letters

A Fair Portrayal
I am a Seventh-day Adventist whose
church arose from the Millerite movement, so the account of the Millerite
Comet of 1843 in the May issue (page
46) caught my immediate attention. The
author, Bradley E. Schaefer, pleasantly
surprised me, and I was glad he didnt
mention ascension robes, widespread insanity, or any of the other falsehoods
sometimes associated with the Millerites.
An Adventist editor and writer, Francis
D. Nichol, handily refuted all these in his
exhaustively researched 1944 book, The
Midnight Cry. Nichol did confirm Schaefers account of the other signs in the
sky noted by the Millerites.
Schaefers sidebar about the fictitious
virgin sacrifice in 1910 and the stories
of later comet panics show that such
yarns, tendencies, and charlatanry were
hardly confined to the sensational atmosphere of mid-19th-century journalism.
Unfortunately, sensationalism sometimes
wins, at least temporarily, over truth.
Richard Rimmer
Box 6005
Madison, TN 37116

Antlia Dwarf Galaxy Not New

The report about a new nearby galaxy
in Antlia (June issue, page 15) is an example of researchers not doing their
homework. The announcement by
Michael Irwin and his colleagues is actually the fourth time this object has been
reported as a nearby galaxy.
The first three came between 10 and
20 years ago when astronomers scanned
early southern-sky surveys for new objects. The galaxy is first mentioned in a
list published by Harold G. Corwin and
his collaborators in 1978, where it is described as being a resolved dwarf. This
paper was an initial preview of what became the more comprehensive Southern
Galaxy Catalogue (SGC), published in
1985. Here the Antlia dwarf is also described as being visible on prints from
the first Palomar Observatory Sky Survey
(I checked, and it is). In the same year,
J. V. Feitzinger and T. Galinski included
the object in a list of southern dwarf galaxies found on plates taken with the European Southern Observatorys Schmidt
12

September 1997 Sky & Telescope

camera. Finally, in 1987 Halton C. Arp

and Barry F. Madore published their
Catalogue of Southern Peculiar Galaxies
and Associations, which includes the galaxy in a collection of other dwarfs and
mentions that it is resolved into stars.
And these catalogs have not gone unnoticed. For instance, Pascal Fouque and
his colleagues found radial velocities for
many southern dwarfs in the SGC, and
their value for the Antlia dwarf (about
360 kilometers per second) is a sure sign
that the galaxy is nearby. Its location can
hardly be described as where astronomers thought there was only blank sky.
The contribution of Irwins group is that
they made a color-magnitude diagram
for the brightest stars in the galaxy, providing a better estimate of its distance.
They did not discover it.
The same news note makes passing
reference to the Tucana dwarf, which was
also listed in the SGC as a resolved dwarf
well before being rediscovered in 1990.
And finally, a decimal point was misplaced when the Antlia galaxys coordinates were given. Its correct right ascension is 10h 04.1m.
Brian Skiff
Lowell Observatory
1400 West Mars Hill Rd.
Flagstaff, AZ 86001-4499
bas@lowell.edu

How Important Is ForwardScatter Geometry?

Joseph Marcuss letter in the April issue
(page 8) suggested that forward-scattering geometry might play a significant
role in the apparent brightness of many
great comets.
Laboratory experiments have repeatedly demonstrated the effect of forward
scattering at very small angles brightness gains of a thousand times or more
have been recorded. But in my experience, empirical evidence for this phenomenon among comets is lacking for
visual observations. If truly significant,
the forward-scatter effect should reveal
itself often, appearing as a dramatic but
brief increase in brightness not necessarily corresponding to either the comets
anticipated date of maximum brightness
or time of perihelion passage.
1997 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

The Essential
Magazine of
Astronomy

SEPTEMBER 1947 A. C. B. Lovell, director

of radar research, . . . [announces] the discovery of a new meteor
shower occurring in
daylight. . . . For the
Eta Aquarid shower
. . . it became obvious that the meteor stream visible to
astronomers was
merely the beginning of an extremely active belt
stretching towards the Sun.
These observations were conducted at Jodrell Bank, England, where meteor observing
at radio wavelengths was a mainstay immediately after World War II. Only later did Jodrell
Bank become famous for galactic and extragalactic research, particularly because of its
250-foot, fully steerable telescope.

50&25
Y

SEPTEMBER 1972 The title Physical

Cosmology seems to promise a new look at
the structure and evolution of the physical
universe on the grandest scale yet revealed
by our observations. Indeed, this offering is
rather a new look. Although by comparison
with other texts the theoretical development of relativistic cosmologies is played
down, the author applies many sophisticated topics in microscopic physics to problems
that may bear on cosmology.
The publication of this volume by P. J. E.
Peebles was arguably a watershed event, for it served a
generation of students concerned with the Grand
Scheme. A revised and much
expanded work (including
more than 200 pages devoted to relativistic cosmology)
appeared in 1993 under the
title Principles of Physical
Cosmology.
R. F. Griffin [gives his] . . . visual impression
of the great globular star cluster Messier 13
in Hercules, as viewed with the 200-inch reflector. . . .
The dense central part is several field diameters wide, and you can see the colours
of the stars down to about the fifteenth
magnitude. In addition to the densely
packed mass of individually resolved stars, in
good seeing the whole cluster shows a
granular background its rather like looking into a bowl of sugar! . . . There must be
perhaps 200 [red giant stars] . . . and you can
pick them out at sight, even in the very middle of the cluster.
14

September 1997 Sky & Telescope

In my 40 years of comet observing I

know of only one incontrovertible case
of this type that involving the Sungrazing comet C/1979 Q1 (1979 XI). On
the other hand, numerous instances can
be cited where forward scattering might
have been expected to show itself but
did not. Of the examples Marcus cited, I
can find no compelling evidence in the
comets light curves that they behaved
other than expected.
Perhaps the most damning evidence
against forward scattering is that its effect does not appear in dozens of lessspectacular comets that share the same
favorable geometry as great ones. If detectable by visual means, wouldnt anomalous brightness enhancements have
been noted and fully verified long ago?
John E. Bortle
W. R. Brooks Observatory
39 Gold Rd.
Stormville, NY 12582

Exaggerated Elevations
In the April issue (page 63) John Mosley
reviews the CD-ROM Mars Rover. He
notes that the vertical scale is exaggerated considerably for drama and he wishes he could reduce it.
Ive noticed that many images of Venus
and Mars have this distortion purposefully introduced. When I view them I
have to use a mental filter to imagine
what the planet really looks like. I
would think the whole purpose of creating these images would have been to
show just that. Instead it seems that the
decision makers think we would be
bored with realistic images, and so they
make the mountains and canyons impossibly steep to introduce an artificial
gee whiz factor. Id strongly prefer to
see the planets as they really are.
Mark Lancaster
22 Havenfield Dr.
Baltimore, MD 21234
mark-l@vm.vips.com

Amateur Participation
at Pic du Midi
The plan to secure Pic du Midi Observatorys future as a research institution by
opening it to tourists includes the construction of a visitors center (S&T: October 1996, page 13). But the daily functioning of this facility will depend on
the participation of amateur astronomers. Members of the Pic 2000 project,
1997 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

as it is called, would like to hear from

amateur astronomy clubs worldwide that
might be interested. For more information please send a fax to +33-5-61-3328-88, or contact me at the address
below.
Marc Montagne
Observatoire Midi-Pyrnes
14, Ave. Edouard Belin
F-31400 Toulouse
France
montagne@obs-mip.fr

1999 Eclipse Bulletin

On August 11, 1999, a total eclipse of
the Sun will be visible from a narrow
corridor traversing the Eastern Hemisphere (S&T: August 1996, page 51). A
new NASA solar-eclipse bulletin covering the event is now available. This 128page publication, prepared in conjunction with the International Astronomical
Unions Working Group on Eclipses, includes geographic coordinates and maps
of the eclipse path, physical ephemeris of
the umbra, local circumstances for some
1,400 cities, and much more.
Single copies of the bulletin are available at no cost by sending to one of the
addresses below a 9-by-12-inch self-addressed envelope stamped with sufficient
postage for 12 ounces (340 grams) and
with August 1999 printed in the lowerleft corner. Cash or checks cannot be accepted. Readers from outside the United
States and Canada may send nine international postal coupons. The bulletin is
also available via the World Wide Web at
http://umbra.nascom.nasa.gov/eclipse/.
Fred Espenak
Planetary Systems Branch, Code 693
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, MD 20771
espenak@lepvax.gsfc.nasa.gov
Jay Anderson
Environment Canada
123 Main St., Suite 150
Winnipeg, MB R3C 4W2
Canada
jander@cc.umanitoba.ca

When Writing
Write to: Letters to the Editor, Sky & Telescope, P.O. Box 9111, Belmont, MA 021789111. Please limit your comments to no
more than 250 words. Letters selected for
publication may be edited for clarity and
brevity. Due to the volume of mail, not all
letters can receive personal responses.