The Elements of Astronomy: With Methods for Determining the Longitudes, Aspects, &c. of the Planets for Any Future Time ...

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S. Wood & Sons, 1826 - Astronomy - 216 pages
 

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Page 24 - Light ! Of all material beings first, and best ! Efflux divine! Nature's resplendent robe! Without whose vesting beauty all were wrapt In unessential gloom; and thou, O Sun! Soul of surrounding worlds! in whom best seen Shines out thy Maker ! may I sing of thee ? Tis by thy secret, strong, attractive force, As with a chain indissoluble bound, Thy system rolls entire...
Page 168 - How distant some of these nocturnal suns ! So distant (says the sage) 'twere not absurd To doubt if beams, set out at Nature's birth, Are yet arrived at this so foreign world, Though nothing half so rapid as their flight.
Page 47 - O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed, And tip with silver every mountain's head : Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise, A flood of glory bursts from all the skies : The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight, Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light.
Page 166 - ... where around him. The whole universe, therefore, to him, will be comprised in a set of constellations, richly ornamented with scattered stars of all sizes. Or if the united brightness of a neighbouring cluster of stars should, in a remarkably clear night, reach his sight, it will put on the appearance of a small, faint, nebulous cloud, not to be perceived without the greatest attention.
Page 166 - Here also the heavens will not only be richly scattered over with brilliant constellations, but a shining zone or milky way will be perceived to surround the whole sphere of the heavens, owing to the combined light of those stars which are too small, that is, too remote to be seen.
Page 167 - ... to be the whole contents of the heavens. Allowing him now the use of a common telescope, he begins to suspect that all the milkiness of the bright path, which surrounds the sphere, may be owing to stars : he perceives a few clusters of them in various parts of the heavens, and finds also that there...
Page 166 - For since, according to the above estimations, he can only extend his view about seven times the distance of Sirius, it cannot be expected that his eyes should reach the borders of a cluster, which has, perhaps, not less than fifty stars in depth every where around him.
Page 167 - But still his views are not extended so far as to reach to the end of the stratum in which he is situated, so that he looks upon these patches as belonging to that system which to him seems to comprehend every celestial object.
Page 164 - ... from a point of view at a considerable distance both of space and of time. Theoretical view. Let us then suppose numberless stars of various sizes, scattered over an indefinite portion of space in such a manner as to be almost equally distributed throughout the whole. The laws of attraction, which no doubt extend to the remotest regions of the fixed stars, will operate...
Page 165 - We will now retreat to our own retired station in one of the planets attending a star in the great combination with numberless others ; and in order to investigate what will be the appearances from this contracted situation, let us begin with the naked eye. The stars of the first magnitude...

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