The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-08-03
NO SPORT IN IT NOW.
Hunting for Shooting Stars Done with Il
Camera In These DAYS.

Hunting for Shooting Stars Done with the
Camera In These Days.
There was time when the hunting
of asteroids was the athletic sport with
which the tired astronomer refreshed
his mind and muscles. Wearied with
prolonged calculations as to the weight
of a ton of Goals on the surface of Jupi-
ter, or the density of beer on the sur
face 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 the
I timid asteroid through the starry jun
/ giles of the skies. 1t was not often
1 that he made successful bag. Some
1 times he would hunt night after night
/ for weeks before capturing single as
+ teroid, but he was always buoyed up
/ by the hope of game, and when ne did
bring down an a,Aeroid with his brecch-
loading reflector or his snslll but handy
! refractor, and was email led to make a
present of its elements to q favoritc
fellow astronomer, he was indeed
proud and happy man. But this fine
old astronomical sport is at an end
The asteroid trapper with his photo
graphic trap is abroad, and there is
every reason to believe that in the
course of very few years, at the fur
thest, every existing asteroid will have
been captured The method of the
trapper is rs simple as il is unsportsman-
like. He sets his camera at nightfall
and goes home 10 his family until
the following morning. A clockworlC
attachment gives motion to the cam.
era identical with the apparent motion
of the fixed stars, so the images of the
latter never vary their places on the
sensitive plate. When, however, the
trapper finds faint but prolonged
line of light extending over the plate,
he knows that il is the trail of an as,
teroid and he at once proceeds 10 COM
plete its capture by giving it name
and calculating its elements.
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 capt
ured in large numbers. 1t Is quite MS
of four or FIVE in a single night. II is
true that he rarely makes any distinc-
ton between the traces actually made
by an asteroid and the marks on the
plate due TO imperfections in the emul-
sion or to scratches made during de-
velopnent. In his greed he treats all
marks as asteroids that come 70 his
trap. and there can be no doubt that a
certain proportion OF the asteroids re-
Gently named and given a place in our
solar system have no existence outside
of the Photographic plate where the
trapper fancied ne had detected their
trail Still, it IS evident that the traps
are nightly capturing an enormous
mum Der Of asteroids, and unless some
thing IS done for the preservation this (
variety Of celestial game viii I
sooner or later become as ex-
tiuct as the American buffalo. To 4
the average man i may seem 20 De a
matter Of very little consequences how I
asteroids are captured, but to those who +
are familiar with astronomers and who 4
have their welfare and that Of their 4
wives and families at heart the prospect .
N4'AS 4SS siAaA1tS d@trsc&A huALh[ -
about To become impossible Is alarm
ing If the tired astronomer can 10
longer keep up his health and spirits
By beating the milky way for asteroids
MS health must inevitably suffer
Physicians are agreed that astronomy.
II habitnaily indulged in. is peculiarly
exhausting 20 the nerves Indeed. the
confirmed and excessive astronomer Is
invariably irritable and quzrrelSoETse.
even in spite Of the tonic influence Of
astsroid bunting. II that resource
should no longer BE open 20 him his