The Project Gutenberg EBook of The New Heavens, by George Ellery Hale

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Title: The New Heavens

Author: George Ellery Hale

Release Date: September 28, 2006 [EBook #19395]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW HEAVENS ***

Produced by Robert J. Hall

[Illustration: Fig. 1. The Constellation of Orion (Hubble).

Photographed with a small camera lens of 1 inch aperture and 5
inches focal length. The three bright stars in the centre of the
picture form the belt of Orion. Just below, in the sword handle, is
an irregular white patch about one-eighth of an inch in diameter.
This is a small-scale image of the great nebula in Orion, shown
on a larger scale in Fig. 2.]

THE NEW HEAVENS

BY

GEORGE ELLERY HALE

DIRECTOR OF THE MOUNT WILSON OBSERVATORY OF THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION
OF WASHINGTON

WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1922

TO MY WIFE

PREFACE

Fourteen years ago, in a book entitled "The Study of Stellar Evolution"
(University of Chicago Press, 1908), I attempted to give in untechnical
language an account of some modern methods of astrophysical research.
This book is now out of print, and the rapid progress of science has
left it completely out of date. As I have found no opportunity to
prepare a new edition, or to write another book of similar purpose,
I have adopted the simpler expedient of contributing occasional
articles on recent developments to _Scribner's Magazine_, three
of which are included in the present volume.

I am chiefly indebted, for the illustrations, to the Mount Wilson
Observatory and the present and former members of its staff whose
names appear in the captions. Special thanks are due to Mr. Ferdinand
Ellerman, who made all of the photographs of the observatory buildings
and instruments, and prepared all material for reproduction. The
cut of the original Cavendish apparatus is copied from the
_Philosophical Transactions for 1798_ with the kind permission
of the Royal Society, and I am also indebted to the Royal Society
and to Professor Fowler and Father Cortie for the privilege of
reproducing from