Stargazing: Past and Present

by Sir Norman Lockyer

Fig. 155.—Section of Main Building—United States Naval Observatory, showing support of Equatorial.

The very high magnifying power employed upon equatorials in the finest states of the air necessitates a very firm foundation for the central pillar. The best position for such an instrument is on the ground, but it is almost always necessary to make them high in order to be able to sweep the whole horizon. The accompanying woodcut will give an idea of the precautions that have to be taken under these circumstances. A solid pillar must be carried up from a concrete foundation, and there must be no contact between this and the walls or floors of the building, when the dome thus occupies the centre of the observatory. The other rooms, generally built adjoining the equatorial room, radiate from the dome, east and west, not sufficiently high to interfere with the outlook of the equatorial. In one of these the transit is placed; an opening is made in the walls and roof, so that it has an unimpeded view when swung from north through the zenith to south, and this is closed when the instrument is not in use by shutters similar to those of the dome.

CHAPTER XXIII.
THE SIDEROSTAT.

At one of the very earliest meetings of the Royal Society, the difficulties of mounting the long focus lenses of Huyghens being under discussion, Hooke pointed out that all difficulties would be done away with if instead of giving movement to the huge telescope itself, a plane mirror were made to move in front of it. This idea has taken two centuries to bear fruit, and now all acknowledge its excellence.

One of the most recent additions to astronomical tools is the Siderostat, the name given to the instrument suggested by Hooke. By its means we can make the sun or stars remain virtually fixed in a horizontal telescope fixed in the plane of the meridian to the south of the instrument, instead of requiring the usual ponderous mounting for keeping a star in the field of view.

It consists of a mirror driven by clockwork so as to continually reflect the beam of light coming from a star, or other celestial object, in the same direction; the principle consisting in so moving the mirror that its normal shall always bisect the angle subtended at the mirror by the object and the telescope or other apparatus on which the object is reflected.

Fig. 156.—Foucault’s Siderostat.

It was Foucault who, towards the end of his life, thought of the immense use of an instrument of this kind as a substitute for the motion of equatorials; he, however, unfortunately did not live to see his ideas realized, but the Commission for the purpose of carrying out the publication of the works of Foucault directed Mr. Eichens to construct a siderostat, and this one was presented to the Academy of Science on December 13th, 1869, and is now at the Paris Observatory. Since that date others have been produced, and they have every chance of coming largely into use, especially in physical astronomy. Fig. [156] shows the elevation of the instrument, the mirror of which, in the case of the instrument at Paris, is thirty centimetres in diameter, and is supported by a horizontal axis upon two uprights, which are capable of revolving freely upon their base. The back of the mounting of the mirror has an extension in the form of a rod at right angles to it, by which it is connected with the clock, which moves the mirror through the medium of a fork jointed at the bottom of the polar axis.

The length of the fork is exactly equal to the distance from the horizontal axis of the mirror to the axis of the joint of the fork to the polar axis, and the direction of the line joining these two points is the direction in which the reflected ray is required to proceed. The fork is moved on its joint to such a position that its axis points to the object to be viewed, and, being carried by a polar axis, it remains pointing to that object as long as the clock drives it, in the same manner as a telescope would do on the same mounting. Then, since the distance from the axis of the mirror to the joint of the fork is equal to the distance from the latter point to the axis of its joint to the sliding tube on the directing rod, an isosceles triangle is formed having the directing rod at its base; the angles at the base are therefore equal to each other.