Evening star., 1928-03-18

/ OF every class OF CeleStial OBJECTS were
numbered by tens OF thousands, he
could always recall the day and often
! the hour of any one of them. rs we'll as
the exact details recorded His tireleSs
| enthusiasm and his persistence In the
| heavy task Of observing during the bit
| ter nights of Winter hastened his death
Prof. Barnard was magnificent ex.
ample OF that nigh regard for the exact
/ and unqualified truth which the genu-
Inc man OF science must embody. In
him the passion for honest and undis.
! torted fact dominated every personal
preference and held him far above the
| plane OF those whose chief concern Is
to demonstrate some favorite hypothe-
sis. at whatever disregard of opposing
evidence. No finer illustration OF the
ideals OF science could be found than
this simple. sincere and loyable aStrono-
mer, whose one and only object was 10
| extend the boundaries of knowledge
He greatly succeeded and his name is
| recorded In the rolls OF the foremost
explorers OF the heavens"
| The Carnegie Institution of Wash
lngton became actively interested In
Prof. Barnard'S work In 1907. when a
| grant was made sufficient TO insure pub
lication of the atlas. The long delay
| In reproduction was due chiefly to in
ability OF Prof, Barnard to reach a con-
clusion rs 10 the best method OF repro
ducing the photographs, His decision
was to use the Photographic prints
/ themselves. mounting each one sepa-
! rateiy In each copy OF the atlas. rather
than risk the possible distortion of the
Infinitely delicate details In any engrav
Ing process. Some Of the finest of these
details regarding the contents of the
fannFHaA hs,
plates, while apparently insignificant
IN the light Of present knowledge, may
stand out as extremely important to
astronomers OF the future
The Milky Way. with its millions OF
stars. at present Is the practical bound
ary of mans knowledge of the universe
although there Is good evidence. pre
sented by the Carnegie Institution ot
Washington four years ago. that beyond
II are other stellar systems. each with
millions OF stars. and probably with
| milky way OF their own for persons
living on u planet of any of these
| bodies, These are the spiral nebulae
visible from earth as patches OF whitisi,
cloud. but which remain stationary In
the heavens, At flrst 1t was thought
that they were the parent nehulae ol
| stars. but Carnegie experiments have
shown that they ARE star systems and
not nebulae at all This. our own sys-
tenn, with It's millions of suns, would
appear rs spiral nebula To some
body far outside the system In space
The discovery came when stars were
photographed within the nehulous
forms and when comparison of the
shape showed s,ich close resemblance
| to that ut the star system which we
know. with all It's members moving IN
dennlte directions at terrific sneed
Hut the spiral nehulae are at least a
million light years away.
The astronomical work of the Car
negie Institution Of Washington ID
centered at the Mount Wilson Observa~
tory and covera wide range of sub
leots which require constant teie-
soopic observation and photography
The study of stars and the star system
directly through the lens OF a telescone,
II Is explained by the Carnegie astrol,o-
n,era, now Is largely thing of the
past, The astronomer simply takes a
series ot photographs With the tele-
scope camera, develops the plates aud
studies them AZ hia leisure. In this
way shifts and the appearance ot new
oblecta always can be detected by COM
parison with other photographs of the
same sky region.
The plates of the present atlas,
Carnegie observers point out, WIN
serve even better than the open sky
Itself for intensive atudy, since there
will be NO time element lNyniyea In
their consideration.