Shadows Cast by Starlight

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)– 1.4ζ Orionis1.9
α Bootis (Arcturus)0.0β Tauri1.9
α Aurigae (Capella)0.2γ Geminorum2.0
β Orionis (Rigel)0.3β Canis Majoris2.0
α Canis Minoris (Procyon)0.5α Hydrae2.0
α Orionis* (Betelgeuse)0.8?α Arietis2.0
α Tauri (Aldebaran)1.0κ Orionis2.2
β Geminorum (Pollux)1.1β Leonis2.2
α Virginis (Spica)1.2γ Leonis2.2
α Leonis (Regulus)1.4δ Orionis2.4
ε Canis Majoris1.5η Canis Majoris2.4
α Geminorum (Castor)1.6ζ Argus2.5
ε Orionis1.8α Ceti2.7
δ Canis Majoris1.915 Argus2.9
γ Orionis1.9

* 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.

Henry Norris Russell

Today, we celebrate the 140th anniversary of the birth of one of America’s greatest astrophysicists: Henry Norris Russell (1877-1957).  Called the “Dean of American Astronomers”, he is perhaps best remembered for his discovery of the relationship between the luminosity (absolute brightness) of a star and its color.  We call any plot of luminosity vs. color for a group of stars an H-R diagram, named after Russell and Danish astronomer Ejnar Hertzsprung (1873-1967) who independently discovered this relationship.

Russell noticed that cool (relative to other stars) red stars come in two varieties: those that are dim, and others that are very bright.  The only way a cool, red star could be so bright would be if the star were very, very large1.  In this way, Russell discovered that there are red giants and red dwarfs, but no medium-sized red stars.  Further studies by Russell and others led to the use of the H-R diagram as a tool in understanding the life cycles of stars.  Red giants, it turns out, are one of the final stages in the life of an ordinary star (like the Sun, for example).  Red dwarfs are low-mass stars that change very little throughout their lives.

After famously rejecting the revolutionary conclusion (in 1925) by Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (1900-1979) establishing that hydrogen is the primary constituent of the Sun and other stars, Henry Russell concluded four years later that Payne-Gaposchkin was correct, and acknowledged her significant contribution.  Moreover, he surmised that the main physical characteristics of stars are determined by just two basic parameters: mass and chemical composition.  This idea is known as the Vogt-Russell theorem, named after Russell and German astronomer Heinrich Vogt (1890-1968), who independently came up with the same idea.

An interesting sidenote.  Early in his stellar career, when he was just 24 years of age, Henry Russell wrote an interesting article published in the May 1902 issue of Popular Astronomy and dated March 24, 1902: “Shadows Cast by Starlight”.  It is a fascinating read—all the more special because it was written at a time (now over 115 years ago) when light pollution had not yet destroyed our nocturnal environment.

1Here we are comparing stars at comparable distances, such as in a star cluster.

Eugène Delporte and the Constellation Jigsaw

Belgian astronomer Eugène Joseph Delporte (1882-1955) discovered 66 asteroids from 1925 to 1942, but he is best remembered for determining the official boundaries of the 88 constellations, work he completed in 1928 and published in 1930.  The constellation boundaries have remained unchanged since then.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU), founded, incidentally, in Brussels, Belgium in 1919, established the number of constellations at 88—the same number, coincidentally, as the keys on a piano—in 1922 under the guidance of American astronomer Henry Norris Russell (1877-1957).  The IAU officially adopted Delporte’s constellation boundaries in 1928.

All the constellation boundaries lie along lines of constant right ascension and declination—as they existed in the year 1875. Why 1875 and not 1900, 1925, or 1930? American astronomer Benjamin Gould (1824-1896) had already drawn up southern constellation boundaries for epoch 1875, and Delporte built upon Gould’s earlier work.

As the direction of the Earth’s polar axis slowly changes due to precession, the constellation boundaries gradually tilt so that they no longer fall upon lines of constant right ascension and declination. Eventually, the tilt of the constellation boundaries will become large enough that the boundaries will probably be redefined to line up with the equatorial coordinate grid for some future epoch. When that happens, some borderline stars will move into an adjacent constellation. Even now, every year some stars change constellations because proper motion causes them to move across a constellation boundary. For faint stars, this happens frequently, but for bright stars such a constellation switch is exceedingly rare.