Evening star., 1925-01-25
ASTRONOMERS GET
VALUABLE DATAAS
MOON BLOCKS SUN
Eclipse Reported Most Per-
feet Since Scientific OBJ
SerVation Started.
HUNDREDS OF PHOTOS
OF SPECTACLE OBTAINED
Actual Increases of knowledge
Depend on Detailed Study
of Records.
Rv the Associated PreBI.


ticipated rendezvous yesterday.
Their trysting place was a heaven
curtained with dusk and fringed with
rosy clouds. The occasion was total
solar eclipse of such magnifcence as
humans seldom have seen.
Chaperones were Venus, Jupiter and
Mercury, and the time was s am,
Eastern standard, as astronomical
rumor had whispered 1t would be.
Ecestatic scientists on earth report
ed it the most perfectly executed
union the heavens have portrayed
since man began studying and record
ing such events, instead of hiding
from them in terror-stricllen prayers.
Clsefully they peered through cav
ernous telescopes and cranked huge
cameras, while millions Of other
earth beings stared through smoked
glass, awed and silent.
One Slightly Late.
One Of the trysters-Some said he
and some said she-was five seconds
late. reckoning by the astral calendar
OF scientists. But the meeting lost
none of its zest or glamor thereby,
for it was the first tryst of the sun
and moon in this segment of the
heavens for 1l9 years, and it will be
more than two centuries before they
meet there gain.
Weather conditions for observation
were described as almost generally
perfect throughout, the East, where
most of the fixed obserVatories and
laboratories were located.
Hundreds of telescope records were
made and as many photographs taken
from land, sea and air. Scientists
felt justified in declaring that a huge
fund of informal ton undoubtedly had
been added TO their store of general
and specific knowledge about such
mysteries as the content of the suns
corona, the composition of eclipse
umbra and penumbra, the explanations
of the jumping jackrabbit" of the
moons eclipse shadow, the detection
of light as related to the Einstein
theory, the effect of eclipses upon
earth's climate and tides and gravity.
and its effect upon radio activity,
upon earth's magnetic centers, its
thermometers and its barometers.
Report Notable Successes.
Observatories at New Haven,
Ithaca, Poughkeepsie and Buffalo re-
ported they had been notably success
full in recording this eclipse, as were
others of the IS fixed stations within
the 10O-mile path the moon laid down
from Red Lake, Mimi, to Nantucket
Light.
Astronomers ascending by airplane
to great heights took what they ex
pected would develop into perfect
photographs of all phases of the phe-
nomenon. They had, they said, made
the first pictures ever obtained of the
moons 1O0-foot circular shadow as it
bounded across the continent at light
ming speed.
Other aviators aboard the dEigible
Los Angeles, which had maneuvered
in the sky all night prior to the
eclipse, reported all observations and
photography had been successful.
More privately sponsored eclipse ex-
petitions on land recorded every con-
ceivable phase of the spectacle from
the scientific standpoint.
Hidden by Clouds.
There were whole regions, however,
where vagrant clouds and overcast
skies brought disappointment to
scores of scientists and thousands OF
laymen. In some cases the sun rose
10 a clear space, only to be obscured
as he mounted the path to conjunc-
tion with the moon. In others the
prospect of a glimpse of the eclipse
was never present, and the depressing
SlSnlHcdnCe OF lowering |" "ulBHI III
daytime was the only visible evil
dence that a celestial drama was
being enacted.
Much of Minnesota missed the
eclipse altogether, as did most of
Wisconsin and Michigan, virtually all
that part of Canada which lay in the
path of totality, and sections of New
England.
Government airplanes from Camp
Borden, in Ontario, succeeded in
topping the clouds and making a few
photographs, but elaborate prepara-
tions taken by Canadian astronomers
TO record the spectacle from tempo
rary observatory at Langs Corners,
on the line OF totality, were frus-
trated by overcast skies.
Obtain Much Data.
This station was believed, however,
to have justified its Iabors. for, while
its telescopes and cameras swung idle,
the operators accumulated much sig
nificant electric, magnetic, Their
mOmetric and barometric data.
Sol appeared first to those to whom
today's astral antics were disclosed.
Rising out of the East and beaming
his fullest in the golden-rcd effulgence
of midwinter tOggery. he moved slow
ly and ma gestically to the heavenly
rendezvous.
Luna may have been waiting there
for him-behind a cloud, perhaps
at any rate, her presence was not
discernible to the human eye until
her countenanCe was lined against
the fiery background of the suns
Majestically and gradually. then,
their entities emerged the moon
casting over the path of her shadow
on earth a shroud through which
Soils beams sDlashed family for
while and finally not at all
There came a sudden twilight and
awesome darkness gal oped from
west to east; pearly halo surround
ed a dotted rim of fire suspended in
the heavens where sun and moon had
met
Geysers of Fire.
Moons "Baily Beads" of molten
topaz on a sparkling string flashed
for moment, to be followed by the
pyTotechnics of helium and hydrogen
gases, fiaring and receding a million
miles beyond suns schromosphere.
Beads and corona appeared at the
right of the eclipse at first; later, in
the declining phase of the spectacle,
they reappeared at the left side.
After that the two astral bodies slow
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