Abstract
A COMET ON THE ECLIPSE PHOTOGRAPHS OF 1893.—A year ago Prof. Schaeberle announced that the eclipse photographs taken by him at Chile in April 1893, showed a cometlike structure in the corona near the sun's south pole. The photographs taken by the British observers in Brazil and Africa were examined in order to see if they showed the cometary object, but nothing could then be made out. It is well known, however, that faint objects can be easily found when the observer knows what can be seen, and where to look for it. Prof. Schaeberle and Prof. Holden were confident that a comet was photographed upon the corona of the 1893 eclipse, and, with the idea of obtaining confirmation of the discovery, the latter sent Mr. W. H. Wesley copies from negatives obtained at Chile and Brazil, having marks upon them showing the exact position of the object in question. These guides have fulfilled their purpose, for Mr. Wesley says, in the Observatory, that they clearly point out a cometary structure in the corona. The object is extremely faint, and, unless particular attention is drawn to it, appears like a forked coronal ray. Evidently the only way to prove that the object was really a comet was to measure its angular distance from the moon's limb on the photographs taken at the different eclipse stations. Mr. Wesley has done this, and he finds that the distances are: Chile, 29′; Brazil, 36′; Africa, ±47′. Therefore, it is concluded “the evidence of motion relatively to the sun, given by the comparison of the plates taken at the three stations, seems to place the nature of Prof. Schaeberle's interesting discovery beyond a doubt.”
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Our Astronomical Column. Nature 51, 40 (1894). https://doi.org/10.1038/051040a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/051040a0