Salt Lake Tribune | 1919-08-10 | Page 35 | Rain of Starts will Appear August 10 Earth will Pass through Meteor Orbit

Rain of Stars Will Appear August 10 3 & Earth Will Pass Through Meteor Orbit j liORDAME equatorial telescope, capable of carrying a magnifying power of 1600 diameters, virtually bringing the A MX moon, which, is 240,000 miles distant, within 150 miles of the earth. The reflector is of sixteen inches aperture j and ten feet focaMength. Insert, Alfred Rordame, astrononmer. , " A -.i t v.Wl-V ,'-',; . i XS; . s i iL v . J x ' t pears as though seen through several yards of running water. With the giant telescope on Mt. Wilson and at Yevkes observatory a magnifying power much above 500 diameters is seldom used, and the best drawings of planets have been made with powers ranging from 250 to 450. On account of the general slate of the atmosphere in this city, the large telescope can be used on only a few nig-hta during the year, therefore the smaller telescope of six and one-half inches nperturo mounted on the same equatorial axis is used more frequently. The largo telescope is made by Mel-li Mel-li ah, the smaller by iirnshear, who is tho maker of the seventy-two inch reflector re-flector of tho Dominion observatory, Canada. Astronomer Describes the Qualities of Rordame Equatorial Telescope. By ALTEED EORDAME, Memter Astronomical Society of the Pacific. WHEX wo think of space, wo are likely to imagine an empty void, save where the massive bodies of suns and planets -with an occasional comet occupy a comparatively compara-tively small part of it; but the fljity is far otherwise. Space is filleii-tfeih innumerable small, dark bodies, wh'tfch traverse it in all directions, and, rjiicy-inp; rjiicy-inp; the laws of gravitation, Tcvolve around the stars of which our own sun is one. Our most powerful telescopes tele-scopes have been unable to show us these bodies in space. It is only when one of them striltes our atmosphere that it becomes visible. When a meteor collides -with the earth, it is called a shooting star. It never reaches the surface, but by its impact ujitin our atmosphere is heated to incandescence in Jho same way thajt a bullet is heated by striking a target, with this difference, that the heat deJ veloped by the passage of the meteor through the atmosphere is so iiSMkjJf that, it is dissipated in vapor wJT very few seeonds. j Shower to Occur in Augu. When a meteor is so large tlit if not 1 entirely consumed in its J through tho atmosphere, it falls V, earth and is then called a meteoriitr1 vjv fireball. 1 ,: A few minutes ' watching of tho sky at this lime of the year will be sure to reveal one or more of these swiftly moving points of light, which dart across the sky in ail directions, and which seem to radiate or diverge from one point, called the radiant,, situated in the northeastern sky in tho constellation constel-lation Perseus. They belong to a swarm of meteoric porticos which fevolve around the sun in an elongated ellipse, traveling in the track of the comet of lSri'2. the aphelion of which extends fur beyond the orbit of Neptune, the outermost planet of the solar system. They are. called the August meteors, and .are nlw.'ivs visible for two weeks before and after tho maximum, which falls on August 10. Earth Passes Through Meteors. The plane of the meteor's orbit cuts that of the earth's almost perpendicularly, perpendicu-larly, so that the velocity of each meteor me-teor combined with that of the earth, amounts to about thirty-evno miles per second, or a hundred times tho speed of a rifle bullet. Each meteor is about fifty miles from its neighbor, and the earth takes a month in crossing the stream, traveling 60,000,000 miles in that time, and does this year after year, without any seeming diminution of numbors. A closo connection between moteors and comets is now generally conceded; at least two other meteoric showers coincide co-incide with the passage of the earth across comets 1 orbits, and a pieeo of Bicla's comet was, according to several high nulhorities, picked up a); Mazapil, in northern Mexico, during a shower of tho Andromid moteors.- I have been requested by a great nianj' to say a word concerning the dire prophecies lately put forth by the sensation mongers. These persons, whose predictions never in any one instance have been known to materialize, have always laid great. stress upon a supposed connection between the movements of the heavenly bodies and terrestrial events, for which there is absolutely no foundation. Astrology Not Scientific. The earth pursues the even tenor of its ways in its orbit in the same manner, man-ner, that it has dono through the ages. Conjunctions with the , other planets have happened a million times, nnd the t.trth has romained uninfluenced save agencies of a material kind. Mankind' Man-kind' have pursued their own devices, have been born, married and died, hnve had their wars and killed off millions; vet have produced no more impression tn the other bodies of the solar system )a. to speak of the universe) than so cpAny ants. mMan 's egotism has gone so far that Jto imagines that the heavens aro concerned con-cerned with his destinies, nnd that the -shooting star marks ihc departure of a spirit. So far is this from being the reality that should the greatest and best man hanpen to be placed in a meteor's me-teor's path during its fall, he would be as instantly destroyed as the most insignificant in-significant insect. Astrology, as has been shown for the last 300 years, is arrant nonsense; nnd sun spot cranks who claim to foretell weather, months and vears in advance, are no more to be relied upon than the African witch-doctor who seeks to pry into the futuro by tho nid of his fetish. Telescope Has Great Power. The Rordame equatorial telescope is ; a Newtonian reflector of sixteen I inches nperturo and ten feet focal I length. It is capable of carrying a t magnifying power of ItiOfl diameters, I virtually hringing the moon, which is I 240.000 miles distant, within 150 miles of the earth. No such magnifying power is used in practice, however, as the atmosphere at-mosphere of the earth is magnified in the same proportion, and as the latter is never perfectly still, the moon looked at with this high magnifying power-ap-