Identifier: astronomyforamat00flam (find matches)
Title: Astronomy for amateurs
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Flammarion, Camille, 1842-1925 Welby, Frances A. (Frances Alice) tr
Subjects: Astronomy
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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Fig. 26.—Occultation of the Pleiades by the Moon. eyes. The fact occurred, e, g., on July 23, 1897, duringa fine occultation observed at the authors laboratoryof Juvisy (Fig. 26). Photography here discovers to us, not 6, 9, I2, 15,or 20 stars, but hundreds and millions. 85 ASTRONOMY FOR AMATEURS These are the most briUiant flowers of the celestialgarden. We, alas, can but glance at them rapidly. In con-templating them we are transported into immensitiesboth of space and time, for the stellar periods measuredby these distant universes often overpower in their mag-nitude the rapid years in which our terrestrial days are
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Fig. 27.—Stellar dial of the double star 7 of the Virgin. estimated. For instance, one of the double stars wespoke of above, 7 of the Virgin, sees its two components,translucent diamonds, revolve around their commoncenter of gravity, in one hundred and eighty years.How many events took place in France, let us say, in asingle year of this star!—The Regency, Louis XV, LouisXVI, the Revolution, Napoleon, Louis XVIII, Louis 86 THE STARS, SUNS OF THE INFINITE Philippe, the Second Republic, Napoleon III, theFranco-German War, the Third Republic. . . . Whatrevolutions here, during a single year of this radiantpair! (Fig. 27.) But the pageant of the Heavens is too vast, too over-whelming. We must end our survey. Our Milky Way, vs^ith its millions of stars, representsfor us only a portion of the Creation. The illimitableabysses of Infinitude are peopled by other universes asvast, as imposing, as our ow^n, which are renewed in alldirections through the depths of Space to endless dis-tance.

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