An Introduction to the Study of Variable Stars

Abstract

IT has been said that it is more important to measure the light than the place of a star. Add the time factor and there is the observational province of the student of variable stars, namely, the measurement of the relationship between time and lustre of particular stars. The present book is largely given up to explaining methods by which this can be accomplished The author is one who has had almost unique opportunities fitting her to undertake the task, which might have been more successfully carried out had the aim been more ambitious. As director of Vassar College Observatory, Dr. Caroline Furness has not only actively engaged in variable star observation, but has also conducted the regular courses of study in this special subject in the astronomical department of the College. These occupations have ensured the necessary documentation and provided valuable experience in the practice of stellar observation, in the art of exposition, and especially in the needs of novices in this important branch of sidereal physics. The volume, it may here be mentioned, finds a place in the “Semicentennial Series” of works by distinguished alumni issued in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of Vassar, and at present it stands alone in the English language.

An Introduction to the Study of Variable Stars.

By Dr. C. E. Furness. Pp. xx + 327. (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1915.) Price 1.75 dollars net.