The Locomotive - Lighthouse Survival Blog

163 THE LOCOMOTIVE. |November,
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HARTFORD, NOVEMBER 15, 1901.
J. M. Allen, A.M., M.E., Editor. A. D. Risteen, Associate Editor.
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The New Star in Perseus.
In 1892 the astronomical world had an excellent illustration of the fact that there
is still a good chance for an industrious amateur astronomer, to distinguish himself, even
though his instrumental means may be of the poorest; for in January of that year Mr.
Thomas D. Anderson, of Edinburgh, Scotland, armed only with a star atlas and a pocket
spy-glass magnifying ten diameters, discovered a previously unknown star in the con-
stellation Auriga. He could hardly believe that the star had escaped the attention of
the eagle-eyed professional astronomers in charge of the big telescopes in the world's
leading observatories, so he very modestly sent an anonymous postal card about it to
Professor Copeland, Scotland's "astronomer royal," calling his attention to it. The
information was quickly telegraphed over the whole world, and a systematic study of
the stranger was begun at once, with results that were almost startling. Let us quote a
few words about what happened, from The Locomotive of November, 1892
"It happened that numerous photographs of this part of the sky had been made at
the Harvard College Observatory at about the time of Anderson's discovery, and a sub-
sequent examination of the negatives showed that the star had unobtrusively recorded
itself upon twelve of them, on days ranging from December 12, 1891, to January 20,
1892. At the time of its discovery by Mr. Anderson it was of about the fifth magnitude,
and plainly visible to the eye. A subsequent careful examination of star maps showed
pretty conclusively that nothing had been seen in that place by earlier observers. The
Harvard photograph of December 10th shows it as a star of the fifth magnitude, while a
photograph of the same region made in Germany on December 8th by Max Wolf fails to
show it, although other stars of the ninth magnitude (40 times fainter than stars of the
fifth magnitude) are shown.
"Careful measures of the brightness of the new star were made from day to day,
and it was found to go through a remarkable series of fluctuations, corresponding, no
doubt, to disturbances to which the star was subjected. After the beginning of March
the fluctuations died away, and the star faded rapidly and with considerable regularity,
so that some one suggested that it might furnish us with a test of the accuracy of
Dulong's law of the radiation of heat — though, as we shall see later, it is by no means
certain that the star grew faint on account of loss of heat. So rapidly did it fade that
on March 20th it was fourteen times as faint as it was on March 8th. On April 1st it
was down to the thirteenth magnitude, or perhaps the fourteenth; and on April 24th it
was seen at Mt. Hamilton, and was of the sixteenth magnitude.
"It had gone the way of all other 'new ' stars, and astronomers had given it up as
a phenomenon that was past. But nearly four months later, on August 17th, it was
again seen at the Lick Observatory, appearing as a star of the 10.5th magnitude; and
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