Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1910-04-16
ABOUT HALEY COMET
Our Planet Soon to Pass Through
Gaseous Matters of Wanderer-
Ht.Lt 80
Visible in Early Hours.

Pittsburg, Pa, April 11.-Several
o~bservatories have announced the
sighting of Halley's comet, which has
within a few days swung around the
sun from the east, as astronomers
would say, and appeared to the west
of it, and n observer asserts he has
seen 1t without the aid of a glass. A
local astronomer suggests that he may
have had two or three glasses. Prob
ably a week or more will elapse be-
fore the vagrant object can be seen
without a telescope, and then for
days it will be hardly more than a
nebulous blur.
Promise was given Friday night
and in the early morning of rarely
clear skies for Pittsburg and its reg.
ion, and astronomers of the Allie
gheny Observatory stayed by the 49,
inch telescope hoping to have a view
of the comet as it lifted above the
horizon shortly before 5 O'Clock Sat
urday morning. But the eastern sky
was clouded and the hairy spectacle,
whose period of about rs years was
computed by Edmund HALEY. was in
visible from this point. Morning
watch will be maintained, however,
when there is the least promise of
clarity of atmosphere, and it is hoped
that local notes may soon be available
in regard to the characteristics of the
celestial wonder as seen from our own
observatory.
AS the comet swings westward of
the sun, heading for the earth, the tail
will present "a beautiful spectacle, but
as it nears the earth, its orbit at the
point of nearest contact being only
about IA, zoo, 900 miles from us, the
tail will point more and more directly
toward us, and on May Is the earth
for several hours will be enveloped In
the gaseous matter, whatever it may
be. of which that hairy appendage is
composed. SO raYified that 1t has been
said by scientists that am entire comet
could be confined in a high hat.
The tail is about so, 900, 900 miles
long, and the earth will cut through it
only ID, 900. 900 miles from the nucleus.
Observers will give the keenest atten-
tion to chances of possible glow in
our atmosphere, but they expect little
or nothing to indicate the presence
of cometic matter. In our longitude |
we shall pass through the tail at night
The people of the antipodes, and as
far east as Hawaii, may see a transit
Inf tho Pnmnf anrncG tho dicn nf thn |
sun.
One of the astronomers of the Allie
gheny Observatory said last evening
that this Is the first instance when
actual passage of the earth through
any part of a comet could be exactly
computed in advance. In the case of
other comets so intimated with us
their appearance was unexpected and
the time insufficient for such compu-
tation. After the event had occurred,
however. it was known that in 1861
the earth actually passed through the
head of a comet and in 1881 through
the tail of another. Nobody was
aware of this at the moment of con-
tact, though some imaginative obser-
vers assumed to have seen a fiery at
%mosphere. Halley's comet has been
so deliberate in its movements that
exact computation has been made of
it's various positions, with the result
that it is known that we of this long
itude will begin to pass through the
tail at about 9 o'clock the evening of
May IS and will be passing through
Il for about three hours.