OCR Text |
Show Astronomic Dilettantes Find New Planetary Denizen o h ' ' " Principal F. D. Keeler and Miss Rubetta Moor-j- j head First in Salt Lake to Gaze Upon ! Heavenly Wonder. DOESN'T matter a hit who in Baker, Ore., or In Green River, Wyo., discovered dis-covered the new Htar in the constel-i.'ition constel-i.'ition Aquila. Principal K. D. Keller claims and insists upon tht distiEic-1 distiEic-1 ! tion In Salt Lake. Mr. Keeler i principal of the West . Side Hih school. As a diversion he dabbles in astronomy. It is hib hobby. lOach nKiU tie Kaze.s into erherea! zones, reveling in the old and seeking Bornethlng ! new in astronomy. Sunday night, when the mosrjuitoes in his section of the city had been lulled j to slumber, Mr. Keeler leaned asainst his M 1 bedroom casement for a last lon peep , . into the heavens. First off he let his gaze wander to the north, then to the east, d Ihen to the south, and then the west. : The spangled dome of heaven shone re- eiplendent with Htarry ylory, but apparently apparent-ly thero wasn't a thing up yonder that waa not. there on Saturday night, or any other w night, for yearn. Generally wpeaking, there is nothing studding heaven's high arch, from the lowliest star to the most important planet, li with which Mr. Keeler is not familiar. He "knoweth the number of the stars ' and calleth them all hy their names." His nocturnal hours are all devoted to ;i astronomy and such classical things. If he could, he would tsoar far beyond things 1 1 terrestlal and lodge with the things celes- I tial. ' For some time after he settled to the l ' anniug task Sunday night things up f1 above seemed unchanged from the night ' before, and although his gaze searcTied P every section of the firmament for some 1 time, nothing out of the ordlnery showed up. " It was along about li p. m. that Mr. Keeler let his weather eye wander toward ! the eiint. just above Lho eastern horizon, I or offing. And there, wonder of won-' won-' ders. he beheld a sight good for astrono-' astrono-' 1 mlcally sore oye. Brand New Star. It waa a star; a brand new star, and .such a star as It was. It shone forth resplendent In Its newness, which never a p scratch to dim its factory-made lustre. I For minutes the boliolder stood enrap tured and entranced; held spellbound by i , tho dazzling glitter of a beauteous eye that seemed to dim all else about. The combination of scintillation and joy over 0 the discovery mesmerized Mr. Keeler, and in rapturo he forgot other things. , , Then the telephone bell tinkled. It was a rude awakening, and for a moment or two Mr. Keeler Ignored the sound. It became Insistent and he answered. 1, "This is Miss Moorhead; have you seen the new star in the east?" she said. The r rofessnr admitted he had. and then ' j 1 (he two compared notes. Mr. Keeler had 1 made his discovery nearly an hour earlier 1 . than Miss Moorhead had. So to him goes 1 lie honor of the finding. Miss Rubetta ' '. , Moorhead is a school teacher, and she, too, " : dabbles in astronomy. ' 1 The most recent addition to the ' spangling of the heavenly dome is located. I according to the discoverer, southeast of II ! 1 lie big dipper and Vega, and forms a h : part of the constellation Aquila. It is the r - I first star of importance discovered since a new star appeared in the constellation ; Perseus, which is said to be the most 1 important star of modern times. It held p!;. ce with the other important heavenly bodies just a few months, and then was, aet-niingly, snuffed out. The star discovered by Mr. Keeler was watched narrowly un til after 2 o'clock Monday morning, and gathered brilliance as it lived. - Sees It Sunday. "The new star which astronomers reported re-ported to have discovered Saturday night attracted my attention at 10 o'clock Sunday Sun-day evening," said Mr. Keeler last night. "U was then about 3j degrees above the eastern horizon. Examination of star maps in my possession disclosed no star of this magnitude in this part of the heavens. heav-ens. I had about concluded that it was a new star that might have been discovered discov-ered some time ago, the announcement of which I had not seen, when Miss Rubetta Moorhead, a teacher of the Webster school, telephoned me that she had discovered a rew slar that was not on her star charts. We both concluded that it must be a real 'nova' which had not been announced, and at midnight I communicated with Mr. Rordame, the local astronomer, announcing the discovery. He assured me that I must have mistaken Acturus, a star further to the west, for a 'nova.' Upon examining the newcomer, however, he told me that it surely was a new star. I am giving you this explanation in order that honors may be passed around. Last Noted Star. "The last noted temporary star. Nova Persei. appeared in the northwestern sky on February 21, 1901, having the magnitude magni-tude of the pole-star. In three days It increased its brilliance 25, 000-fold, outshining out-shining every other star in the sky with the possible exception of Sirius. By the first of April it was barely visible to the naked eye. Spectroscopic examination examina-tion of thid star showed that it was nebular, the nebula having a diameter of at least 1500 times the diameter of the earth's orbit As the' star had no perceptible per-ceptible parallax, its distance must have been at least "00 light years. Or, in other words, ft took light, traveling at the rate of lS5,6f)0 miles per second. 300 years to get to the earth from this star. Therefore, the collision or cataclysm that produced the light from this star occurred before 1601 (six years before Jamestown was founded), and we received the knowledge knowl-edge just seventeen years ago! Barnard Given Credit. "The new star at 2 o'clock this morning morn-ing was seemingly brighter than it w-as at 10 o'clock, and may increase in brilliance to the extent that It will outshine Nova Perse!.' Alfred Rordame. local member of the Astronomical society of the Pacific, gives c red i t for d iseovery of the new star to Professor Barnard at Green River. Wyo., while press dispatches credit the finding to astronomers in Baker City, Ore. Mr. Rordame says Professor Barnard first saw the shiner June S, and the Baker City folks are said to have seen it the same night. Mr. Rordame estimates the star has been traveling 4000 years to get into the earth's public eye, and has been making 1S6.000 miles a second since it got hitting on all cylinders. |