THE LIGHT OF THE STARS. 191 



D. Anderson, a Scottish amateur astronomer, in 

 a post-card to the Astronomer-Royal of Scotland. 

 The star was situated in the constellation Auriga. 

 An examination of photographs, taken at Harvard 

 Observatory, showed that the new star had ap- 

 peared December 10, 1891, and had risen to 

 a maximum of the fourth magnitude ten days 

 later. On a photograph taken by Max Wolf 

 on December 8 the new star was not visible. 

 After Anderson's visual discovery, the spectrum 

 of the new star was studied by Copeland, 

 Huggins, Lockyer, Vogel, Campbell, and others. 

 Bright hydrogen lines were visible in the spec- 

 trum, which appeared to be actually double, 

 giving support to the theory that the outburst 

 was the result of a collision between two dark 

 bodies ; and this was confirmed by the measure- 

 ments of radial motion by the Potsdam astron- 

 omers. 



After March 9, 1892, the new star steadily 

 faded, falling to the sixteenth magnitude on 

 April 26. But on August 17 Edward Singelton 

 Holden (born 1846), director of the Lick Observ- 

 atory, and his assistants, Schaeberle and Camp- 

 bell, found it of the tenth magnitude. On 

 August 19 Barnard found it transformed into a 

 planetary nebula : while various spectroscopic 



