Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1881-07-07
The Comet and its Photograph.

The comet which made its appear
ance SO Unexpectedly continues to excite
great interest among astronomers and
others. Prof. Henry Draper, in charge
of the observatory at Hastings-on-the-
Hudson, succeeded in photographing the
celestial visitor, this being the first time
that photograph was ever taken of
comet. Speaking of the photograph,
Prof Draper says:
81 had the plate exposed for seventeen
minutes. and the light of dawn begin to
be so strong that l was afraid of STAIN
ing it,and so / was forced to be content
with the impression which 1 had then
got. l succeeded in securing in that
seventeen minutes exposure quite
strong picture of the nucleus and the
coma of the comet. but not so good one
as l want of the tail. The picture is ta-
ken by means of a telescope which has
a msgnifying power of fifteen diameters.
1t shews that the nucleus of this comet
is quite sharply defined dot. The coma.
spreading out from the nucleus. takes a
form somethidg like birds wings. The
tail is fan-shaped and much narrower at
the point of contact with the coma than
at the end. 1t is about fifteen degrees
in length, as it appears now. 1t may pos
sibly seem TO be somewhat longer when
the comet gets into blacker sky as it
mounts upward, but am inclined to be-
Eeve tlsitit is fully as long now as il
will be while the stranger remains in
sight" As to the method of photo
graphing the comet, Prof. Draper says:
AT the end of my telescope | placed
plate prepared NTH gelatine, which is
about twenty five times as sensitive.as
the old collodion plate. BY the way,
these plates are more perfectly prepared
in America than in Europe, and have
succeeded in making this gelatine plate
more stnsisive than. those ordinarily
used. To this fact. and to the excel
leI'ce Of my telescope. i owe my sue
cess"
Prof, Draper is studying tho. comet,
not SO much as a mathematical astrono-
mer as "a Physicist, and by 4 perfect pho
tOgraph and observations of its spec
trum he hopes to discover of what ele-
mentary bodies it is composed. "An in
teresting feature in the study of the
composition of comets" he SAYS, "is the
fact that il, as we believe, from our
present information, comets contain the
elementary substance carbon, they indi-
cate possibility for7organic life to exist
elsewhere THAI. ON this little earth of our
own. Carbon IS an essential ingredient
in all organized structures, plants as
well as animals, and although the tenn
perature Of a comet is too high to admit
of the existence of any living thing, the
3 fhoF "a 1xr1
elrth possess this essential ingaedient of
organic life. | have no doubt myself
that spectroscopic observations will con-
firm the theory of the presence of
carbon in the composition of comets 1t !
is an established fact that carbon has
been found in meteOrites, and there is
now but little doubt in the minds of sci
entilic men that close relation exists
between the meterites and comets. The
Italian astronomer, Sehiaparelli. has re-
Gently shown very conelusively that
streams of meteorS seemed in certain
cases to have an orbit identical with
those Of comets that have .disappeard |
. If this is true; it follows almost certain
ly that meteorites are the relics of de-
parted comets, and carbon being found
in them would indicate with tolerable
certainty its presence in the comets
But this subject is such new one CON-
paratiyely that it is very difficult to ar
rive at any definite conclusion. If can
get good spectrum from the comet
now with usI shall be able to secure
some definite results. The spectra, such |
as they were, of the comets observed in
the past We're the same as the spectrum
of an electric spark taken in olefiant gas,
a compound of carbon and hydrogen.
Prof. Draper telegrapned the fact that |
he had photographed the comet to the |
London Times. He says the probaba-
bilities are that the comet is the same as
that discovered by Dr. Gould in South
America in May. though it is yet too
early to. positively determine this.
DR.. Peters, of the Litchlieid Observa-
tory, Hamilton College, New York, says
that the dark line through the center of
the comet is the shadow of the nucleus |
lie thinks this is the comet seen by Lord I
Crawford about thirteen degrees from
the sun in Europe June 9th. He says
that on account of the node it cannot |
lie the comet Of 1872, and still less tnat |
of 1907