1903.] on the New Star in Gemini. 377 



on referring to tlie makers (Messrs. Elliott and Son) they frankly 

 and apologetically admitted an inferiority, and sent us some specially 

 good ones in substitution. But all our work was to be done over 

 again, with opportunities restricted by lapse of time ; and working in 

 this way under pressure, Mr. Bellamy was not very much surprised 

 to find that one of the plates must be taken yet a third time, not 

 because of any fault in the plate, but because the telescope had 

 not been pointed to precisely the right region. This pointing, or 

 " setting," is done by help of a star whose position is known — 

 generally the brightest star in the region, since it is most easily 

 identified ; and if two stars are seen in the approximate place, it is 

 generally safe to conclude that the brighter is the one required. In 

 the case in question, two stars loere seen, though the brighter did not 

 seem to comply with the conditions. The brighter star was, in fact, 

 the new star. Nova Geminorum, but Mr. Bellamy naturally had had 

 no intimation of this, and when he found the plate wrongly " set " 

 merely put it aside as defective. 



A few days afterwards, some fortunate impulse led me to 

 examine again the rejected plates, and on learning that this par- 

 ticular plate was wrongly " set," I took down another showing some 

 of the same stars, to find out the reason. A mere glance was enough 

 to show that there was a strange object on the rejected plate, and the 

 exciting question arose. What was it ? a planet, a variable star, or a 

 new star ? I need not trouble you with the details of the steps taken 

 during that busy afternoon to discriminate between these three 

 possibilities. It will suffice to say, that as night drew near it seemed 

 fairly probable that the strange object could only be a new star, and 

 if so, I was the first man to hold consciously in my hand the discovery 

 photograph of a new star : for although six new stars had previously 

 been found on photographs, they had all been found by a woman. 

 The final test was still to be made if the weather was fine ; was the 

 object still there ? For it was now March 24, and the photograph 

 had been taken on March 16. The night was clear ; the verification 

 was made ; and I may say, parenthetically, I have never been more 

 surprised or delighted than when a differential transit and declination 

 observation gave results agreeing precisely with my measures made 

 during the afternoon on the photograph. And then it only remained 

 to send postcards to such observers as would receive them before the 

 next night, a letter to Dr. Anderson, and a telegram to the Central- 

 stelle at Kiel. 



It wa3 certainly very pleasant when the answers to these com- 

 munications began to come in — when there came a postcard from 

 Mr. Newall saying that a spectroscopic observation supported the 

 view that the object was a new star ; and a note of congratulation 

 from Dr. Anderson himself. And now we took a new view of the 

 conduct of Messrs. Elliott in sending us that bad batch of plates ; 

 had they been good we should never have found the new star, for it 

 appeared after the region had been taken the first time, and had the 

 plate been successful we should not have taken another. 



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