The herald., 1893-07-19
HUNTING ASTEROIDS.
Astronomical Sport That Is Being Robbed
Of Pnrt Of Its Pleasure.

HUN IiNd 40 EhOlDos
Astronomical Sport That Is Being Robbed
of Part of Its Pleasure.
There was time when the hunting of
asteroids was the athletic sport with
which the tired astronomer refreshed his
mind and muscles. Wearied with pro-
longed calculations as to the weight of
ton of Goals on the surface Of Jupiter or
the density of beer on the surface of the
sixth moon of Uranus and with his
right arm and fingers cramped and
numbed from the excessive use of chalk
and blackboard, the astronomer would
take his telescope and in the bright, crisp
winter night stalk tho timid asteroid
through the starry jungles of the skies.
1t was rot often that he made sue
cessful bng. Sometimes he would hunt
night after night for weeks before cap
turing q single asteroid, but he was al
ways buoyed up by the hope of game,
and when he did bring down an aste-
roid with his breechloading reflector,
his small but handy refractor, and was
enabled to make present of its ele-
ments to favorite fellow astronomer
he was indeed a proud and happy man.
But this fine old astronomical sport is
at an end. The asteroid trapper with his
Photographic trap is abroad, and there
is every reason to believe that in the
course of a very few years at the fur
thest every existing asteroid will have
been captured.
The method of the trapper is as simple
as it is unsportsmanlike. He sets his
camera at nightfall and goes home tohis
family until the following morning. A
clockwork attachment gives motion to
the camera identical with the apparent
motion of the fixed stars, so that the i'm
ages of the latter never vary their places
on the sensitive plate.
When, however, the trapper finds
faint but prolonged line Of light extend
ing over the plate, he knows that it is
the trail Of an asteroid. and he at once
proceeds to complete its capture by Civ
ing it a name and calculating its ele-
ments
The unsuspecting asteroids who had
long ago grown shy Of the telescope have
not yet discovered the existence Of the
camera traps, and they are captured in
alarming numbers. 1t is quite usual for
a trapper to report the capture of four
or five asteroids in single night.
1t is true that he rarely makes any dis
tinction between the traces made by an
asteroid and the marks on the plate due
to imperfections in the emulsion or
to scratches made during development.
In his greed he treats all marks as as
teroids that come to his trap, and there
can be no doubt that certain proper
ton of the asteroids recently named and
given place in the solar system havene
existence outside of the Photographic
plate, where the trapper fancied that he
had detected their trail.
Still it is evident that the traps are
nightly capturing an enormous number
of asteroids, and unless something is
done for their preservation this variety
of celestial game will sooner or later be-
come as extinct as the American buffalo.
To the average man it may seem to be
q matter of very little consequence how
asteroids are captured, but to those who
are familiar with astronomers and who
have their welfare and that of their
wives and families at heart the prospect
that legitimate asteroid hunting is about
to become impossible is alarming.
If the tired astronomer can no longer
keep up his health and spirits by beat
ing the milky way for asteroids his
health must inevitably yassdffer. Physi-
clans are agfeed that astronomy, if
habitually indulged ingis peculiarly ex
hausting to the nerves. Indeed the con-
firmed and excessive astronomer is in
variably irritable and qdarrelsome, even
in spite of the tonic influence of asteroid
hunting. N sait'A sll9o
If that resource should no longer be
open to him, his condition will be simply
pitiable, and such thing as an astro-
nomic home will be utterly unknown.
The astronomers only recreation will be
found in contradicting the theories and
denying the discoveries of other astrono-
mers, and the meeting of an astronomic-
al society would be q scene Of wild up
roar mingled with flying states and
Jumps of chalk.-Washington Star.