Celestial motions |
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61 Cygni afterwards amount aphelion appearance April astronomers axis bright stars calculated called Coggia constellation Date of Discovery density determined diameter double star Earth Earth's orbit eccentricity ecliptic ellipse fixed stars Galileo Goldschmidt Paris Greek Halley Halley's comet heavens Herschel Hipparchus inferior conjunction Jupiter known Latin latter less Luther Bilk magnitude Marseilles mass mean distance Mercury meteoroids meteors miles Moon move in orbits naked eye nearest nearly nebulæ Neptune noticed November observations Observatory orbit round Palisa Pola parabola parallax passed its perihelion Paul Henry Paris perihelion periods of revolution Peters Clinton Place of Discovery planetary Pogson portion principal planets principal stars probably Prof proper motions revolving round ring round the Sun satellites Saturn Scorpio Sept small planets solar system supposed surface Technically applied Tempel tion U.S. Ann Arbor U.S. Marseilles Uranus Ursa Major Venus visible Watson Ann Arbor whilst zodiac
Popular passages
Page 70 - Their names are Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius, Pisces; the whole occupying a complete circle, or broad belt, in the heavens, called the Zodiac.
Page 63 - I am not mistaken, will go to prove, that many of them are not merely double in appearance, but must be allowed to be real binary combinations of two stars, intimately held together by the bond of mutual attraction.
Page 11 - The squares of the times of revolution of any two planets are to each other, in the same proportion as the cubes of their mean distances from the sun.
Page 39 - ... first discovery was made by Mechain in 1786, and that it had been independently discovered on two subsequent occasions, in 1795 and 1805 respectively, being each time supposed to be a new comet. Its period is only about 3J years (the shortest of all), and the last return was about the end of 1881. In many respects the next most remarkable of the periodical comets is, or rather was, that known as Biela's, the periodicity of which was discovered at its return in 1826, when it was first seen by...
Page 56 - April, a star of the fifth magnitude (very conspicuous to the naked eye), in a part of the constellation Ophiuchus where he was certain that, so recently as the 5th of that month, no star so bright as the ninth magnitude was visible ; nor is there any record of a star having been observed there at any previous time. From the date of its discovery it began continuously to diminish in brightness, and it is now visible only through a very powerful telescope.
Page 35 - An old ruined fragment of rock, still serves to mark the place where the were-wolf was slain, and it has ever since been known by the name of the Werewolf's Stone.
Page 54 - ... temporary stars, which have appeared, from time to time, in different parts of the heavens, blazing forth with extraordinary lustre ; and after remaining awhile apparently immovable, have died away, and left no trace. Such is the star which, suddenly appearing in the year 125 BC, is said to have attracted the attention of Hipparchus, and led him to draw up a catalogue of stars, the earliest on record. Such, too, was the star which blazed forth, AD 389, near a Aquilae, remaining for three weeks...
Page 28 - This fact is not indicated in De La Rue's engraving, but the transparent nature of the entire ring is well shewn. On Dec. 3 Lassell, while on a visit to Dawes, saw " something like a crape veil covering a part of the sky within the inner ring...
Page 8 - Sun, and greatest when the Earth is at the other end of that axis, these two points being called respectively the perihelion and the aphelion of the Earth's orbit. Accepting, then, 93,000,000 miles as the Sun's mean distance from us, it is easy to find, by observing his apparent diameter, that his real diameter is about 865,000 miles. This is about 108 times as great as the Earth's, and would make the Sun's volume able to contain the Earth's about 1,300,000 times over.