Oct. 6, 1887] 



NATURE 



54: 



Corrigenda in VARTOtirs'STAR-CATALOGUES.— The paper 

 following the above* in voK'Hr/'of the Memoirs of the National 

 Academy of Sciences is lik*SVise by Prof. Peters, and contains 

 a very extensive list of corrigenda to various star catalogues, 

 the great majority of which have hitherto been unknown. Fol- 

 lowing Argelander's example, Prof. Peters has not been conti^nt 

 with simply detecting an error, but has in mo.-t cases turned to 

 the original observations, when accessible, to discover the 

 source of error. The catalogues in which the corrections, 

 nearly 700 in all, have been made, are : Oeltzen's Catalogue of 

 Argelander's southern zones, Vol. vi. of the Bonn observations, 

 Weisse's Catalogue of Bessel's zones, between Decl. - 15" and 

 + 15", and between + 15° and + 45°, Riimker's Catalogue of 

 12,000 stars (original catalogue and the new series), Schjellerup's 

 Catalogue, Baily's Lalande, Yarnall's Catalogue (second edi- 

 tion), the Glasgow Catalogue of 6415 stars, Moesta's observa- 

 tions at Santiago de Chile, and the Geneva observations, 

 1842-49. The corrigenda which Prof. Peters has discovered for 

 the Harvard zones have been published in the Annals of the 

 Harvard College Observatory, vol. xiii. pp. 188-208, and are 

 not given here ; those for the Washington zones have been com- 

 municated to Prof. Holden, and those for Lamont's publications 

 to the astronomers of the Munich Observatory. Prof. Peters 

 certainly deserves the hearty thanks of all astronomers for the 

 very essential service he has rendered in the detection and 

 publication of these errors in their standards. 



Besides these lists of errata. Prof. Peters also gives in the 



ame memoir a list of 191 "Anonymous" stars in Yarnall's 



Catalogue, which he has identified with stars in other catalogues. 



The " Satellite" of Venus. — Oneof the standing enigmas 

 of astronomical history has been the number of observa- 

 tions, the great majority of which were made in the years 

 1 761 and 1764, by astronomers of reputation, of some 

 small object close to Venus which was supposed to be 

 a satellite of the planet. The fact, however, that the obser- 

 vations were consistent with no possible orbit, and that 

 no trace of the body has been seen for more than a century, 

 were conclusive proofs that it was not a real satellite, and many 

 theories were started to account for the observations, but all of 

 them were open to one or more fatal objections. The problem, 

 however, seems now to have been fairly solved at last. M. 

 Stroobant, in a paper which he has recently communicated to the 

 Academic Royale de Belgique, gives evidence to show that in a 

 large number of instances the object supposed to be a satellite 

 was actually a star. He was led to this conclusion from the 

 result of an inquiry into the observation of Rcedkicer and 

 Boserup, August 4, 1761, in which a star, as well as the "satel- 

 lite," was mentioned as being near the planet. Curious to find 

 out what star this was, he reduced its place and found it to be 

 Xa Orionis. It then immediately struck him that the so-called 

 satellite occupied the place of X4 Orionis. An attentive examina- 

 tion of the other observations showed that in many cases these 

 also were probably of Jtars ; that of Horrebow's on January 3, 

 1 768, was unquestionably an observation of Q Librae. Not only 

 did the star occupy the precise place indicated for the "satel- 

 lite," but the motion of Venus was such as to produce just the 

 apparent motion ascribed to it. Several other observations can 

 be almost as clearly referred to some star or other ; the chief 

 objection to such identification — that some ff the stars in ques- 

 tion are too faint to have been seen near the planet — being over- 

 ruled by M. Stroobant's own observations, he having found that 

 with a telescope of 6 inches aperture a star of the eighth or 

 even of the ninth magnitude could be seen in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of Venus. In order to present the whole ques- 

 tion as fully as possible in one view, M. Stroobant has exhibited 

 all the thirty-three observations in tabular form, has given all 

 the various particulars required referring to Venus, together 

 with an abstract of all the different theories hitherto broached 

 respecting the true nature of the "satellite," and has reprinted 

 the original observations themselves, whilst his own identifica- 

 tions with stars are illustrated by a neat series of little star- 

 maps. Only one series, those of March 1764 (printed by a 

 curious typographical error as Mars 1861), by Roedkioer remain 

 without at least a plausible explanation, and it is possible that 

 in this case it may be found that one of the brighter minor 

 planets was sufficiently near to Venus to be seen in the same 

 field with her. At all events, for the great proportion of the 

 observations M. Stroobant has fairly cleared up the mystery 

 which has perplexed astronomers so long. 



The LfiANDER McCormick Observatory^. — From Prof. 

 Ormond Stone's Report for the year ending June i, 1887, 

 recently received, we learn that the i6-inch refractor has been 

 chiefly employed as heretofore in observations of nebulae. 

 351 observations of miscellaneous nebulae have been made 

 during the year, as well as a large number of sketches, and 

 270 nebulae have been discovered, which are supposed not to 

 have been hitherto detected. Efforts have also been made to 

 determine with as much accuracy as po-sible the positions of a 

 select list of nebulae in order that materials may be accumulated 

 for the determination of their proper motions. Special atten- 

 tion has been paid to the nebula in Orion. Holding that it is 

 not to photography but to photometry that we must look for the 

 earliest possible evidence of change in this object, Prof. Stone 

 has repeatedly examined the brighter portion of the nebula for 

 the purpose of determining the relative brightness of the various 

 condensations of which it is composed. The region "A" pre- 

 ceding the trapezium has been especially observed, and the 

 brightness of its condensations compared with one another and 

 with portions of the " Huyghenian " region. Estimates have also 

 been made of the relative brightness of the stars in the brighter 

 portion of the nebula in order to trace if possible any connexion 

 which may exist between them and the nebula. 



The Nice Observatory. — M. Perrotin has just published 

 the second volume of the " Annals of the Nice Observatory" ; 

 the first, which will contain a description of the Observatory and 

 of its instruments, has not yet appeared, but is in preparation. 

 The present work contains six sections, of which the first is 

 devoted to the determination of the difference of longitude 

 between Paris and Nice, and between Nice and Milan, which 

 M. Perrotin set about making immediately on the foundation of 

 the Observatory and his appointment to the Directorate. In 

 this work he was joined by Commandant Bassot, who observed 

 at the Observatory of the Depot de la Guerre, Montsouris, 

 during the first part of the operations, and then exchanged 

 places and instruments with M. Perrotin, the better to eliminate 

 personal errors ; M. Celoria, of the Brera Observatory, Milan, 

 co-operating with M. Perrotin in the determination of the Nice- 

 Milan longitude. The observations were made in the autumn 

 of 1881, and the final results agreed very closely with the Milan- 

 Paris longitude which had been determined in the preceding 

 July and August by Colonel Perrier and M. Celoria, as the 

 following figures will show : — 



h. m. s. h. m. s. 



Paris-Nice ... o 19 51-513 ±o-oi\ ^c-^ai; 



Nice-Milan ... o 7 33-812 io'oi/ ' -" -^ ^ 

 Paris-Milan (direct) 02725-315 



The Montsouris instrument being o-288s. to the west of the 

 meridian of Paris, the longitude of the pillar upon which the 

 Nice meridian instrument was mounted is oh. 19m, 51-2253. 

 east of Paris. 



The second section contains the determination of the pro- 

 vi.-ional latitude of the Observatory, which was found to be 

 43° 43' 16" -9 ; the pillar of the small meridian instrument being 

 still, as for the longitude, the place from whence the observa- 

 tions were made. The third section contains a fine series of 

 micrometric measures of double stars, made by M. Perrotin with 

 an equatorial, by Eichens and Gautier, of 0-38 metre aperture 

 and 7 metres focal length ; the observations of comets and 

 planets, which were published as made in the Comptes rendiis 

 of the Paris Academy, and which occupy the fourth section, 

 being made with the same instrument. Some important notes 

 on solar spectroscopy by M. ThoUon follow in the fifth section, 

 and include several remarkable observations of solar storms, 

 a correspondence with M. Faye on the interpretation to be 

 attached to the displacements and contortions of the spectral 

 lines, and a study of the B and D groups in the solar spectrum. 

 The concluding section contains notes by MM. Thollon and 

 Puiseaux on the total solar eclipse of May 17, 1882; on the 

 transit of Venus, 1882, by M. Thollon ; on the remarkable 

 crepuscular glows and " coronae " of 1883-84, by MM. Perrotin 

 and Thollon ; and elements of Comet 1885 II. (Barnard) and of 

 Minor Planet No. 252 (Clementina), by M. Charlois. The 

 volume is illustrated by seven beautifully finished plates ; one of 

 which, viz. that to illustrate M. ThoUon's paper on the group, 

 affords an example of the fullness of information and beauty of 

 execution of M. Thollon's drawings of the solar spectrum which 

 are now being engraved for publication in the forthcoming third 

 volume of the " Aanales de rObservatoire de Nice." 



