href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@28247@[email protected]#PART2_CHAPTER_XII" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">CHAPTER XII

STARS AND NEBULÆ

Stellar Chemistry—Four Orders of Stars—Their Relative Ages—Gaseous Stars—Spectroscopic Star-Catalogues—Stellar Chemistry—Hydrogen Spectrum in Stars—The Draper Catalogue—Velocities of Stars in Line of Sight—Spectroscopic Binaries—Eclipses of Algol—Catalogues of Variables—New Stars—Outbursts in Nebulæ—Nova Aurigæ—Nova Persei—Gaseous Nebulæ—Variable Nebulæ—Movements of Nebulæ—Stellar

Persei—Gaseous Nebulæ—Variable Nebulæ—Movements of Nebulæ—Stellar and Nebular Photography—Nebulæ in the Pleiades—Photographic Star-charting—Stellar Parallax—Double Stars—Stellar Photometry—Status of Nebulæ—Photographs and Drawings of the Milky Way—Star Drift

CHAPTER XIII

METHODS OF RESEARCH

Development of Telescopic Power—Silvered Glass Reflectors—Giant Refractors—Comparison with Reflectors—The Yerkes Telescope—Atmospheric Disturbance—The Lick Observatory—Mechanical Difficulties—The Equatoreal Coudé—The Photographic Camera—Retrospect and Conclusion

APPENDIX

Chronology, 1774-1893—Chemical Elements in the Sun (Rowland, 1891)—Epochs of Sun-spot Maximum and Minimum from 1610 to 1901—Movements of Sun and Stars—List of Great Telescopes—List of Observatories employed in the Construction of the Photographic Chart and Catalogue of the Heavens

INDEX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Photograph of the Great Nebula in Orion, 1883 Frontispiece

Photographs of Jupiter, 1879, and of Saturn, 1885 Vignette

Plate I. Photographs of the Solar Chromosphere and Prominences To face p. 198

Plate II. Photograph of the Great Comet of May, 1901 (Taken at the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope)

Plate III. The Great Comet of September, (Photographed at the Cape of Good Hope)

Plate IV. Photographs of Swift's Comet, 1892

Plate V. Photographic and Visual Spectrum of Nova Aurigæ

Plate VI. Photograph of the Milky Way in Sagittarius

HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY

DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

INTRODUCTION

We can distinguish three kinds of astronomy, each with a different origin and history, but all mutually dependent, and composing, in their fundamental unity, one science. First in order of time came the art of observing the returns, and measuring the places, of the heavenly bodies. This was the sole astronomy of the Chinese and Chaldeans; but to it the vigorous Greek mind added a highly complex geometrical plan of their movements, for which Copernicus substituted a more harmonious system, without as yet any idea of a compelling cause. The planets revolved in circles because it was their nature to do so, just as laudanum sets to sleep because it possesses a virtus dormitiva. This first and oldest branch is known as "observational," or "practical astronomy." Its business is to note facts as accurately as possible; and it is essentially unconcerned with schemes for connecting those facts in a manner satisfactory to the reason.

The second kind of astronomy was founded by Newton. Its nature is best indicated by the term "gravitational"; but it is also called "theoretical astronomy."[1] It is based on the idea of cause; and the whole of its elaborate structure is reared according to the dictates of a single law, simple in itself, but the tangled web of whose consequences can be unravelled only by the subtle agency of an elaborate calculus.

The third and last division of celestial science may properly be termed "physical and descriptive astronomy." It seeks to know what the heavenly bodies are in themselves, leaving the How? and

the Wherefore? of their movements to be otherwise answered. Now, such inquiries became possible only through the invention of the telescope, so that Galileo was, in point of fact, their originator. But Herschel first gave them a prominence which the whole progress of science during the nineteenth century served to confirm and render more exclusive. Inquisitions begun with the telescope have been extended and made effective in unhoped-for directions by the aid of the spectroscope and photographic camera; and a large part of our attention in the present volume will be occupied with the brilliant results thus achieved.

The unexpected development of this new physical-celestial science is the leading fact in recent astronomical history. It was out of the regular course of events. In the degree in which it has actually occurred it could certainly not have been foreseen. It was a seizing of the prize by a competitor who had hardly been thought qualified to enter the lists. Orthodox astronomers of the old school looked with a certain contempt upon observers who spent their nights in scrutinising the faces of the moon and planets rather than in timing their transits, or devoted daylight energies, not to reductions and computations, but to counting and measuring spots on the sun. They were regarded as irregular practitioners, to be tolerated perhaps, but certainly not encouraged.

The advance of astronomy in