Astronomical Register: A Medium of Communication for Amateur Observers and All Others Interested in the Science of Astronomy, Volume 3

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J. D. Potter., 1866 - Astronomy

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Page 97 - ... than the region around them ; but this difference in brightness is chiefly apparent near the sun's limb. The reason of this is believed to be, that they are portions of the sun's photosphere thrown up into the higher regions of the atmosphere, by which means they are enabled to escape a great part of the absorbing effect of this atmosphere which is particularly strong near the border ; while near the centre the absorption is not great, so that they do not gain much by escaping it. The idea that...
Page 171 - Lyell — they are sufficient to account for the phenomena of its surface and crust, as made known by Geology, it follows, by parity of reasoning, that they will be sufficient to account also for its original production. The only known phenomenon in which the process of the formation of the Earth as a planet is actually observed, is that of the fall of Meteorites upon it, by which its magnitude is augmented, and that by the addition of materials homogeneous with those of its existing elementary constitution,...
Page 125 - Hence There's strong presumptive evidence None do — or can — such proof propound Because the dogma is unsound. For, were there means of doing so, They would have proved it long ago. This is only one of the alternatives. Proof requires a person who can give and a person who can receive.
Page 96 - Royal and some others as probable that these bodies belong to the sun ; but their connection witli our luminary was put beyond doubt by Mr. De la Rue, who by means of the Kew heliograph was enabled to take photographic pictures of the sun at the total eclipse which happened in Spain in July, 1860. (The photographs were exhibited ; and it was seen that as the moon proceeded over the sun's disc, the red flames and part of the corona discovered themselves at that side which she had left, and were covered...
Page 65 - Positiones medice, with their proper motions computed when practical from earlier observations. Another branch of what, with some propriety, may be called the Physique du del sideral, to which Struve directed much of his attention, was the determination of the law of density in the distribution of the stars with respect to the plane of the Milky Way. His researches on this subject were not indeed published until after he had removed from Dorpat, as we shall speedily see, but it is here, perhaps,...
Page 97 - These consist of an umbra or central darkness, surrounded by a less dark penumbra. Mr. Dawes has discovered in some spots even a deeper darkness in the centre of the umbra. Now, if it be correct to suppose that spots are cavities, of which the umbra forms the bottom and the penumbra the sloping sides, then the umbra ought to encroach on that side of the penumbra which is next the visual centre of the disc.
Page 152 - This being admitted, it follows that the original production of ponderable matter takes place in the stars, and in our Sun as one of them, — a conception to which the author had been led by the preceding and other considerations long before the application of prismatic chemistry to the Sun. The energy set free in the condensation within the Sun, of the highest imponderable matter essential to it into ponderable matter (an expression which is shown not to be a solecism), and eventually into the...
Page 124 - Notes on the Kinematic Effects of Revolution and Rotation, with reference to the Motions of the Moon and of the earth. By Henry Perigal, Jun. Esq. London, 1846-1849, 8vo. On the misuse of technical terms. Ambiguity of the terms Rotation and Revolution, owing to the double meaning improperly attributed to each of the words.
Page 68 - ... first time was in 1830, when it so happened, that a committee was sitting for the improvement of the Nautical Almanack ; he was invited to assist in its deliberations, and by his ability and excellent temper contributed towards bringing its labours to a successful conclusion. In 1844 he came to England for the purpose of determining the difference of longitude between the observatories of Pulkowa and Greenwich. A step had already been taken towards the completion of that important but difficult...
Page 172 - is next briefly considered. All the phenomena they present are regarded as supporting the conclusion that their peculiar relations and community of character are not, as hitherto supposed, effects of their having formerly constituted one heavenly body which has been reduced to fragments, but of their being bodies intrinsically of the same nature, meteoritic masses in fact...

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