The Project Gutenberg EBook of Recreations in Astronomy, by Henry Warren

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Title: Recreations in Astronomy
With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work

Author: Henry Warren

Release Date: April 14, 2005 [EBook #15620]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RECREATIONS IN ASTRONOMY ***

Produced by Robert J. Hall.

[Page ii]
[Illustration: THE CONSTELLATIONS OF ORION AND TAURUS.

NOTES.--Star a in Taurus is red, has eight metals; moves east (page
227). At o above tip of right horn is the Crab Nebula (page 219).
In Orion, a is variable, has five metals; recedes 22 miles per
second. b, d, e, x, r, etc., are double stars, the component parts
of various colors and magnitudes (page 212, note). l and i are
triple; s, octuple; th, multiple, surrounded by a fine Nebula (page
218).]

[Page iii]
RECREATIONS IN ASTRONOMY

WITH

_DIRECTIONS FOR PRACTICAL EXPERIMENTS AND TELESCOPIC WORK_

BY

HENRY WHITE WARREN, D.D.

AUTHOR OF "SIGHTS AND INSIGHTS; OR, KNOWLEDGE BY TRAVEL," ETC.

WITH EIGHTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS OF STARS

[Page v]
[Greek:
TAEI PSUCHAEI
TAEI AGAPAETAEI
ASTRAPOUSAEI
KAI
ISAGGEDOI]

[Page vii]
PREFACE.

All sciences are making an advance, but Astronomy is moving at the
double-quick. Since the principles of this science were settled
by Copernicus, four hundred years ago, it has never had to beat
a retreat. It is rewritten not to correct material errors, but
to incorporate new discoveries.

Once Astronomy treated mostly of tides, seasons, and telescopic
aspects of the planets; now these are only primary matters. Once
it considered stars as mere fixed points of light; now it studies
them as suns, determines their age, size, color, movements, chemical
constitution, and the revolution of their planets. Once it considered
space as empty; now it knows that every cubic inch of it quivers with
greater intensity of force than that which is visible in Niagara.
Every inch of surface that can be conceived of between suns is more
wave-tossed than the ocean in a storm.

The invention of the telescope constituted one era in