[Gutenberg 19395] • The New Heavens

Classic astronomy book forever.

This version included Table of Contents and numerous Illustrration annotated with an author BIOGRAPHY and HONORS.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

CHAPTER I

THE NEW HEAVENS

EARLY INSTRUMENTS

Fig. 2. The Great Nebula in Orion (Pease).

Fig. 3. Model by Ellerman of summit of Mount Wilson, showing the observatory buildings among the trees and bushes.

Fig. 4. The 100-inch Hooker telescope.

STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE

Fig. 5. Erecting the polar axis of the 100-inch telescope.

MODERN METHODS

Fig. 6. Lowest section of tube of 100-inch telescope, ready to leave Pasadena for Mount Wilson.

Fig. 7. Section of a steel girder for dome covering the 100-inch telescope, on its way up Mount Wilson.

REFRACTORS AND REFLECTORS

Fig. 8. Erecting the steel building and revolving dome that cover the Hooker telescope.

Fig. 9. Building and revolving dome, 100 feet in diameter, covering the 100-inch Hooker telescope.

100-INCH TELESCOPE

Fig. 10. One-hundred-inch mirror, just silvered, rising out of the silvering-room in pier before attachment to lower end of telescope tube. (Seen above.)

Fig. 11. The driving-clock and worm-gear that cause the 100-inch Hooker telescope to follow the stars.

Fig. 12. Large irregular nebula and star cluster in Sagittarius (Duncan).

Fig. 13. Faint spiral nebula in the constellation of the Hunting Dogs (Pease).

Fig. 14. Spiral nebula in Andromeda, seen edge on (Ritchey).

ATMOSPHERIC LIMITATIONS

CRITICAL TESTS

Fig. 15. Photograph of the moon made on September 15, 1919, with the 100-inch Hooker telescope (Pease).

Fig. 16. Photograph of the moon made on September 15, 1919, with the 100-inch Hooker telescope (Pease).

Fig. 17. Hubble's Variable Nebula. One of the few nebulæ known to vary in brightness and form.

CLOSE DOUBLE STARS

Fig. 18. Ring Nebula in Lyra, photographed with the 60-inch (Ritchey) and 100-inch (Duncan) telescopes.

CHAPTER II

GIANT STARS

Fig. 19. Gaseous prominence at the sun's limb, 140,000 miles high (Ellerman).

Fig. 20. The sun, 865,000 miles in diameter, from a direct photograph showing many sun-spots (Whitney)

STAR IMAGES

Fig. 21. Great sun-spot group, August 8, 1917 (Whitney).

THE INTERFEROMETER

Fig. 22. Photograph of the hydrogen atmosphere of the sun (Ellerman).

A LABORATORY EXPERIMENT

Fig. 23. Diagram showing outline of the 100-inch Hooker telescope, and path of the two pencils of light from a star when under observation with the 20-foot Michelson interferometer.

THE 20-FOOT INSTRUMENT

Fig. 24. Twenty-foot Michelson interferometer for measuring star diameters, attached to upper end of the skeleton tube of the 100-inch Hooker telescope.

THE GIANT BETELGEUSE

Fig. 25. The giant Betelgeuse (within the circle), familiar as the conspicuous red star in the right shoulder of Orion (Hubble).

Fig. 26. Arcturus (within the white circle), known to the Arabs as the "Lance Bearer," and to the Chinese as the "Great Horn" or the "Palace of the Emperors" (Hubble).

STELLAR EVOLUTION

Fig. 27. The giant star Antares (within the white circle), notable for its red color in the constellation Scorpio, and named by the Greeks "A Rival of Mars" (Hubble).

TWO OTHER GIANTS

Fig. 28 Diameters of the Sun

Fig. 29. Aldebaran, the "leader" (of the Pleiades), was also known to the Arabs as "The Eye of the Bull," "The Heart of the Bull," and "The Great Camel" (Hubble).

CHAPTER III

COSMIC CRUCIBLES

SOLAR HELIUM

Fig. 30.