Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1903-08-27
THOUSANDS OF STARS SOLD FOR
A CENT.
TO ADVANCE SCIENCE
Photographic Catalogue of the Sky
Available for All-Problem to
Which Professor Pickering of Har
ward Observatory Has Been Giving
Serious Thought.

Cambridge, Mass, August ga
thousand stars for cent-that is the
bargain offered by the Harvard astro,
rfomical observatory. Not that the OBJ.
servatory is rash enough TO hold out
any hope of being able to deliver the
actual goods, but to astronomers, pro
| fessional or amateur, who know how
to use the stars when they see them.
Director E. G. Pickering holds out a
very attractive proposition which,
briefly stated, is this:
The Harvard observatory offers to
other observatories, or to individual
Astronomers anywhere, accurate copies
in the form of glass negatives made
by the double-contact process. This
is a practical solution reached in the
problem to which for some time Pro
lessor Pickering has been giving
serious thought-that of making
available a Photographic catalogue or
map of the sky. Harvard, as is well
known, has been for many years-in
fact, ever since the Professors Bond,
father and son, were the first to photo
graph the stars, more than half a
century ago-the leading centre in the
world of stellar photography, for no,
where else has the camera as an
adjunct of astronomy been so eff
fectively used. Regularly every night,
when the conditions of the atmosphere
permit, negatives are taken both at
the central observatory in Cambridge
and at the high altitude observatory
which Harvard has maintained for a
number of years at Arequipa, Peru.
Under this plan the entire sky is
photographed at least once a month
in either place, and the collection OF
these negatives gathered into specially
constructed stack rooms at Cambridge,
numbers already about $4,000 plates
and constitutes a unique astronomical
reference library"
Indeed, it has become the regular
thing when an astronomical discovery
is announced-perhaps a new comet,
like Borelli's, or a new variable like
the one noted by Nine. Ceraskie at
the Moscow observatory in 1900-that
| the Harvard records are promptly
searched to ascertain If any previous
appearance of such a body can De
tracd. There is also, naturally, a
minute inspection of each photo
graphic negative as it comes in on the
chance that some new heavenly body
or other remarkable manifestation will
appear; and this scrutiny, as is well
understood among astronomers, has
not been unrewarded, for of the eight
new stars that have appeared in the
sky during the past Is years, six were
first detected by Mrs. w. p. Fleming
Iof the Harvard observatory and,
further, when the star Nova Aurigae
was discovered in 1897 by DR.. T. d.
Anderson of Edinburgh. examination
of Harvard plates showed that it had
been IN existence six weeks before
the eye of any astronomer caught
sight of it.
The great convenience to scientists
of such history of the sky extending
over many years may readily be
imagined. The $4,000 negatives are
so arranged in their stacks that il
anybody wishes to know what a par
ticular star was doing, or in general
what was happening in any special
tract of the sky, on a particular night
in any year since the records were
begun, one of the twenty skilled assis-
tants who are kept continually busy
caring for the plates can make the