We have seen that some of the most brilliant inspirations of god-like
intellects, or some of the most pestilential emanations from infected
minds, have been attempts to account for the virtual changelessness of
the stars. Above all other data of astronomy, that virtual
changelessness of positions stands out as a crucial circumstance in my
own mind. To account for constellations that have not changed in 2,000
years, astronomers say that they conceive of inconceivable distances. We
shall have expressions of our own upon the virtually changeless
positions of the stars; but there will be difficulties for us if the
astronomers ever have found that some stars move around or with other
stars. I shall take up the story of Prof. Struve and the “Companion of
Procyon,” with more detail, for the sake of some more light upon
refinement, exactness, accuracy in astronomy, and for the sake of
belittling, or for the sake of sneering, or anything else that anybody
may choose to call it.
Prof. Struve’s announcement of his discovery of the “Companion of
Procyon” is published in _Monthly Notices_, 33-430—that, upon the 19th
of March, 1873, Struve had discovered the companion of Procyon, having
compared it micrometrically, having tested his observations with three
determinations of position-angle, three measures of distance, and three
additional determinations of position-angle, finding all in “excellent
agreement.” No optical illusion could be possible, it is said, because
another astronomer, Lindemann, had seen the object. Technically, Struve
publishes a table of his observations: sidereal time, distances,
position-angles; from March 19 to April 2, 1873, after which his
observations had to be discontinued until the following year. In
_Monthly Notices_, 34-355, are published the resumed observations.
Struve says that Auwers would not accept the discovery, unless, in the
year that had elapsed, the “companion” had shown increase in position,
consistent with theory. Struve writes—“This increase has really shown
itself in the most remarkable manner.” Therefore, he considers it
“decisively established” that the object of his observations was the
object of Auwers’ calculations. He says that Ceraski, of Moscow, had
seen the “companion,” “without being warned of the place where it was to
be looked for.”
However—see back some chapters.
It may be said that, nevertheless, other stars have companions that do
move as they should move. Later we shall consider this subject, thinking
that it may be that lights have been seen to change position near some
stars, but that never has a star revolved around another star, as to fit
palæo-astronomic theory it should. I take for a basis of analogy that
never has one sat in a park and watched a tree revolve around one, but
that given the affliction, or the endowment, of an astronomer, illusion
of such a revolution one may have. We sit in a park. We notice a tree.
Wherever we get the notion, we do have the notion that the tree has
moved. Then, farther along, we notice another tree, and, as an
indication of our vivid imagination or something else, we think it is
the same tree, farther along. After that we pick out tree after tree,
farther along, and, convinced that it is the same tree, of course
conclude that the thing is revolving around us. Exactness and refinement
develop: we compute the elements of its orbit. We close our eyes and
predict where the tree will be when next we look; and there, by the same
process of selection and identification, it is where it “should” be. And
if we have something of almost everybody’s mania for speed, we make that
dam thing spin around with such velocity that we, too, reel in a chaos
of very much unsettled botanic conventions. There is nothing far-fetched
in this analogy, except the factor of velocity. Goldschmidt did announce
that there were half a dozen faint points of light around Sirius, and it
was Dawes’ suspicion that Clark had arbitrarily picked out one of them.
It is our expression that all around Sirius, at various distances from
Sirius, faint points of light were seen, and that at first, even for the
first sixteen years, astronomers were not thoroughly hypnotized, and
would not pick out the especial point of light that they should have
picked out, so that there was nothing like agreement between the
calculated and the observed orbit. Besides the irreconcilable
observations noted by Flammarion, see the _Intel. Obs._, 1-482, for
others. Then came standardized seeing. So, in the _Observatory_, 20-73
is published a set of observations, in the year 1896, upon the
“Companion of Sirius,” placing it exactly where it should be.
Nevertheless, under this set of observations is published another set,
so different that the Editor asks—“Does this mean that there are two
companions?”
Dark Companions require a little more eliminative treatment. So the
variable nebulæ, then—and do dark nebulæ revolve around light nebulæ?
For instances of variable nebulæ, see _Mems. R. A. S._, 49-214; _Comptes
Rendus_, 59-637; _Monthly Notices_, 38-104. It may be said that they are
not of the Algol-type. Neither is Algol, we have shown.
According to the compulsions of data, our idea is that the stars that
seem to be fixed in position are fixed in position, so now “proper
motion” is as irreconcilable to us as relative motions.
As to “proper motion,” the situation is this:
The stars that were catalogued 2,000 years ago have virtually not
changed, or, if there be refinement in modern astronomy, have changed no
more than a little more nearly exact charting would account for; but, in
astronomic theory, the stars are said to be thought of as flying apart
at unthinkable velocity; so then evidence of changed positions of stars
is welcome to astronomers. As to well-known constellations, it can not
be said that there has been change; so, with several exceptions, “proper
motion” is attributed to stars that are not well-known.
The result is an amusing trap. Great proper motion is said to indicate
relative nearness to this earth. Of the twenty-five stars of supposed
greatest proper motion, all but two are faintest of stars; so these
twenty-three are said to be nearest this earth. But when astronomers
take the relative parallax of a star, by reference to a fainter star,
they agree that the fainter star, because fainter, is farther away. So
one time faintness associates with nearness, and then conveniences
change, and faintness associates with farness, and the whole subject so
associates with humorousness, that if we’re going to be serious at all
in these expressions of ours we had better pass on.
* * * * *
_Observatory_, March, 1914:
A group of three stars that disappeared.
If three stars disappeared at once, they were acted upon by something
that affected all in common. Try to think of some one force that would
not tear the seeable into visible rags, that could blot out three stars,
if they were trillions of miles apart. If they were close together that
ends the explanation that only because stars are trillions of miles
apart have they, for at least 2,000 years, seemed to hold the same
relative positions.
In Agnes Clerke’s _System of the Stars_, are cited many instances of
stars that seem to be so closely related that it seems impossible to
think that they are trillions, or billions, or millions of miles apart:
such formations as “seven aligned stars appearing to be strung on a
silvery filament.” There are loops of stars in a cluster in Auriga;
lines and arches in Ophiuchus; zig-zag figures in Sagittarius. As to
stars that not only seem close together but that are colored alike, Miss
Clerke expresses her feeling that they are close together—“If these
colors be inherent, it is difficult to believe that the stars
distinguished by them are simply thrown together by perspective.” As to
figures in Sagittarius, Fison (_Recent Advances in Astronomy_) cites an
instance of 30 small stars in the form of a forked twig, with dark rifts
parallel. According to Fison, probability is overwhelmingly against the
three uncommon stars in the belt of Orion falling into a straight line,
by chance distribution, considering also that below this line is another
of five faint stars parallel. There are dark lanes or rifts in the Milky
Way that are like branches from main lanes or rifts, and the rifts
sometimes have well-defined edges. In many regions where there are dark
rifts there are lines of stars that are roughly parallel—
That it is not distances apart that have held the stars from changing
relatively to one another, because there are hosts of indications that
some stars are close together, and are, or have been, affected, in
common, by local formative forces.
* * * * *
For a detailed comparison, by J. E. Gore, of stars of today with stars
catalogued by Al-Sufi, about 1,000 years ago, see the _Observatory_,
vol. 23. The stars have not changed in position, but it does seem that
there have been many changes in magnitude.
Other changes—_Pubs. Astro. Soc. Pacific_, No. 185 (1920)—discovery of
the seventeenth new star in one nebula (Andromeda). For lists of stars
that have disappeared, see _Monthly Notices_, 8-16; 10-18; 11-47;
_Sidereal Messenger_, 6-320; _Jour. B. A. A._, 14-255. Nebulæ that have
disappeared—see _Amer. Jour. Sci._, 2-33-436; Clerke’s _System of the
Stars_, p. 293; _Nature_, 30-20.
In the _Sidereal Messenger_, 5-269, Prof. Colbert writes that, upon
August 20, 1886, an astronomer, in Chicago, saw, for about half an hour,
a small comet-like projection from the star _Zeta_, in Cassiopeia.
So, then, changes have been seen at the distance of the stars.
When the new star in Perseus appeared, in February, 1901, it was a point
of light. Something went out from it, giving it in six months a diameter
equal to half the apparent diameter of the moon. The appearances looked
structural. To say loosely that they were light-effects, something like
a halo, perhaps, is to ignore their complexity and duration and
differences. According to Newcomb, who is occasionally quotable in our
favor, these radiations were not mere light-rays, because they did not
go out uniformly from the star, but moved out variously and knotted and
curved.
It was visible motion, at the distance of Nova Persei.
In _Monthly Notices_, 58-334, Dr. Espin writes that, upon the night of
Jan. 16, 1898, he saw something that looked like a cloud in Perseus. It
could have been nothing in the atmosphere of this earth, nor anything
far from the constellation, because he saw it again in Perseus, upon
Jan. 24. He writes that, upon Feb. 17, Mr. Heath and Dr. Halm saw it,
like a cloud, dimming and discoloring stars shining through it. At the
meeting of the British Astronomical Association, Feb. 23, 1898 (_Jour.
B. A. A._, 8-216) Dr. Espin described this appearance and answered
questions. “It was not a nebula, and was not like one.” “Whatever it was
it had the peculiar property of dimming and blotting out stars.”
This thing moved into Perseus and then moved away.
Clerke, _The System of the Stars_, p. 295—a nebula that changed position
abruptly, between the years 1833 and 1835, and then changed no more.
According to Sir John Herschel, a star was central in this nebula, when
observed in 1827, and in 1833, but, in August, 1835, the star was upon
the eastern side of the nebula.
That it is not distance from this earth that has kept changes of
position of the stars from being seen, for 2,000 years, because
occasional, abrupt changes of position have been seen at the distance of
the stars.
* * * * *
That, whether there be a shell-like, revolving composition, holding the
stars in position, and in which the stars are openings, admitting light
from an existence external to the shell, or not, all stars are at about
the same distance from this earth, as they would be, if this earth were
stationary and central to such a shell, revolving around it—
According to the aberration-forms of the stars.
All stars, at the pole of the ecliptic, describe circles annually; stars
lower down describe ellipses that reduce more and more the farther down
they are, until at the ecliptic they describe straight lines yearly.
Suppose all the stars to be openings, fixed in position relatively to
one another, in some inter-spacing substance. Conceive of a gyration to
the whole aggregation, and relatively to a central and stationary earth:
then, as seen from this earth, all would describe circles, near the
axis, ellipses lower down, and straight lines at the limit of
transformation. If all were at the same distance from this earth, or if
all were points in one gyrating concave formation, equi-distant at all
points from the central earth, all would have the same amplitude. All
aberration-forms of the stars, whether of brilliant or faint stars,
whether circles or ellipses or straight lines have the same amplitude:
about 41 seconds of arc.
* * * * *
If all stars are points of light admitted from externality, held fixed
and apart in one shell-like composition that is opaque in some parts and
translucent in some parts and perforated generally—