The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-04-20
WORLDS BIGGEST TELESCOPE
Continued From Page Twelve.

eclipse better than they could have
obtained had they beer there to see II
This long, horizontal telescope was A
perfect success. When that was dem
onstrated the astronomers set to work
to build a larger one, which should be
permanent and should combine with
this Photographic feature the use of
the larger apparatus in permanent
mounts.
The result now stands on the observ-
atory grounds, ready for the coelostat
and the Laboratories. 1t is a wooden
shed, like its predecessor-and this one
is 165 feet long, about eight feet wide
and five or six feet high, with a gable
roof. 1t resembles nothing so much as
long and well-built chicken house
without doors and windows. It is
open at one end. To the lay observer
there is nothing astronomical about it.
In the workship of the observatory
thirty-inch reflector is ready for its
mount. There will be no lens in this
telescope, for lenses, being of glass, alb
sorb heat and affect the light. 1t is
desired to have the star rays enter the
apparatus without change as they
reach the earth. Down at the other
end of the tube will be the concave
mirror which will focus the rays, and
this will be mounted on a track, so
A.
to focus the image on the Photographic
plate on mount inside the tunnel, or
to throw 1t into the slit of a spectro-
scope farther back in the laboratory
With this instrument so near COM
pletion the enthusiasm of the astrono-
mer has increased. He does not ex-
pect to take pictures of the faint stars
with this. He expects to devote its
Photographic attachment to the bright
ocf St. nd
and moon. But for this work he is
already eager for larger machinery.
The thousand-foot telescope must
come" declared one of the astrono-
merS the other day as he threw a pho
tograph of the big tunnel on a screen
in Fullerton Hall, Chicago. 81 will not
be surprised if before many years we
see it realized-a thousand foot tele-
scope, with a ten-foot reflector, mount
ed on high lakeland, and unfolding
wonderful things to u.s.
The possibilities of such an instru-
ment can best be conceived when we
consider that through the 40-inch re-
tractor Photographic image of the
moon seven inches across is obtained.
In the 165-foot telescope the moon will
appear more than 10 inches across.
Through the 1000 foot telescope the OBJ
server will behold a moon 109 inches
III uldHeler. Every little detail Will be
enlarged more than Is times, and the
eight by ten-inch plates now used to
cover the whole image will then be
used to obtain a picture of some single
crater or some dark valley of the moon.
The development of this astronom-
cal apparatus and of the science has
been rapid and wonderful, but it has
been marked by no more noteworthy
phenomenon than the emancipation
Of the astronomer. How do you think
of him in your inmost mind? Is it not
as a snuffy old man, bent and slow,
the abject slave of the big clock
moved tube? DO you not think of him
as shaping all his life as the tube di-
reefs, following it as if in chains across
the observing floor, recording what it
is pleased to tell him, begging it in
vain to yield greater secrets? Do you
not? Well, that is the old astronomer,
the slave. But the emancipation proc
lamation has been written for him. He
has learned to read and has read it.
The messages the stars have been
sending for ages. and which the tele-
scopes refused to translate, the new
apparatus has made clear to him. And
with the knowledge thus gained he has
arisen, thrown down his former mas
ter, and now claiming him to the
ground, and compelling him to direct
the messages wherever the astronomer
will have them-into that apparatus
which will best translate them into the
language of the senses.