The Practical Astronomer: Comprising illustrations of light and colours--practical descriptions of all kinds of telescopes--the use of the equatorial-transit--circular, and other astronomical instruments, a particular account of the Earl of Rosse's large telescopes, and other topics connected with astronomyDick, Thomas
Science
The Practical Astronomer: Comprising illustrations of light and colours--practical descriptions of all kinds of telescopes--the use of the equatorial-transit--circular, and other astronomical instruments, a particular account of the Earl of Rosse's large telescopes, and other topics connected with astronomy
Dick, Thomas
Astronomical instruments; Astronomy; Telescopes
The following general remarks may be added. 1. To make anything
like an accurate comparison of telescopes, they must be tried not
only at the same place, but as nearly as possible at the same time,
and, if the instruments are of the same length and construction,
if possible, with the same eye-piece. 2. A difference of 8 or 10
times in the magnifying power, will sometimes, on certain objects,
give quite a different character to a telescope. It has been found
by various experiments that object-glasses of two or three inches
longer focus will produce different vision with the same eye-piece.
3. Care must be taken to ascertain that the eye-glasses are perfectly
clean and free from defects. The defects of glass are either from
veins--specks--scratches--colour, or an incorrect figure. To discover
veins in an eye or an object-glass, place a candle at the distance of
4 or 5 yards; then look through the glass, and move it from your eye
till it appear full of light--you will then see every vein, or other
imperfection in it which may distort the objects and render vision
imperfect. Specks or scratches, especially in object-glasses, are not
so injurious as veins, for they do not distort the object, but only
intercept a portion of the light. 4. We cannot judge accurately of the
excellence of any telescope by observing objects with which we are
not familiarly acquainted. Opticians generally try an instrument at
their own marks, such as the dial-plate of a watch, a finely engraved
card, a weather-cock, or the moon and the planet Jupiter, when near
the meridian. Of several telescopes of the same length, aperture and
magnifying power, that one is generally considered the best with which
we can read a given print at the greatest distance, especially if the
print consists of _figures_, such as a table of logarithms, where the
eye is not apt to be deceived by the imagination, in _guessing_ at the
sense of a passage, when two or three words are distinguished.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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