The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-01-28 00:00:00

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THE LIVERPOOL STIAINIARD.

A TELESCOPE

THE COLUMN OF
&dente anb 3L?orttruiture.

BONDIS- RING 07 SATURN.

In our last we promised to resume this interesting sub-
ject, and it will be remembered that we broke off with an
extract from Mr. Lassell's, in the observatory journal
of his friend Mr. Dawes, to the effect that the space be-
tween Bond's ring and the planet was dark. It will be
remembered also. that though the news from America
reached Liverpool and London by the 3rd, Mr. Lassen
received no account of the discovery till the following
morning, before which he had made the observation de-
scribed. Thus had Mr. Lassell all the merit of making
an independent discovery, though it was sooner and better,
i. e. more clearly, made in the United States. It may
have struck our readers, as it did us, that reference to
Bond's ring was rather odd, in a record made before this
ring had been heard of; and we cat short our narrative
till we could make inquiries. It is with much pleasure
and satisfaction that we are able to cast the blame of this
error upon the Editor of the Proceedings, who, in abridg-
ing Mr. Lassell's account of the phenomenon, inadver-
tently gave the name of Bond's ring to the peculiar veil-
covered-like belt observed within the broad and bright
one. In the next number of the Proceeding: a full ex-
planation will be given.

FAYE'S PERIOD./CAL COMET.

In the public prints we have recently read of the dis-
covery of a new and very faint telescopic comet by Mr.
Bond, of the Observatory of Cambridge, near Boston, U.S.
This is an error. The comet seen by the American
astronomer is the periodical comet of Faye, discovered
here about two months ago. Observations were made on
it at Cambridge on the 28th and 29th of November, and
6th and 7th of December last ; but it was not till the Ist
and 4th of the present month that Mr. Bond found it. In
a letter from Mr. Bond, which we have seen, he calls it
Faye's comet. It may be observed that it was seen at
Starfield about three weeks ago.

PASSAGE OF LUMINOUS BODIES ACROSS THE FIELD OF

In the Proceedings of the Royal Astronomical Society,
fol Dec. 13, 1850, we find a curious communication by the
14 W. liesd, vicar of South Minims. Upon the 4th of
Set )last, while preparing to watch the planet Mer-
cury, si thalf-past nine, a.m., his attention was drawn
to innumerable " self-luminous" bodies passing from east
to west, with unequal velocities, across the field of his te-
lescope. In brightness they resembled Venus, and their
discs are described as being " perfectly round and well
defined." If these were real bodies, the number must
have been prodigious, for he beheld them at intervals
during about six hours, in a zone several degrees in
breadth. They subtended angles varying from 2 sec. to
20 sec., and they are said to have borne a magnifying
power, but without disclosing anything remarkable.
What this phenomenon was, probably we shall never
know, for there does not seem to have been another ob-
server. The Editor of the Astronomical Proceedings ,
conjectures " an abnormal state of the optic nerves of the
observer," and the duration of the appearance is pre-
sumptive evidence that it was so. Besides, the rev.
gentleman is certainly wrong in considering them " self-
luminous," unless he accounts for them on electrical
theory, in which case the " well-defined" disc, and other
objections, may be urged. Neither is his reasoning con-
clusive, for he says—" They appeared self-luminous ; as,
when viewed even near the sun, they still retained their
round form, without gibbosity or crescent shape."
The most authentic instance of the passage of bodies
across the field of a telescope is the observation of the as-
tronomer Messier. The description is interesting, and
though before us, is too lung to quote; but the curious
will find it in the Mem. Acad. Paris, 1777, p. 464. Suf-
fice it to say, Messier witnessed the passage of numerous
dark globules across the solar disc, about noon, for five
minutes. No observation of the kind had been previously
recorded.
In the year 1823, Hansteen noticed a luminous meteor
cross the field of vision, while using his telescope for an
astronomical observation ; and the writer has not only
ascertained from a distinguished astronomer, but he has
himself witnessed, the recurrence of the phenomenon ;
these, however, were sporadic cases.
The phenomena witnessed by Hansteen and Messier
are evidently very different. The dark bodies may have
been asteroids or meteoric bodies interposed; and the
probability of this is increased by the observation of Gas-
paris on the 11th of May, 1845, confirmed by Capocci and
Demartini, of many non-luminous bodies crossing the
sun. The bright objects, on the other hand, were most
probably particles of dust strongly illuminated, or birds
under the beams of an unclouded sun.