Abstract
THE TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE (APRIL, 1893).—In Comptes Rendus for March 15 (No. 20) M. Deslandres gives a brief preliminary account of some of the main results that he has been able to gather from the photographs taken by him during the recent total solar eclipse. The instrumental equipment that he had, enabled him to obtain photographs of the corona, to study its spectrum, to examine the coronal light in the most refrangible part of the ultra-violet region, and to measure the rotation of the corona by the method of the displacement of lines in the spectrum. The coronal photographs showed luminous jets of a length equal to twice the diameter of the sun, while the general outline had a form somewhat usual at times of maxima spot frequency. With regard to the spectroscopic results, the large dispersion that was employed in one case was found to have been too great; but from the photographs taken with the small dispersive instrument at least fifteen new coronal and chromospherical lines have been discovered. Perhaps the most interesting results obtained relate to the rotation of the corona. The negatives showed the spectra of two points exactly on opposite sides of the corona, situated in the equatorial plane of the sun, at a distance equal to two-thirds of his diameter. The lines in the spectra indicated large displacements, which on measurement were found to correspond to velocities of 5 and 7 kilometres. The conclusion to be gathered from such a result as this is that the corona must travel nearly with the disc in its motion and thus be subject to its periodical rotational movement.
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Our Astronomical Column. Nature 48, 81–82 (1893). https://doi.org/10.1038/048081a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/048081a0