Abstract
IF it be true that science advances through failures, the clouds which prevented the observation of the total eclipse of the sun last Sunday may be a blessing in disguise. During the past quarter of a century, several astronomers have taken up the problem of discovering a means of photographing the corona in broad daylight, but the results have not been very encouraging. In the photography of solar prominences, Prof. Hale and Dr. Deslandres have obtained distinctly valuable pictures, and, were it possible to delineate the corona with the same success on any day when the sun is shining, our knowledge of the nature of that solar appendage would increase much more rapidly than it can at present, when the only opportunities for studying it are afforded by the brief moments of totality of a solar eclipse. Perhaps last Sunday's experience will induce solar physicists to give further attention to the artificial reproduction of eclipse conditions. It is, of course, not suggested that every-day observations will make eclipse expeditions unnecessary—there will be work for astronomers during solar eclipses for a long time to come—but if it were possible to carry out systematic researches on the structure and constitution of the solar surroundings, instead of depending entirely upon the rare intervals when the photosphere is obscured, several moot points might be settled before the end of this century.
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The Eclipse of the Sun. Nature 54, 344–345 (1896). https://doi.org/10.1038/054344a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/054344a0