of different colors in
stars is a novelty. They have a general idea that there are bright
points of light overhead, at night, and probably they have observed,
in a general way, that some are brighter than others. It will not
require a very close watch, however, to add to the knowledge of the
sky the additional fact that they are differently colored. Castor and
Pollux which now shine in the west in the evening, are very evidently
diverse, and a careful amateur can go over the heavens and notice
among the brighter stars quite a variety.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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