The Weiser signal. [volume] (Weiser, Idaho) 1890-1904, 1891-07-09
SCIENCE AND PROGRESS.
MATTERS OF INTEREST TO THE
SCIENTIFIC WORLD.
Photographic Chart of the Heavens
--Boiler Injector The AutCmat-
Ic Library--lt Picks up Paper
Sheets--Invented for
GraVeyardS.
a Photographic Chart of the
Heavens

In many respects the most wonder
full of all human achievements are
those OF astronomic science. No
other facts so profoundly impress the
mind of the learned as well as the I'M
learned as those which have been as
certained by astronomic investigation.
That the inhabitants OF our planet
a mere atom in the unreasonable
universe of matter-have reached
millions upon millions of miles into
space, weighed and measured other
planets and systems and accurately
defined their orbits is the highest tri-
butte that can be paid to the intellect
of man. In all astronomic progress
since time began the inventor and
scientist have worked together.
Scarcely a step was possible without
the aid of invention. In fact there is
no other department of human study
in which science and invention are so
separately blended, in which the scien-
fist is so much the inventor and the
inventor so much the scientist,
as in astronomy. The leading
propose - construct a great photo
graphic chart of the heavens. Prepar-
ations for this gigantic work are now
going on and satisfactory results are
reported. Specimen plates from nu-
merous observato were recently ex-
amined i'll Paris as an assistance in
the arrangement OF final details of the
undertaking. A gratifying approach
to uniformity was observed in the pre-
siminary and experimental efforts. 1t
is stated, however, that at II late
meeting of the Royal Astronomical
Society in London Mr.. Isaac Roberts,
whose wonderful photographs of the
Andromeda nebula and other celestial
phenomena have within the past two
or three years given him world wide
fame, rather startled some of the as
tronomers by his report of expert
ments that he had been trying. 1t APP
pears that Mr.. Roberts found a sur
prising difference in the number of
stars that he was able to photograph
on different nights. On one night he
got eighty stars on plate represent
ing a particular spot in the sky, on
another night two hundred, and on
another night four hundred stars. all
within the same small expanse of the
heavens. He got the photographs OF
more stars when a bright moon was
shining than in q clear dark night
when to the eye the heavens appear
richer with stars. Should similar
difference affect photographs taken
Tor the proposed chart, the value of
the picture would be materially i'm
paired. Mr.. Roberts himself remark
ed that his apparatus was different
IN many respects from that which
would be employed in the charting.
and some of the members of the
Royal Astronomical Society who
listened to his statements appeared
not to attach great Importance to the
source of error which he had pointed
out. The New York Sun, in an
excellent editorial treatise on this
subject, concludes that with all its
this great photograph
of the universe will be one of the most
wonderfully interesting achievements
of human genius. 1t may be said with
out exaggeration that future ages will
refer back to it as one of the great
strategetic points won by science. A
representation of the
heavens as they appear at the close
of the nineteenth century may in the
twenty-fifth or the fortieth century
prove to be the means of solving some
OF the great problems relating to the
of the universe: The i'm
portance OF the proposed chart stands
out clearly the moment attention is
irawn to the fact that the so-caled |
liked stars are actually flying in every
direction-towards us,
away from us, to the right, to the left,
,orthward and southwark, from east |
20 west, and from west to east. There
s no discernable centre of their mo-
non, and they appear to stand still to
ordinary observation simply because
heir distance is so immense and the |
span OF human life is so brief that a
single observer attempting to perceive
their change of place gets some such
sense OF motion as comes from a mo-
nentary glance at an express train |
along q river bank miles |
lWaV ."-InVentiVe Ace