Waterbury evening Democrat., 1892-02-05
STELLAR WONDERS.
Star That Travels over Three Randred
 nuaV~@ aam~a.esA


 Miles . Second.
 In Pioneer hall Prof E. E Barnard, of the Lick observatory, delivered a lect- ure on Recent Visual Photographic Astronomy"
 After explaining the perfection to which photography, as applied to astronomy, has been brought, the pro- lessor reviewed some of the more re- cent results achieved by its use.
 On September second and third two good phot graphs were obtained of Wolfs comet passing through the | Pleiades They showed beyond ques- tion that the position of the star over which the comet passed was displaced by very small quantity, about two. tenths of a second of arc, and proved that the density of that comet was many thousand times less than our atmosphere at the earth's surface. Great progress has been made in photographing the spectra of the stars. By doubling the lines of the spectrum of Beta Aurigae at short intervals that star has been found to consist of two suns revolving about each other in only four days, with velocity of one hum dred and fifty miles second. The dis tance between the components is only sixteen million miles, or about one. sixth the distance between the earth and the sun.
 The greatest possible apparent dis tance between the two stars which form Beta Aurigae would be only four one- thousaadths of second of arc The smallest quantity that Mir. Burnham has ever been able to see and measure with the great refractor at Mount Hamilton ia nnn-fnrfh of 0R I arc, which can be taken as the limit of that telescope. In other words, for the component parts Of Beta Auri yae to ever be seen by man he must first con- struct telescope ninety -four feet in diameter, or a thousand times m re powerful than the Lick telescope. Algol, the variable star in Perse IS, has long been a mystery Is light re- mains constant for two and half days. It then begins to fade, and in less than fo"r hours diminishes to an in >ignifi- cant s:ar, remaing thus for about twenty minutes, when it regal S it's former brilliancy. It has long been suspected that dark body revolved about Algol, and which, coming be- tween us and that star, intercepted
 more or less its light. Algors spec. trum has been photographed and it 1. found that the lines shift alternately | from side to side of their normal posi-. tion. but there is no doubling of the lines. This shows that the star alter. | nately moves toward us and away from | us. The interpre tation of this is that Algol is attended by large non-lumin. ous body. Since this does not con- tribute any light to form the spectrum of Algol, there can be no doubling of the lines, for there will be but one spec. l trum. Nevertheless, the dark body is known to exist, for Algol is revolving around center of gravity which must , be between it and some other body ] whose presence the laws of gravity de- mand.
 The observations indicate 8 velocity of twenty-six miles a second for the visible star, and it's diameteris is thou sand miles. The dark component must be eight hundred thousand miles in i diameter, while it's motion is fifty-four l miles second.
 The asteroids that lie between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter have be- come so difficult to keep track of, since | they have been discovered at the rate of about twenty a year, that astronomers have recently decided to reject them, excepting the nearest and the most distant The latter are i'm. portant in observations of Jupiter, 1 while the nearer ones are useful in more accurate calculations of the earth's dis. tance from the sun.
 Until recently it was supposed that the small star near the north DO @, | known as Nc. 1.s30 Gc om bridge, which | travels at the rate of two hundred and 4xxyo xol Lol greatest velocity of any i'll the heavens; but it it now known that Mu in Cassi- opeia has velocity of three hundred l and five miles a second, while, if the observations of Dr. Elkin are accepted, Arcturus is travelling at a speed of three hundred and scvcnt five miles a | second.
 A few years ago it was suggested that | the latitude of places on the earth's surface changes. A number of astron- omers agreed to make observations for two years, and the result has just been ma e pub ic. Latitudes do change. Berlin, for example, was fifty feet nearer the north pole in September than it was in March. This change is not, of course, a shifting of any one point on the earth's surface. It is tilting of the axis of the earth. It is periodical, and instead of correspond ing with the solar year its period is for hundred and twenty-seven days, when it tilts back to it's former posi- ton, It is a newly discovered motion of the earth, and may be described as a revolution of the earth's pole around I some unknown pole. Its cause is un- known. At the earth's surface the radius of the circle of revolution Is thirty feet.-San Francisco Examiner.
 The Old Reliable Firm Of