THE COMET'S TAIL.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 824, 24 May 1910, Page 5

THE COMET'S TAIL.

■ « IS IT MOSTLY ELECTRIC RAYS? By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright London, May 22. Reuter's New York correspondent states that Professor G. E. Hale, at the Mount Wilson (California) Observatory, saw Ilalley's comet despite tho moonlight. The tail was- distinct,. tod spread fanwise for several' degrees. Observations showed that the comet was disappearing in the distance. Professor Birkland, who made observations at Finmark,. Canada, suggests that the comet's tail is principally composed of electric rays. CAMBRIDGE OBSERVATIONS. (Rec. May 23, 11.10 p.m.) London, May 23. Halley's pomet was observed art Cambridge. The tail was four degrees long. There was a second tail, which inclined to the first at an angle of 10 degree" TRAVELLING RAPIDLY. \ (By Telegraph—Press Association.) Auckland, May 23. Halley's comet was clearly visible to the naked eye in the western sky shortly after 5 o'clock on Sunday evening. Mr. Stevenson, F.R.A.S., describes the comet's motion as marvellously rapid.. He has never before seen such rapil motion by any heavenly body, not excepting tha moon in its orbit. ', PHOTOGRAPHED AT MEEANEE. "I think we have seen the comet at its best," said the Rev. Dr. Kennedy to a Dominion reporter last night. While the moon is obscured this evening the comet! should be brighter than it has been during the past two days, but it should be seen to better advantage to-morrow evening before the moon rises. Several photographs of the comet were takeoi a.t Meeanee, said Dr. Kennedy, tha photographs being six inches in diameter, but not the slightest impression of the nucleus of tho comot was obtained.

"SOME ONE HAS BLUNDERED." Mr. Fredk. R. Field, of Aramolio, in a letter dated May 21, writes:—No wonder so many looked, in vain for the transit of .the comet's nucleus on Thursday afternoon. Someone has blundered. When it was first announced that the transit would begin ai 1.52 p.m., I accepted the time as fairly correct. But finding thac exactly the same prediction appeared t<> be made by so many different computers I became sceptical, and, when too lato, tried in vain 'to get observations for checking the time. A transit of Mercury 6r Venus can be calculated to a nicety. But in the case of a comet, one would'expeot a dozen calculations to give as many results, with a fairly wide range of difference in the times arrived at. Another thing that aroused iny suspicions was the very general, but unwarrantable, assertion that we should pass completely throjigh tho comers tail on Thursday night. It looked as though one man had made faulty calculations, and everybody else had accepted them without ; question. That the tail did not pass us on Thursday night is very evident from the fact that it, was still a brilliant object in the eastern sky on Frilay morning. This morning (May 21) it was again seen there, spread out to a width of some twelve degrees, with three rays, ono central and two marginal. There can now be no doubt that tho densest portion of the tail is passing us to-day and to-morrow—the 21st and 22nd. And as for the time of the nucleus'? transit, a message is now cabled from Berlin that the latest calculations gave the time for the commencement of the transit as 4.22 a.m. of the 19th. Whetherthis is Berlin or Greenwich time is not stated. If the former, it means that we might have expected tho transit to start I at 2.5S p.m. on Thursday: if the latter, which is more probable, it would be equivalent to 3.52 p.m. on Thursday. In either case it would indicato that the transit did not begin till after people within the 195 degrees of longitude exposed to the snn during the time of transit had given up looking for it. At Wangasni tho increasing clouds obscured the sun shortly after. 3 p.m. But it is to be hoped that some persevering ob- . servers in ether parts were able to watch' the sun till it set. Personally, I attach more importance to observations taken to-day and to-morrow. As yet nothing obviously extraordinary seems to' have been noted.