Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 75.djvu/115

Rh A third, and perhaps the best, method of making a real advance in astronomy is by securing the united work of the leading astronomers of the world. The best example of this is the work undertaken in 1870 by the Astronomische Gesellschaft, the great astronomical society of the world. The sky was divided into zones, and astronomers were invited to measure the positions of all the stars in these zones. The observation of two of the northern and two of the southern zones were undertaken by American observatories. The zone from +1° to +5° was undertaken by the Chicago Observatory, but was abandoned owing to the great fire of 1871, and the work was assumed and carried to completion by the Dudley Observatory at Albany. The zone from +50° to +55° was undertaken by Harvard. An observer and corps of assistants worked on this problem for a quarter of a century. The completed results now fill seven quarto volumes of our annals. Of the southern zones, that from −14° to −18° was undertaken by the Naval Observatory at Washington, and is now finished. The zone from −10° to −14° was undertaken at Harvard, and a second observer and corps of assistants have been working on it for twenty years. It is now nearly completed, and we hope to begin its publication this year. The other zones were taken by European astronomers. As a result of the whole, we have the precise positions of nearly a hundred and fifty thousand stars, which serve as a basis for the places of all the objects in the sky.

Another example of cooperative work is a plan proposed by the writer in 1906, at the celebration of the two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Franklin. It was proposed, first to find the best place in the world for an astronomical observatory, which would probably be in South Africa, to erect there a telescope of the largest size, a reflector of seven feet aperture. This instrument should be kept at work throughout every clear night, taking photographs according to a plan recommended by an international committee of astronomers. The resulting plates should not be regarded as belonging to a single institution, but should be at the service of whoever could make the best use of them. Copies of any, or all, would be furnished at cost to any one who wished for them. As an example of their use, suppose that an astronomer at a little German University should discover a law regulating the stars in clusters. Perhaps he has only a small telescope, near the smoke and haze of a large city, and has no means of securing the photographs he needs. He would apply to the committee, and they would vote that ten photographs of twenty clusters, each with an exposure of an hour, should be taken with the large telescope. This would occupy about a tenth part of the time of the telescope for a year. After making copies, the photographs would be sent to the astronomer who would perhaps spend ten years in studying and measuring them. The committee