ASTRONOMY OF TO-DAY

ASTRONOMY OF TO-DAY The Total Eclipse of the Sun of August 30th, 1905. The Corona; from a water-colour sketch, made at Burgos, in Spain, during the total phase, by the French Artist, Mdlle. Andrée Moch. ASTRONOMY OF TO-DAY A POPULAR INTRODUCTION IN NON-TECHNICAL LANGUAGE By CECIL G. DOLMAGE, M.A., LL.D., D.C.L. Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society; Member of the British Astronomical Association; Member of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific; Membre de la Société Astronomique de France; Membre de la Société Belge d`Astronomie With a Frontispiece in Colour and 45 Illustrations & Diagrams THIRD EDITION LONDON SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED 38 Great Russell Street 1910 PREFACE The object of this book is to give an account of the science of Astronomy, as it is known at the present day, in a manner acceptable to the general reader. It is too often supposed that it is impossible to acquire any useful knowledge of Astronomy without much laborious study, and without adventuring into quite a new world of thought. The reasoning applied to the study of the celestial orbs is, however, of no different order from that which is employed in the affairs of everyday life. The science of mathematics is perhaps responsible for the idea that some kind of difference does exist; but mathematical processes are, in effect, no more than ordinary logic in concentrated form, the shorthand of reasoning, so to speak. I have attempted in the following pages to take the main facts and theories of Astronomy out of those mathematical forms which repel the general reader, and to present them in the ordinary language of our workaday world. The few diagrams introduced are altogether supplementary, and are not connected with the text by any wearying cross-references. Each diagram is complete in itself, being intended to serve as a pictorial aid, in case the wording of the text should not have perfectly conveyed the desired meaning. The full page illustrations are also described as adequately as possible at the foot of each. As to the coloured frontispiece, this must be placed in a category by itself. It is the work of the artist as distinct from the scientist. The book itself contains incidentally a good deal of matter concerned with the Astronomy of the past, the introduction of which has been found necessary in order to make clearer the Astronomy of our time. It would be quite impossible for me to enumerate here the many sources from which information has been drawn. But I acknowledge my especial indebtedness to Professor F.R. Moulton`s Introduction to Astronomy (Macmillan, 1906), to the works on Eclipses of the late Rev. S.J. Johnson and of Mr. W.T. Lynn, and to the excellent Journals of the British Astronomical Association. Further, for those grand questions concerned with the Stellar Universe at large, I owe a very deep debt to the writings of the famous American astronomer, Professor Simon Newcomb, and of our own countryman, Mr. John Ellard Gore; to the latter of whom I am under an additional obligation for much valuable information privately rendered. In my search for suitable illustrations, I have been greatly aided by the kindly advice of Mr. W. H. Wesley, the Assistant Secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society. To those who have been so good as to permit me to reproduce pictures and photographs, I desire to record my best thanks as follows:—To the French Artist, Mdlle. Andrée Moch; to the Astronomer Royal; to Sir David Gill, K.C.B., LL.D., F.R.S.; to the Council of the Royal Astronomical Society; to Professor E.B. Frost, Director of the Yerkes Observatory; to M.P. Puiseux, of the Paris Observatory; to Dr. Max Wolf, of Heidelberg; to Professor Percival Lowell; to the Rev. Theodore E.R. Phillips, M.A., F.R.A.S.; to Mr. W.H. Wesley; to the Warner and Swasey Co., of Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A.; to the publishers of Knowledge, and to Messrs. Sampson, Low & Co. For permission to reproduce the beautiful photograph of the Spiral Nebula in Canes Venatici (Plate XXII.), I am indebted to the distinguished astronomer, the late Dr. W.E. Wilson, D.Sc., F.R.S., whose untimely death, I regret to state, occurred in the early part of this year. Finally, my best thanks are due to Mr. John Ellard Gore, F.R.A.S., M.R.I.A., to Mr. W.H. Wesley, and to Mr. John Butler Burke, M.A., of Cambridge, for their kindness in reading the proof-sheets. CECIL G. DOLMAGE. London, S.W., August 4, 1908. PREFATORY NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION The author of this book lived only long enough to hear of the favour with which it had been received, and to make a few corrections in view of the second edition which it has so soon reached. December 1908. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE The Ancient View 17 CHAPTER II The Modern View 20 CHAPTER III The Solar System 29 CHAPTER IV Celestial Mechanism 38 CHAPTER V Celestial Distances 46 CHAPTER VI Celestial Measurement 55 CHAPTER VII Eclipses and Kindred Phenomena 61 CHAPTER VIII Famous Eclipses of the Sun 83 CHAPTER IX Famous Eclipses of the Moon 101 CHAPTER X The Growth of Observation 105 CHAPTER XI Spectrum Analysis 121 CHAPTER XII The Sun 127 CHAPTER XIII The Sun—continued 134 CHAPTER XIV The Inferior Planets 146 CHAPTER XV The Earth 158 CHAPTER XVI ... - tailieumienphi.vn