Astronomy: The Science of the Heavenly Bodies

by David P. Todd

The 100-inch telescope is now in regular use. All the tests so far applied show that it greatly surpasses the 60-inch telescope in every class of work. For many months most of the observations and photographs have been made with the Cassegrain combination of mirrors, giving an equivalent focal length of 134 feet and involving three reflections of light. The 100-inch telescope is found to give nearly 2.8 times as much light as the 60-inch telescope, and therefore extends the scope of the instrument to all the stars an entire magnitude fainter. This is a very important gain for research on the faint globular clusters, as well as the small and faint spiral and planetary nebulæ, providing a much larger scale for these objects and sufficient light at the same time. Photographs of the moon and many other less critical tests have been made with very satisfactory results. Those of the moon appear to be decidedly superior in definition to any previously taken with other instruments.

Another investigation is of great importance in the light of recent advances in theoretical dynamics. Darwin, in his fundamental researches on the dynamics of rotating masses, dealt with incompressible matter, which assumes the well-known pear-shaped figure, and may ultimately separate into two bodies. Roche on the other hand discussed the evolution of a highly compressible mass, which finally acquires a lens-shaped form and ejects matter at its periphery. Both of these are extreme cases. Jeans has recently dealt with intermediate cases, such as are actually encountered in stars and nebulæ. He finds that when the density is less than about one-fourth that of water, a lens-shaped figure will be produced with sharp edges, as depicted by Roche. Matter thrown off at opposite points on the periphery, under the influence of small tidal forces from neighboring masses, may take the form of two symmetric filaments, though it is not yet entirely clear how these may attain the characteristic configuration of spiral nebulæ. The preliminary results of Van Maanen indicate motion outward along the arms, in harmony with Jeans's views.

Jeans further discusses the evolution of the arms, which will break up into nuclei (of the order of mass of the sun) if they are sufficiently massive, but will diffuse away if their gravitational attraction is small. The mass of our solar system is apparently not great enough, according to Jeans, to account for its formation in this way. As is apparent, these investigations lead to conclusions very different from those derived by Chamberlin and Moulton from the planetesimal hypothesis.

This is a critical study of spiral nebulæ for which the 100-inch telescope is of all instruments in existence the best suited. The spectra of the spirals must be studied, as well as the motions of the matter composing the arms. Their parallaxes, too, must be ascertained. A photographic campaign including spiral nebulæ of various types will settle the question of internal motions. The large scale of the spiral nebulæ at the principal focus of the Hooker telescope, and the experience gained in the measurement of nebular nuclei for parallax determination, will help greatly in this research. A multiple-slit spectrograph, already applied at Mount Wilson, will be employed, not only on spiral nebulæ whose plane is directed toward us, but also on those whose plane lies at an angle sufficient to permit both components of motion to be measured by the two methods.

In dealing with problems of structure and motion in the Galactic system, the 100-inch telescope offers especial advantages, because of its vast light-gathering power. Studies of radial velocities of the stars have hitherto been necessarily confined to the brighter stars, for the most part even to those visible to the naked eye. While some of these are very distant, most of the stars whose radial velocities are known belong to a very limited group, perhaps constituting a distinct cluster of which the sun is a member, but in any event of insignificant proportions when contrasted with the Galaxy. Current spectrographic work with the 60-inch telescope includes stars of the eighth magnitude, and some even fainter. But while the 60-inch has enabled Adams to measure the distances of many remote stars by his new spectroscopic method, and to double the known extent (so far as spectroscopic evidence is concerned) of the star streams of Kapteyn, a much greater advance into space is necessary to find out the community of motion among the stars comprising the Galactic system. The Hooker telescope will enable us to determine accurate radial velocities to stars of the eleventh magnitude, which doubtless truly represent the Galaxy.

In order to secure a maximum return within a reasonable period of time, the stars in the selected areas of Kapteyn will be given the preference, because of the vast amount of work already done, relating to their positions, proper motions, and visual and photographic magnitudes. Such consideration as spectral type, the known directions of star-streaming, and the position of the chosen regions with reference to the plane of the Galaxy are given adequate weight, and it is of fundamental importance that the method of spectroscopic parallaxes will permit dwarf stars to be distinguished from stars that are in the giant class, but rendered faint by their much greater distance. In addition to these problems, the stellar spectrograms will provide rich material for study of the relationship between stellar mass and speed, and the nature of giant stars and dwarf stars.

Shapley's recent studies of globular clusters have indicated the significance of these objects in both evolutional and structural problems, and the possibility of determining their parallaxes by a number of independent methods is of prime importance, both in its bearing on the structure of the universe and because it permits a host of apparent magnitudes to be at once transformed into absolute magnitudes. Here the advantage of the Hooker telescope is two-fold: at its 134-foot focus the increased scale of the crowded clusters makes it possible to select separate stars for spectrum photography (which could not be done with the 60-inch where the images were commingled); and the great gain in light is such that the spectra of stars to the 14th magnitude have been photographed in less than an hour.

Faint globular clusters, then, will comprise a large part of the early program with the 100-inch telescope: the faintest possible stars in them must be detected and their magnitudes and colors measured; spectral types must be determined, and the radial velocities of individual stars and of clusters as a whole; spectroscopic evidence of possible axial rotation of globular clusters must be searched for; and the method of spectroscopic parallaxes, as well as other methods, must be applied to ascertaining the distances of these clusters.

The possibility of dealing with many problems relating to the distribution and evolution of the faintest stars depends upon the establishment of photographic and photovisual magnitude scales. Below the twelfth magnitude, the only existing scale of standard visual or photovisual magnitudes is the Mount Wilson sequence, already extended by Seares to magnitude 17.5 with the 60-inch telescope.

Extension of this scale to even fainter magnitudes, and its application to the faintest stars within its range is an important task for this great telescope, as it will doubtless bring within range hundreds of millions of stars that are beyond the reach of the 60-inch. The giants among them will form for us the outer boundary of the Galactic system, while the dwarfs will be of almost equal interest from the evolutional standpoint. The photometric program of the 100-inch, then, will deal with such questions as the condensation of the fainter stars toward the Galactic plane, the color of the most distant stars, and the final settlement of the long inquiry regarding the possible absorption of light in space.