Mars/Preface
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| 1895 |
- Preface
This book is the result of a special study of the planet made during the last opposition, at an observatory put up for the purpose of getting as good air as practicable, at Flagstaff, Arizona. A steady atmosphere is essential to the study of planetary detail: size of instrument being a very secondary matter. A large instrument in poor air will not begin to show what a smaller one in good air will. When this is recognized, as it eventually will be, it will become the fashion to put up observatories where they may see rather than be seen.
Next to atmosphere comes systematic study. Of the extent to which this was realized at Flagstaff, I need only say that the planet was observed there from May 24, 1894, to April 3, 1895, during which time, to mention nothing else, 917 drawings and sketches were made of it. Prof. W. H. Pickering and Mr. A. E. Douglass were associated with me in the observations herein described.
Such as care to see the original data more technically and minutely treated will find them in the first volume of the Annals of this observatory.
Lowell Observatory,
November, 1895
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This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1923.
The author died in 1916, so this work is also in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 80 years or less. This work may also be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. |
