Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/236

222 fragments, so to speak, of one or possibly two similar rings a little farther from the disk, and visible, perhaps, only by glimpses. These "diffraction rings" arise from the undulatory nature of light, and their distance apart as well as the diameter of the central disk depend upon the length of the waves of light. If the telescope is a really good one, and both object glass and eyepiece are properly adjusted, the disk will be perfectly round, slightly softer at the edge, but otherwise equally bright throughout; and the ring or rings surrounding it will be exactly concentric, and not brighter on one side than on another. Even if our telescope were only two inches or two inches and a half in aperture we should at once notice a little bluish star, the mere ghost of a star in a small telescope, hovering near the pole star. It is the celebrated "companion," but we shall see it again when we have more time to study it. Now let us put the star out of focus by turning the focusing screw. Suppose we turn it in such a way that the eyepiece moves slightly outside the focus, or away from the object glass. Very beautiful phenomena immediately begin to make their appearance, A slight motion outward causes the little disk to expand perceptibly, and just as this expansion commences, a bright-red point appears at the precise center of the disk. But, the outward motion continuing, this red center disappears, and is replaced by a blue center, which gradually expands into a sort of flare over the middle of the disk. The disk itself has in the mean time enlarged into a series of concentric bright rings, graduated in luminosity with beautiful precision from center toward circumference. The outermost ring is considerably brighter, however, than it would be if the same gradation applied to it as applies to the inner rings, and it is surrounded, moreover, on its outer edge by a slight flare which tends to increase its apparent width. Next let us return to the focus and then move the eyepiece gradually inside the focal point or plane. Once more the star disk expands into a series of circles, and, if we except the color phenomena noticed outside the focus, these circles are precisely like those seen before in arrangement, in size, and in brightness. If they were not the same, we should pronounce the telescope to be imperfect. There is one other difference, however, besides the absence of the blue central flare, and that is a faint reddish edging around the outer ring when the expansion inside the focus is not carried very far. Upon continuing to move the eyepiece inside or outside the focus we observe that the system of rings becomes larger, while the rings themselves rapidly increase in number, becoming at the same time individually thinner and fainter.

By studying the appearance of the star disk when in focus and