The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-01-14
TO PICK OUT PLANETS
WHICH THEY WE'RE FIRST
DISCOVERED
NAME SIGNIFIES WANDERER
Only Two of the Planets Are Visible
Just mt This Time, Venus I'm the
Evening and Jupiter in the Morn
ing I'm Scientific Observation
Much Still Depends Upon the Man
behind the Telescope.

Evening and Jupiter in the Morn
ing = In Scientific observation
Much Still Depends Upon the Man
behind the Telescope.
We do not know what man first discov-
cred planets in the sky. 1t may have
been some shepherd tending his focks,
perhaps upon the plains of Chaldea, sure
ly In the faraway, misty early begin
nings of mankind upon the earth. And
yet TO this day the test by which the I'M
aided eye can most easily distinguish a
planet from a star remains the same as
that which must have revealed the first
planet to the earliest of astronomical OBJ
servers. The very name planet tells the
history of an epoch-making discovery
just as surely as though a written record
of it's making had been handed down to
us through successive generations of men.
PLANET" signifies "wanderer." 1t comes
from an ancient Greek word of that
meaning. And in truth, to an unlearned,
unlettered shepherd of today the planets
must appear just as they did to his long
past forerunner of Chaldea, aimless, law
less wandering stars within the serried
array of heavens night.
1t is ever the characteristic of genius to
disentangle the simple basic phenomena
of nature from among the complex re-
suits exhibited to the eye of a casual OBJ
server. So we shall not err in ascribing
genius to the man who first noted the
planets popularity of travelling among
the other stars and in designating his
1T Tho
whole sky Is thickly studded with the So
called fixed stars. So far as the naked
eye observer can tell, they all retain pre-
cisely the same relative positions with
respect to one another from year to year
and from generation to generation. If
you select a certain triangle or quadran-
gle of stars as they rise in the east you
will see them slowly climb the sky and
again descend and set in the west, always
forming precisely the same geometrical
figure. Nor is this all. If the ancient
records Of naked-eye observations were
searched with care just the same triangle
or quadrangle of stars would be found de-
scribed as having always been seen to
rise and set, then as now, so long as men
have watched the sky.
But suppose there were q planet with
in the center of our triangle of stars.
AS we watched night after night we
should see the planet slowly change its
place within the triangle. By imper-
ceptible degrees, but with a continuous
and cumulative motion, the planet would
approach one of the trangles sides, and
at length would pass far beyond and
away. 1t Is thus that the first planet
must have beer differentiated from the
stars, and thus again the naked eye as
tronomer of today can best proceed to
elementary planetary study. Note care
fully the heavenly bodies you suspect of
being planets. Fix in your mind, or on
a diagram, their positions with respect
to neighboring stars and you will speed
lily come into possession of evidence as to
the planetary nature of the body under
observation. One planet detected in this
way will afford more satisfaction and en-
couraglng instruction to the beginner in
astronomy than much study by the aid
of books or teachers.
DO NOT TWINKLE.
1t is true that other characteristics of
the planets will help in their identified
ton by the unaided eye. In the first
place the planets are usually very bright,
though not often surprising the most
lucid of the fixed stars Again, the plan
cts are said not to twinkle Many OBJ
accurate though it is certainly a fact
that the twinkl1ng of the planets is less
than that of majority of the stars.
But in the absence of a telescope the only
sure test is the presence of such motion
among the stars as we have described.
Into the causes of this motion it is not
cur intention to enter. Suffice 1t to say
that it is due to the planets revolutions
their annual orbits about the sun. This
oh l,aiY t..
space, and so we see them projected on
different parts of the distant vault of
the sky at different dates of observation.
We have just received from Germany
pamphlet issued by the observatory at
Potsdam, near Berlin, describing cere-
monies connected with the official install
lation of a new and large telescope. 1t
appears that the kaiser himself has be-
come sufficiently interested in astronomy
10 have ordered the immediate construc-
ion of such an instrument, after it had
Deen repeatedly asked by the astronomers,
and refused by successive imperial min
sters from motives of economy. The
Kaiser even attended personally the dedi-
eation ceremonies at Potsdam, and seems
have listened to the speeches made
lpon that occasion. These We're, as is
9nly right and proper, somewhat COM
ELEMENTARY to the observatory and the
aoble patron who honored it by his pres
suce. Perhaps they might even be said
to SAVIOR somewhat Of praise-maj este,
but this does not appear to be crime in
Germany.
But setting aside the rather humorous
aspect which these official foreign cere-
ncnial occasions generally exhibit to an
American we cannot too seriously en-
ohasize the Importance to astronomical
progress of this genuine interest on the
ri daSGTVedlV-
stands very high among the nations as
5ultivator of astronomy. But there is
)ne class of researches that it has been
quite impossible to undertake there.
These require observations with a tel
escope of great size and light-gathering
power; and such telescope Germany has
never had. Our own country has al
ways led in this respect. 1t was in the
Clark workshop at Cambridgeport, Mass,
that the first modern great telescope was
made, and ever since the successive larg-
est telescopes have been supplied with
lenses from that same workshop. The
United States naval observatory, the
Lick observatory in California, and the
new Yerkes observatory near Chicago
have each in turn possessed the world S
greatest telescope, and foreign astron-
omers have always been compelled to
content themselves with lesser instru-
mcnts But they have not been far be-
hind us, with the single exception of the
Germans. The Yerkes telescope at Chi
cago has diameter of forty inches, and
the Lick has thirty-six. Great Britain
has one of twenty-eight inches, Russia
one of thirty, and now the new German
telescope enters the competition with a
diameter of thirty-two inches. The
United States still leads, therefore, with
the two largest instruments, but all the
telescopes mentioned are of sufficient
size to attempt work requiring great
,ic,I,+-o -a therins mower,