Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 095.djvu/56

44 Oct. 12, 1782. I tried a new plain speculum, made by a very good workman, and found that when I viewed α Geminorum with 460, the vacancy between the two stars was barely 1$1⁄2$ diameter, but the same telescope and power with my own small speculum, made the distance 2 diameters, so that the figure of this mirror affects the spurious diameters of the stars.

(11.) Hence we may conclude that many causes will have an influence on the apparent diameter of the spurious disks of the stars; but they are so far within the reach of our knowledge, that with a proper regard to them, the conclusion we have drawn in Rem. (2.) "that under the same circumstances "their dimensions are permanent" will still remain good.

A number of silver globules were put on the post, before they had been tarnished; and the sun shone upon them. When I viewed them in the telescope, there was on each of them a lucid appearance resembling the spurious disk of a star. I could distinguish this bright spot from the real diameters of the globules perfectly well, and found it much less than they were.

(1.) Hence we conclude that the terrestrial, spurious disks of globules are less than the real disks; whereas we have seen, in Remark (1.) of the celestial spurious disks, that these are larger than the real ones.