Reference:
QUESTION I.
On the Atmospheres of some fixed Stars.
The comparative anatomy is never more useful, than to exercise in some deformed part of man, or the animals: It is this what usually reveals a structure & a mechanism which completely escapes us otherwise. Shouldn't it be the same with comparative Astronomy? Despite the admirable uniformity which reigns in the operations of Nature, the Universe has its misfits in the large as in the small. This innumerable quantity of fixed Stars visible to the naked eye, & with the help of telescopes, present to us as many Suns similar to the one in the center of our Whirl:
More to come ..
[M31]
The first appearance of this nature which was noticed in the Sky, was, if
I'm not mistaken, the Andromeda Nebula. The discovery of it is attributed
by famous Authors [Halley] to M. Bouillaud, in 1661; but it is well
older, & actually belongs to Simon Marius who noticed this Star in
1612, three or four years after the invention of Telescopes.
[More Nebulae]
Since, there have been found more other, similar appearances, & which are
more or less in relation to the preceding:
[M22]
Made 1. A very small patch, but very luminous, & which ejects a ray
between the head & the Bow of Sagittarius, in 1665, by a German named
Abraham Ihle.
[Omega Centauri]
2. Another one in Centaurus, in 1677, by M. Halley, while he compiled
the Catalog of Southern Stars.
[M11]
3. A patch which is close to the Northern foot of Ganymede or Antinous,
discovered by M. G. Kirch, in 1681, & reported with a Figure, in
the Appendix of his Ephemerides. It is a small cloud, very dense & very
similar to the Nebula in Andromeda, yet unlike the latter, it lets see a Star
which is close to its Center. Also M. Kirch was first in doubt if this
wasn't a Comet.
[M13]
4. Another one finally, in the Constellation of Hercules, in 1714, by M.
Halley.
[LMC/SMC]
I will not speak at all about the other small, obscure patches which have been
seen, by accident, near some Planet when it was observed, but couldn't be
recovered since, because of the lack of a fixed object which would lead back
the Observer. Maybe it is also necessary to include into the same class the
two cloudy patches which the Father de Beze, a Jesuit, noticed in 1689,
near the South [Celestial] Pole, different from the two other, brighter ones,
which are usually drawn on the [celestial] Globes, & which are known by
the name of the Large & the Small Cloud.
[M42]
But I will not silently pass by the luminous Space which
M. Huygens discovered in 1656, around the Orion Nebula, that brightness
in an irregular Figure, less blue & less dark than the rest of the Sky.
It appears, according to someone, as a piece of
,
or according
to others, as a hole made in the celestial vault, & through which one
notices a Light which that vault doesn't have.
This space contains seven Stars, over a length in Declination of 5 to 6
minutes of arc, and over a width in [Right] Ascension of 3 or 4 [arc min].
More to come ..
[M43]
Finally I will add that close to the luminous space in Orion
[M42], one sees the star d of Huygens [NU Orionis]
currently (1731) surrounded by a brilliance very similar to that which
produces, as I believe, the atmosphere of our Sun, if it were dense enough
& extensive enough to be visible in Telescopes at a similar distance.
See it in the form & the situation [given by] D, according to
what was determined with the Reticule.
Figure XXVII represents these objects reversed, & such as they have appeared to me mostly since five to six years, with a Refractor of 18 & of 22 feet [FL]. I have turned into the same [orientation] the [figure] XXVI which is thius in the sense contrary to that of M. Huygens.
The Milky Way, seen with the same Telescopes, has appeared to me not to be in a multitude of places, as a stuff similar to a luminous space spangled with small [faint] Stars, like that of Orion.
Translation from French by Hartmut Frommert
Last Modification: May 24, 2002