The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1903-11-04
CAMERA IN ASTRONOMY.

L
It's Value to Scientific Observers The
Heavens Are Photographed Every
Month. + .4..
A thousand stars for a cent-that is
the bargain offered by the Harvard
astronomical observatory. Not that the
observatory is rash enough to hold out
any hope of being able to deliver the
actual goods, but to astoronomers-pro-
fessionaI or amateur-Who know how to
use the stars when they see them, Di-s
rector q. C.. Pickering holds. out very
attractive proposition, which. briefly
stated, is this:
The Harvard observatory offers to
other observatories, or to individual as
tronomers anywhere, accurate copies Of
its famous photographic negatives in
the form Of glass negatives made by
the double contact process. This is q
practical solution reached In the prob
lem to which for some time Professor
Pickering has been giving serious
thought-that of making available a
Photographic catalog 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, We're
the first to pllotog the stars, more
than half a century ago-the leading.
center In the world of stellar photog-
raphy, for nowhere 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
| If years at Areqripa, Peru.
/ Under this plan the entire sky Is
photographed at least once q month in
either place, and the collection OF these
negatives gathered into specially con-
structed stack rooms at Cambridge
numbers already about $4,000 plates
and constitutes an unique astronomical
| reference library
Indeed, 1t has become the regular
! thing when an astronomical discovery
is announced perhaps new comet,
like Borelli's, or a new variable like the
one noted by Mime. Ceraskie at the
Moscow observatory in 1900 that the
Harvard records are promptly searched
to ascertain if any previous appearance
of such body can be traced.
| There is also, naturally, minute In
spection Of each Photographic negative
as it comes In on the chance that some
new heavenly body or other remarkable
manifestation viii 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 skw during the past fif-
| teen years six were first detected by
Mrs. W. p. Fleming Of the Harvard OBJ
servatory, and further, when the star
| Nova Aurigae was discovered in 1891 by
DR.. r. d. Anderson of Edinburgh, ex-
animation of Harvard plates showed
| that 1t had been In existence six weeks
| before the eye Of an astronomer caught
sight of 1t. III u
l The great convenience to scientists OF
such history Of the sky extending
over many years may be readily inn
agined. The $4,000 negatives are 50 ar
| ranged in their stacks that If anybody
| wishes to know what d particular star
| was doing, or in general what was hap
pening in any special tract Of the sky
on a particular night in any year since
the records were begun, one Of the
twenty skilled assistants who are kept
constantly busy caring for the plates
can make the examination Of the plate
or the series Of plates, that will reveal