Abstract
THE invention of the spectroheliograph, more than thirty years ago, made it possible to study in detail photographs of the prominences, those strange and beautiful forms rising from the chromosphere which were first made familiar to readers of NATURE by the drawings of Lockyer in the ‘seventies. Systematic photographic work does not appear to have been initiated until it was taken up at Kodaikanal in 1905, and the Rumford spectroheliograph appears also to have begun recording prominences at about this period; but until recent years very little has been published regarding their movements. This is no doubt largely due to difficulties imposed by atmospheric conditions, for it is very rarely possible to secure a series of photographs of the same prominence at short intervals of time and with equally good definition in all the images. In the memoir under notice this is apparent in the statement that in about 4000 plates examined “very little material suitable for the study of the motions of prominences was found.” We must congratulate Mr. Pettit on the very interesting results he has nevertheless extracted.
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References
"The Forms and Motions of the Solar Prominences". By Edison Pettit . Publications of the Yerkes Observatory, vol. 3, part 4, University of Chicago Press.
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EVERSHED, J. Photographic Studies of Solar Prominences. Nature 116, 30–31 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/116030a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/116030a0