It is impossible within these limits to do more than to give some indication of the scope of the new astronomy. Enough has been said, however, to assist in appreciating the increased opportunity for investigation, and the nature of the heavy demands made upon the modern observatory. But before passing on to describe one of the latest additions to the astronomer's instrumental equipment, a word should be added regarding the chief classes of telescopes.
Astronomical telescopes are of two types: refractors and reflectors. A refracting telescope consists of an object-glass composed of two or more lenses, mounted at the upper end of a tube, which is pointed at the celestial object. The light, after passing through the lenses, is brought to a focus at the lower end of the tube, where the image is examined visually with an eyepiece, or photographed upon a sensitive plate. The largest instruments of this type are the 36-inch Lick telescope and the 40-inch refractor of the Yerkes Observatory.
[Illustration: Fig. 8. Erecting the steel building and revolving dome that cover the Hooker telescope.]
Reflecting telescopes, which are particularly adapted for photographic work, though also excellent for visual observations, are very differently constructed. No lens is used. The telescope tube is usually built in skeleton form, open at its upper end, and with a large concave mirror supported at its base. This mirror serves in place of a lens. Its upper surface is paraboloidal in shape, as a spherical surface will not unite in a sharp focus the rays coming from a distant object. The light passes through no glass--a great advantage, especially for photography, as the absorption in lenses cuts out much of the blue and violet light, to which photographic plates are most sensitive. The reflection occurs on the _upper_ surface of the mirror, which is covered with a coat of pure silver, renewed several times a year and always kept highly burnished. Silvered glass is better than metals or other substances for telescope mirrors, chiefly because of the perfection with which glass can be ground and polished, and the ease of renewing its silvered surface when tarnished.
The great reflectors of Herschel and Lord Rosse, which were provided with mirrors of speculum metal, were far inferior to much smaller telescopes of the present day. With these instruments the star images were watched as they were carried through the field of view by the earth's rotation, or kept roughly in place by moving the telescope with ropes or chains. Photographic plates, which reveal invisible stars and nebulæ when exposed for hours in modern instruments, were not then available. In any case they could not have been used, in the absence of the perfect mechanism required to keep the star images accurately fixed in place upon the sensitive film.