Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1901-11-22
SIGHT A RARE ONE.
Prof. Ritchey's Photograph of the
Persian Nebula Inter-
esting.
BALL TO TELL REST OF STORY
At the Burtis Dec. IL, When He Lee.
lures Under Press Club
Auspices.


terest in the announcement that was
photographed from the Yerkes obsery-
atory, at Williams Bay, Wis, by Prof
10. w. Ritchey. He seems to have
fixed on the sensitive plate proof DOS
itive of the general correctness of
the nebuiar hypothesis. Prof Ritch-
Iey seems to have got unanswerab BILE
support to the old theory of lie
Place. taught for the truth in the
schools Il quarter of century ago.
but less insistently taught of later
years. 1t looks as though there
would be Il revival of the nebular
hypothesis, modified by later knowl-
edge but practically intact.
The whirling movement in the
nebula has been long since detected
by means of the camera. The eve
does not discover il, but the photo
graph does. However, in nearly all
of these instances the movement has
been apparently slow. 1t may act
ually amount to many miles in n sec
ond, but il has been seemingly very
deliberate. But in this last observa-
ton of Nova, Notwithstanding that it
is so far away that ii takes the light
rs years to reach us-so that the
things that Prof. Ritchey's camera
showed him last Wednesday night
ACTUALLY happened % years ago-the
motion of the nebulous matter sur
rounding the star is so positive and
pronounced as TO be actually start
ling. The gaseous matter that sur
rounds. and is really Il part of that
glowing star, is a seething cyclone
of energy, travelling with a motion in
crediblX swift, changing shape with
the rapidity OF a summer cloud.
swirling and sweeping about it's CEN
trail body with a movement that
makes ordinary stellar motion look
like n standstill. The discovery is
one that has been expected, and
hoped for, but till now it has not
been made. The physical astronomy
claims a large accession of new facts
with this series of plates that Prof.
Ritchey made the other night.
The celestial object upon which
Prof. Ritchey has made his observa-
tions is the mysterious star, Nova of
Perseus. which suddenly appeared
last February in the northern sky,
blazing with strange light in place
where there had been no star before.
Its light rapidly increasing until it
became a star of the first magnitude.
Then it gradually faded away until
now it is only of the sixteenth mag
nitude. At present it is altogether
invisible to the unaided vision, and
if ii continues TO diminish in bril-
liancy il will soon be invisible even
in the great Yerkes telescope-the
most powerful in the world-through
which no star below the seventeenth
magnitude can be seen.
An Observatory study.
To the person least Informed upon
these matters the story of the great
events of space, as revealed by the
telescope, the spectroscope and the
camera, is one that is more fascinat-
ing in it's interest. more firm in its
grasp upon the attention, than any
other that the man of science has
to tell us; more absorbing and en-
thralling than any tale of human in
terest. In the hands of a master of
the science. physical astronomy be-
comes the most thrilling serial story
ever written. The narrative of the
great cosmic changes that have
wrought our own world out of the
void of a nebula, and that
have wrought other worlds than
ours, dwarfs the little tales of human |
interest to mere nothingness. This |
story is read, as plainly as from the
printed page, by the man of modern |
scinece. Three weeks from tonight |
we shall have with us, at the Burtis, |
in Davenport, an astronomer whose |
name is familiar the world over be-
cause of his discoveries and his |
achievements, Sir Robert Ball, of |
observatory and univers-
ity. He will take up this story of |
world building, just about where |
Prof. Ritchey's great telescope has
found it in the star Nova Perseii, and
he will carry it on down to the last
stage of our old earth. 1t has been
these preliminary fiery stag
es. through which our sun is passing, |
and it is nearing the stage of our
own satellite, the moon; dead, cold,
pulseless ball, without life or the
means of life; a mere speck in space
without single use that concerns
the finite intelligence. In his lecture |.
Time and Tide Sir Robert Ball will
tell us how the moons rotation was
checked, and how the moon died;
how the life of Venus, loveliest of the
planets, was stricken out in the
same way, and how the change is in
progress with this old earth of ours
Ii is a wonderful story. and with the
telling of Sir Robert Ball, and the
great stereopticon illustration he is
to give it, it win be the scientific
event of the year.