Page:A short history of astronomy(1898).djvu/488

400 attracted one another according to the law of gravitation, so that the motion of revolution was to some extent analogous to that of a planet round the sun; if this were the case, then each star of a pair should describe an ellipse (or conceivably some other conic) round the other, or each round the common centre of gravity, in accordance with Kepler's laws, and the apparent path as seen on the sky should be of this nature but in general foreshortened by being projected on to the celestial sphere. The first attempt to shew that this was actually the case was made by Felix Savary (1797–1841) in 1827, the star being ξ Ursae, which was found to be revolving in a period of about 60 years.

Many thousand double stars have been discovered by the Herschels, Struve, and a number of other observers, including several living astronomers, among whom Professor S. W. Burnham of Chicago, who has discovered some 1300, holds a leading place. Among these stars there are about 300 which we have fair reason to regard as binary, but not more than 40 or 50 of the orbits can be regarded as at all satisfactorily known. One of the most satisfactory is that of Savary's star ξ Ursae, which is shewn in fig. 101. Apart from the binaries discovered by the spectroscopic method (§ 314), which form to some extent a distinct class, the periods of revolution which have been computed range between about ten years and several centuries, the longer periods being for the most part decidedly uncertain.

310. William Herschel's telescopes represented for some time the utmost that could be done in the construction of reflectors; the first advance was made by Lord Rosse (1800–1867), who—after a number of less successful experiments—finally constructed (1845), at Parsonstown in Ireland, a reflecting telescope nearly 60 feet in length, with a mirror which was six feet across, and had consequently a "light-grasp" more than double that of Herschel's greatest telescope. Lord Rosse used the new instrument in the first instance to re-examine a number of known nebulae, and in the course of the next few years discovered a variety of new features, notably the spiral form of certain nebulae (fig. 102), and the resolution into apparent star clusters of a number of nebulae which Herschel had been unable to resolve