The Shasta courier., 1860-03-03
SHASTA COURIER.
The Wonders of Astronomy.

Professor Mitchell, of Cincinnati, has recently
been icturing upon Astronomy in New York
In onevof his lectures describing the difficulties
10 be overcome in astronomical observations he
stated that astronomers could appreciate accur-
ately the 6,000th portion of the goth part of an
inch, and that variation to the extent of one
of these minute measurements would make an
almost indefinite di1erance in the calculation
One can therefore conceive the accuracy re-
auired not only in the construction of instru-
ments of observation and measurement, but
also in mounting telescope with an immense
tube, weighing many tons, and in the construc-
ton of the apparatus by which it shall be moved.
One portion Of this apparatus, operating like
clock-work, moves the telescope in accordance
with the rotary motion of the earth, so as to
keep the object towards which the telescope is
directed, steadily within range of the instru-
ment. When testing this portion of his appar-
atus, in the Observatory, of Cincinnati, he said
that in his intense excitement he caused him
self to be left alone and the complete success of
all his previous labors, filled him with such
pleasure as Newton must have experienced when
he was obliged to hand over his most important
calculations, demonstrating the laws of gravita-
tion, as they drew their close, to an assist
ant, himself too excited to finish them. In
mounting the great telescope so important was
it that each movement should be under perfect
control, when the men were placed to perform
their parts, he told them that he would instant
ly shoot the first man who should in any parti-
cuar disobey his orders.
Professor Mitchell gave view, also of the
astronomer in the midst of his observations
Night after night he has sat down within hun
dred and fifty miles of the moon, and watched
the mountains and streams on its surface; and
then, removing his eye, in instant was back
again at his home on the earth. So he obtains
a point in space near the other heavenly bodies.
Or the space-penetratlng power Of the tee-
scope, he said that the Cincinnati refractor
would reveal n row of FIVE hundred stars in
depth one beyond the other the distance be-
tween each being as great as the distance be-
tween ourselves and the first of the series. By
an arrangement of rings, partially covering the
mouth of the telescope, which may be success
sively removed admitting more and more light
you may gradually ascend to those immense
depths. At first, you see large numbers of stars
which are not visible to the naked eye, but rest
ing a aeecy, ilmy bed. Then remove one of
the rings, admitting increased light and YOU see
a larger number of stars, but the film not yet all
resolved and so on until the last ring is re-
moved, and fall light admitted, and you behold
ten thousand diamond points, filling the field of
the telescope, and resting on a surface black as
the wings of night.
- nave stOOu; SalQ tne enthusiastic aStr0n-
omer, " by Niagara, but never have | expert
enced such a sense of power as when standing
by the mighty tube of the telescope, pointing to
the heaveni to pierce their illmtable depths"
In the closing passage of one of his lectures, /
after speaking of the Enfathomable distances
which no telescope can penetrate, lying far be- /
yond the system in which the earth revoves |
and yet filled with Independent systems of
worlds of infinite number, he says:
Light traverses space at the rate of ten .
million miles minute, yet the light from the
nearest star requires ten years to reach, and .
Herschels telescope revealed stars two thousand .
three hundred times further distantl The great
telescope of Lord Ross pursued these creations
of God still deeper into space and having
solved the nebule of the Milky Way into stars,
discovered other system of stars-beautiful dia-
mond points gttering through the black dark
ness beyond. When | behed this amazing abyss
when | saw these systoms scattered profusely
throughout space-when reflect upon their i'm
mense distance, their enormous magnitude, and
the countless millions of worlds that belonged
to them, it seems to me as though the widest
dreams of the imagination were more than re-
allied.