Abstract
THE FLEXURE OF MERIDIAN INSTRUMENTS.—In a paper which forms Appendix III. to the “Washington Observations” for 1882, Prof. Harkness has made an exhaustive discussion of the subject of flexure, and the means available for eliminating its effects from star-places. He discusses separately the flexure of transit instruments and of vertical circles. The former are divided into two classes, according as their telescopes are straight or bent, but it is in the latter form that the effects of flexure are by far the greatest, the flexure-coefficients being in some instances as much as 0.55s. Prof. Harkness shows that the effect of flexure cannot be satisfactorily eliminated from the concluded right ascension of a star by simply taking the mean of the four results obtained by observing it directly and by reflection with the clamp of the instrument both west and east. It is better in his opinion to determine for each instrument the necessary corrections to be applied by means of the methods and formulae explained in this paper.
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Our Astronomical Column . Nature 34, 39–40 (1886). https://doi.org/10.1038/034039a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/034039a0