10 EDWARD EMERSON BAR NARD— FROST tMBMOntS £$mt 



nature. He, in fact, discovered visually, in the summer of 1892, the nebulous ring about Nova 

 Aurigae. He included in his studies most of the historical novae for which the positions could 

 be determined — all of this with the 30-or 40-inch telescopes. He was an independent dis- 

 coverer of Nova Aquilae on the night of June 8, 1918, the date of the American eclipse. After 

 his return to the observatory, he found that he had photographed the star on 54 dates during the 

 preceding 25 years, the Willard lens having been used on 4 dates and the Bruce telescope on the 

 remainder. He then determined the star's brightness on these plates. His observations of 

 this character were very numerous: he contributed no less than 14 papers or notes to cover 

 Nova Persei of 1901 and 8 such papers on Nova Aquilae of 1918. 



In view of the great range of temperature through which micrometric measurements are 

 made with the 40-inch refractor, extending from -25° F. (-32° C.) to +100° F. ( + 38° C), 

 he began, in 1897, a series of control measures of the difference in declination between Atlas and 

 Pleione. These observations were made on 506 nights during the past 25 years, and thus 

 constitute a great mass of valuable unpublished material bearing both on the constancy of the 

 telescope and micrometer and on that of the stars themselves. 



At the Yerkes Observatory he kept up his micrometric observations of the fainter satellites 

 of the planets, which he had begun at the Lick Observatory, and contributed to the Astronomical 

 Journal 10 papers of observations of Saturn and several of Phoebe, the ninth satellite, which 

 he caught as a very faint object in the opposition of 1904, when the planet was 17° south of the 

 Equator. At the oppositions of 1906 and 1912-13, when he had a good ephemeris of the 

 satellite, he observed it several times, and estimated it to be of the fourteenth magnitude. 

 We believe that Professor Barnard's measures with the 40-inch telescope are the only visual 

 determinations of the position that have yet been made of this difficult satellite. He observed 

 visually Perrine's sixth satellite of Jupiter and published his measures in three papers. 



Professor Barnard took part in the campaign for observation of the asteroid Eros, during 

 the opposition of 1900 and 1901, for the determination of the solar parallax. 



In 1897 Miss Catherine W. Bruce, of New York, at the solicitation of Professor Barnard, 

 gave to the University of Chicago the sum of $7,000 for a photographic telescope of the highest 

 type of excellence with winch he could continue his photographic investigation of the Milky 

 Way and comets. Experiments were at once begun with various types of portrait lens, some of 

 them furnished by Mr. Brashear, in order to find which was the most suitable objective for the 

 purpose. At this time the cameras were strapped to a small equatorial, which was later 

 installed for instruction at the university. This search for a suitable objective was continued for 

 several years, and in December, 1899, the quest led Mr. Barnard to Europe, for he was deter- 

 mined to secure an objective which would represent the highest quality attainable in optical 

 construction. Several of the leading European firms made small objectives for the test, but 

 choice was made of the 10-inch doublet produced by John A. Brashear, of Allegheny. 



The small wooden observatory for the Bruce telescope, having a dome 15 feet in diameter, 

 was erected, in 1904, at a point 350 feet from the great dome and a less distance from Mr. 

 Barnard's own home. The interest accumulated on the Bruce fund was sufficient to pay for 

 the building. Warner & Swasey had provided for the telescope the excellent mounting, of a 

 new pattern particularly well adapted for the purpose. Besides the 10-inch doublet, the 

 mounting carried a Voigtlander portrait lens of 6>| inches aperture, which had been refigured 

 by Brashear, and a 5-inch guiding telescope. 



Professor Barnard was now provided with equipment which he had awaited for some 

 years. When the sky was clear and not rendered useless by the obnoxious presence of the 

 moon, Mr. Barnard was generally to be found there making a long exposure on some part of 

 the Milky Way or on a comet, unless he had an assignment with the 40-inch telescope. 



He was unhampered by any administrative or editorial duties, and free from any engage- 

 ments in the classroom, so that he was able to gratify to the fidl his passion for observing. To 

 him, a night at the great telescope was almost a sacred rite — an opportunity for a search for 

 truth in celestial places. Rarely has a priest gone up into the temple with a deeper feeling of 

 responsibility and of service than did this untiring astronomer go up into the great dome. He 



