'562 ' REPORT— 190S. 



2. Was the ' New ' Star in Gemini Shining Previously as a Deri/ Faint Star ? 

 By Professor H. H. Turner, B.Sc, F.R.S. 



1. Of about eighteen stars recorded as ' new ' in the annals of astronomy, only 

 one (J" Corona) is known to have existed previously as a faint star which suddenly 

 blazed out into prominence. But our records are so incomplete, especially for stars 

 at all faint, that any or all of the eighteen may have been shining as faint stars 

 previous to their blazing up. Since the introduction of photography our records 

 have been more complete, and of several new stars discovered within the last dozen 

 years it is known that they cannot have been so bright as the eleventh magnitude 

 before the outburst ; but still they may have been fainter. No photographs happen 

 to have been taken, of the region where they appeared, with sufficiently long 

 exposure to show very faint stars. 



2. A 'new' star in the constellation Gemini was discovered at Oxford on 

 March 24 last, and from the splendid photographic records kept at the Harvard 

 College Observatory it was found that the star had been shioing brightly since 

 March 6, at least. By great good fortune two photographs of the region where it 

 appeared, showing stars so faint as the fifteenth or sixteenth magnitudes, had 

 been secured just previously, one by Dr. Max Wolf of Heidelberg, on February 16, 

 and another by Mr. Parkhurst, of the Yerkes Observatory, on February 19. Both 

 these show a faint object very close to, if not actually at, the place of the Nova. 



3. Copies of these photographs have kindly been sent to Oxford and carefully 

 measured at the University Observatory. The place found for the faint object 

 differs from that found for the Nova by the following quantities : — 



E.A. Dec. 



Max Wolf, Feb. 16 .... -4-8 -27 



Parkhurst, Feb. 19 . . . . -6 3 +1-5 



These results leave the question of identity somewhat doubtful. Although 

 the plates agree in indicating a rather large discrepancy in R.A., the images on 

 both plates are of such a character that the differences may be accidental ; witness 

 the discrepancy in declination. Dr. Max Wolf's plate is on a small scale, and was 

 magnified five times before measurement ; on Mr. Parkhurst's plate the stars are 

 near the edge of the plate. The details will be published in the ' Monthly Notices ' 

 of the Royal Astronomical Society. 



4. The emphatic suggestion of the result is that we must obtain riiuch more 

 complete records, on a larger scale and showing fainter stars, before we can hope 

 to establish these important questions of identity. Large scale is even more 

 important than in spectroscopic work, for in the latter we get help from the 

 grouping of lines, while with a star all depends on a single coincidence. 



3. Sur la Circulation gen^rale de VAtmosjyhere- 

 Par H. H. Hildkbrandsson. 



Pour 4tudier le m^canisme de I'atmosphere, soitdans son ensemble soitdans les 

 regions cycloniques et anticycloniques, il faut d'abord, et iudependamment de toute 

 th6orie pr^con^ue, chercher a determiner avec precision ce qui se passe actuelle- 

 ment dans I'atmosphere, c'est-a-dire constater par des observations directes quels 

 sont les mouvements de I'air non seulement u la surface terrestre, mais aussi dans 

 les regions les plus liautes de I'atmosphere. D^ja, en 1872 Clement Ley a com- 

 mence a observer pour ce but le mouvement des nuages sup^rieurs. II avait fait 

 plus de 600 observations sur les mouvements des cirrus, et en les insurant sur les 

 cartes synoptiques des jours correspondant il a pu d^montrer le premier que I'air 

 en haut s'^loigne en g^ntSral du centre d'une depression. L'ann^e suivante j'ai 

 r^ussi a organiser en Suede un r^seau de stations pour I'observation des mouve- 

 ments des nuages, etpeu de temps apres j'ai r^ussi h determiner avec une precision 

 assez grande les mouvements de Fair a difi"erentes hauteurs dans les minima et les 

 maxima barometriques. 



