DUMB-BELL NEBULA, 



ot light, and even by feeble subordinate nuclei and many small 

 stars. The drawing represents it as seen with the more powerful 



Fig. 37. 



telescope of Lord Itosse. A tendency to a spiral form was dis- 

 tinctly seen on the 6th, 10th, and 16th September, 1849. The 

 whole object was involved in a faint nebulosity, which probably 

 extends past several knots which lie about it in different directions. 



86. The forms and magnitudes of the nebulae are so infinitely 

 various, that it is impossible to reduce them to any definite 

 classification. Their number also is quite unbounded. The 

 catalogues of Sir J. Herschel contain above 4000, of which the 

 places are assigned, and the magnitudes, forms, and apparent 

 characters described. As observers are multiplied, and the tele- 

 scope improved, and especially when the means of observation 

 have been extended to places that are more favourable for such 

 observations, it may be expected that the number observed will 

 be indefinitely augmented. 



87. In fig. 37, we have reproduced the drawing of a well- 

 known nebula by Sir John Herschel. This has been called, from its 

 apparent form, the Dumb Bell nebula. Its situation is R A 19 h 52 m 

 N P D 67 44', and consequently between the constellations of 

 Vulpa minor and Lyra. Sir John Herschel describes it as a 

 nebula shaped like a dumb-bell, double-headed shot, or hour- 

 glass, the elliptic outline being completed by a more feeble 

 nebulous light. The axis of symmetry through the centres of the 

 two chief masses inclined at 30 to the meridian. Diameter of 

 elliptic light from I 1 to 8'. Not resolvable, but four stars are 

 visible on it, of the 12th, 13th, and 14th magnitude* The southern 



D 2 35 



