The Magnolia gazette. [volume] (Magnolia, Miss.) 1872-current, 1882-12-14
A NIGHT WITH SATURN.

When the reporter entered the OBJ
servatory of his friend the astronomer
on Tuesday night he was surprised to
hear the man Of science, who had
leaned back in his observing chair, and
was carefully wiping the field leng of an
eye-piece, repeating, with an air OF abb
straction:
"Deep in the shady sadness of q vale,
Far sunken from the healthy breath of
Far from the fiery noon and eve's one star,
Sat gray-harod Saturn, white as stone"
"Are you going to drop science for
poetry?d asked the reporter.
"Oh, nor' the astronomer replied,
laughing; "but | should be sorry, in
deed, to be obliged to Danish poetry.
I'd almost as willingly shut up the OBJ
servatory and use the telescope for
stove pipe. am not q mathematical
machine, and find as much romance
as calculus i'll the heavens. l don't
mean romance as contrasted with re-
ality, but the romance that surrounds
the most amazing realities that the
human mind ever grasped. 1t Just oc-
Cured to me how strikingly those lines
Of Keats, intended to describe the old
god Saturn in his lonely retirement,
represent the actual condition of the
planet Saturn in its relations with the
solar system. There, look ut him with
his pale, leaden, unilickering light-a
star without its twinklings, an almost
banished world in its solitude and re-
moteness, Saturn is so far away in the
shadowy deeps of space that the sun,
which 10 us presents disk as big rs
the moon, blazing with unbearable
splendor and extinguishing every other
light, appears from Saturn only as the
chief of the stars. Saturn receives
from the sun only about one hundredth
part Of the light and heat that the earth
receives. From the distant orbit, the
earth, Venus, Mars, and even Jupiter
must Seem a happy family, basking to-
gether in the light and warmth of the
sun. Then what an impression of
solitude and repose comes from the
slowness of his orbital motion. While
the near planets are speeding like
racers around the sun, Saturn remains
year after year in the same constellation,
and nearly whole generation passes
while he is making single circuitn
81 have heard that Saturn is now
closer to the earth than he has been be-
said.
That is true" the astronomer re-
Piled Tonight the two planets are
not much more than 750, 900, 600 miles
apart. The motion of the earth in its
orbit will rapidly increase its distance
Tor six months and then they will ap-
proach again and be still nearer next
lall, and nearer yet in 1884. After that
saturn will swing further away from
the sun and the earth, and astronomers
VIII have to wait another generation
before they can have as favorable views
0I Saturn as are now presented to us.
me rings are now opened out so wide =
Y mat mere spy-glass viii reveal
them. The fact is that any amateur
VINO has a modern four or five-inch tel
eseope, made by one of our best max
ers' can now obtain finer views of the
wonderful ringed planet than Sir Will
lam Herschel ever had even with his
sganuc telescopes. When Hersehel,
IN iao2, went with one of his telescopes
10 hing Georges house TO show him the
wonders OF the heavens, he offset the
disappointment OF cloudy night by
cutting model of Saturn in paste
board, fastening it at the bottom of the
gatden wall, and having it illumined
win lamps. Herschel says of this de-
wee That the effect was very fine and
50 natural that it might have deceived
the pest astronomers. Nobody who has
ever seen Saturn with n modern tele-
scope could be deceived by any device
Now look at Saturn through the
Icle!scope, the astronomer added, land
- VIII point out to you some of the
h'ngs for the study of which astrono-
mers all over the world will seize this
layorable opportunity
ne reporter looked, and saw in the
neiu oi the telescope a golden ball sur
.!ounued by two broad concentric rings.
ncllnedto the line of sight so that their
general outline was long oval. There
were delicately shaded zones ON the
rna vau' lne color around the pole which
t.; Sas NOT hidden by the rings being a
rsh ia,,l. oiue, while the equatorial zone was
ngn' yellow, The rings, too, bore deli
,L sa.e markings, the division between
S;e egem appearing as heavy black line.
of,La outside the rings were several
oi me planets moons.
!, LOOK sharply along the inner edge
=, lhe inner bright ring" said the as
Ionomer, ''and you win see another
ing which is one of the most mysteri-
Ius OBJECTS in all the heavens. Itis not
oIlght, like the others, but dark. re-
ssnohng strip of gauze stretched
T@.ls1 r;r1. - me sky; and yet that gauze-like
ras NY is o,VOO or 5000 miles broad, and
';Toae 'Thase than 100000 miles in diameter
bana hnere IS no record of its ever having
tbenss een seen earlier than the year 1888, al
soru soUugn saturn had been studied with
sos sone k,i Of the best telescopes in the world
fve hau century before that. y