Though
Saturn was for many years subjected to most careful scrutiny by
skilled astronomers using the most powerful telescopes in existence,
the crape ring eluded discovery until November, 1850, when it was
independently seen by Dawes, in England, and Bond, in the United
States. Both were capital observers and employed excellent instruments
of large aperture, and it was naturally presumed that only such
instruments could show the novel Saturnian feature. Not so. Once
brought to the attention of astronomers, Webb saw the new ring with
his three and seven-tenths telescope and Ross with an aperture not
exceeding three and three-eighths in diameter. Nay, I am permitted to
say that a venerable member of this society made drawings of it with a
three inch refractor. With a two inch objective, Grover not only saw
the crape ring, but Saturn's belts, as well, and the shadow cast by
the ball of the planet upon its system of rings. Titan, Saturn's
largest moon, is merely a point of light as compared with the planet,
as it appears in a telescope, yet it has been seen, so it is said,
with a one inch glass.
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