Henry Norris Russell (1877-1957) received his Ph.D. at Princeton in 1899 at just 21 years of age. Three years later—in 1902 when he was 24 years old and years before his discovery of the color-luminosity relationship now known as the Hertzsprung-Russell (H-R) diagram—Russell had an interesting article published in the journal Popular Astronomy that shows him already to be a meticulous and perspicacious observational astronomer. This article, completed 118 years ago this day, is reprinted below.
SHADOWS CAST BY STARLIGHT.
HENRY NORRIS RUSSELL.
FOR POPULAR ASTRONOMY.
It has long been known that Venus casts a distinct shadow; and the same thing has sometimes been observed in Jupiter’s case. More recently, it has been stated in the daily press* that shadows cast by Sirius have been seen at the Harvard Observatory in Jamaica, though it was then said that they could probably be seen only where the air is exceptionally clear.
The writer began to investigate this subject, quite independently, last November, and has found that the shadows cast by a number of the brighter fixed stars can be seen without difficulty under ordinary circumstances, provided proper precautions are taken to exclude extraneous light, and to secure the maximum sensitiveness of the observer’s eyes.
* Interview with Professor W.H. Pickering, New York Tribune, Jan. 18, 1902.
The most convenient method of observation is as follows: Choose a window from which the star is visible, while as little light as possible enters from terrestrial sources. Darken the room completely, with the exception of this window. Open the window, and screen down its aperture to an area of a square foot or less. Hold a large piece of white paper in the path of the star’s rays, as far from the opening as possible. The image of the opening will then appear on the paper.
It cannot, however, be well seen until the observer has spent at least ten minutes in the dark, (to rest his eyes from the glare of ordinary lights). The paper should be held within a foot or so of the eyes, as the faint patch of starlight is most easily visible when its apparent area is large. The shadow of any convenient object may now be made to fall on the screen, and may be observed. By holding the object near the window and noticing that its shadow is still sharp, the observer may convince himself that the light which casts the shadow really comes from the star.
By the method above described, the writer has succeeded in distinguishing shadows cast by the following stars, (which are here arranged in order of brightness):
| Mag. | Mag. | ||
| α Canis Majoris (Sirius) | – 1.4 | ζ Orionis | 1.9 |
| α Bootis (Arcturus) | 0.0 | β Tauri | 1.9 |
| α Aurigae (Capella) | 0.2 | γ Geminorum | 2.0 |
| β Orionis (Rigel) | 0.3 | β Canis Majoris | 2.0 |
| α Canis Minoris (Procyon) | 0.5 | α Hydrae | 2.0 |
| α Orionis* (Betelgeuse) | 0.8? | α Arietis | 2.0 |
| α Tauri (Aldebaran) | 1.0 | κ Orionis | 2.2 |
| β Geminorum (Pollux) | 1.1 | β Leonis | 2.2 |
| α Virginis (Spica) | 1.2 | γ Leonis | 2.2 |
| α Leonis (Regulus) | 1.4 | δ Orionis | 2.4 |
| ε Canis Majoris | 1.5 | η Canis Majoris | 2.4 |
| α Geminorum (Castor) | 1.6 | ζ Argus | 2.5 |
| ε Orionis | 1.8 | α Ceti | 2.7 |
| δ Canis Majoris | 1.9 | 15 Argus | 2.9 |
| γ Orionis | 1.9 |
* Variable
The groups of stars comprised in the Pleiades and the sword of Orion also cast perceptible shadows. With a wide open window the belt of Orion should be added to this class.
Most of the observations on which this list is based were made at Princeton on February 7th, and 8th, and March 6th, 1902. The first of these nights is recorded as not remarkably clear, the others as very clear. Whenever there was any doubt of the reality of an observed patch of starlight, it was located at least three times, and it was verified each time that the star was really visible from the spot where its light had been located. Many more stars might have been added to the 29 in the foregoing list, had not unfriendly street lamps confined the observations to less than half the sky.
As many of the stars observed were at a low altitude, it may be concluded that a star of the 3rd magnitude, if near the zenith, would cast a perceptible shadow.
In attempting to get a shadow from these faint stars, the opening of the window should be narrowed to a width of a few inches, so as to cut off as much as possible of the diffused light of the sky. Care should be taken not to look at the sky while observing, as it is bright enough to dazzle the eyes for some little time.
By observing these precautions, the writer has been able to detect shadows cast by Sirius, Arcturus and Capella on moonlight nights,—in the case of Sirius, even when the Moon shone into the room.
The actual brightness of the screen, even when illuminated by Sirius, is very small in comparison with that of the “dark” background of the sky, as seen by the naked eye. White paper reflects about 80 per cent of the incident light. From photometric considerations, a disk of this material 1° in apparent diameter, illuminated perpendicularly by Sirius, should send us about 1/16,000 as much light as the star.
But, according to Professor Newcomb’s determination*, an area of sky 1° in diameter, remote from the Milky Way, sends us 9/10 as much light as a 5th magnitude star, or about 1/400 of the light of Sirius. Hence the sky is about 40 times as bright, area for area, as the paper illuminated by Sirius. The illumination of the paper by a 1st magnitude star is about 1/400 as bright, and by a 3d magnitude star less than 1/2000 as bright, area for area, as the “dark” background of the sky.
* Astrophysical Journal, December 1901.
This faint light, as might be anticipated, shows no perceptible color. The light of the white stars β and γ Orionis and the red star α Orionis does not differ sensibly in quality; but the light of the red star appears much fainter than the star’s brightness, as directly seen, would lead one to anticipate. On the screen, the light of α Orionis is much fainter than that of β, and only a little brighter than that of γ, while by direct vision α is much nearer to β than to γ in brightness. As β is 1 ½ magnitudes brighter than γ, it appears that, as measured by the intensity of its light on a screen, α Orionis is at least half a magnitude, perhaps a whole magnitude, fainter than when compared with the neighboring white stars by direct vision.
Such a result might have been anticipated à priori, since, in the ease of such faint lights as are here dealt with, the eye is sensitive to the green part of the spectrum alone, and this is relatively brighter in the spectrum of a white star than of a red one.
A much more interesting example of the accordance of theoretical prediction with observation is afforded by another phenomenon discovered by the writer, which is not hard to observe.
A surface illuminated by a planet—Venus for example—appears uniformly and evenly bright, but in the case of a fixed star, there are marked variations in brightness, so that the screen appears covered with moving dark markings.
This was predicted many years ago by Professor Young, in discussing the twinkling of the stars. He says*: “If the light of a star were strong enough, a white surface illuminated by it would look like the sandy bottom of a shallow, rippling pool of water illuminated by sunlight, with light and dark mottlings which move with the ripples on the surface. So, as we look toward the star, and the mottlings due to the irregularities of the air move by us, we see the star alternately bright and faint; in other words, it twinkles.”
General Astronomy, page 538 (edition of 1898).
It would be difficult to give a better description of the observed phenomenon than the one contained in the first part of the above quotation. It need only be added that the dark markings are much more conspicuous than the bright ones. This agrees with the fact that a star more frequently seems to lose light while twinkling than to gain it.
Sirius is the only star whose light is bright enough to make these light and dark mottlings visible without great difficulty, though the writer has seen them in the light of Rigel and Procyon. With Sirius they have been seen every time the star’s light has been observed on a moonless night. They are much more conspicuous when the star is twinkling violently than on nights when the air is steady. In the latter case there are only faint irregular mottlings, whose motion produces a flickering effect. More usually there appear also ill-defined dark bands, two or three inches wide. These are never quite straight nor parallel but usually show a preference for one or two directions, sometimes dividing the screen into irregular polygons. On some nights they merely seem to oscillate, but on others they have a progressive motion, which may be at any angle with their own direction. The rate of motion is very variable, but is greatest on windy nights,—another evidence of the atmospheric origin of the bands.
The best nights for observing these bands occur when the stars are twinkling strongly, and there is not much wind. The directions given above for observing shadows should be somewhat modified in this case.
If the room is not at the same temperature as the outer air, the window should be kept closed, as otherwise most of what is seen will be due to the air-currents near it. It is also desirable to have an area of star-light at least a foot square to see the bands in, so that a good sized part of the window should be left clear.
If Sirius is unavailable, Arcturus and Vega are probably the best stars in whose light to attempt to see the bands.
PRINCETON, N. J., March 24, 1902.
