The astronomy of comets. In two parts ... / by Blyth Hancock.

  • Hancock, Blith.
Date:
1786
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The astronomy of comets. In two parts ... / by Blyth Hancock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    27/122 (page 5)
    invifible to the naked eye; and the better our glafTes are, ftiil the more become vifible : fo that we can fet no limits, either to their number or their diftances ; nor can we rea- fonably fuppofe that the different apparent magnitudes of the Stars is in anywife owing to one Star being lefs or bigger than another, but wholtly to their being at a lefs or greater diftance from us; as it is moft proveable, that they are all nearly of the fame fize one with another, and all nearly of the fame magnitude with the Sun. The Sun appears very bright and large, in comparifon of the fixed Stars, becaufe we keep confiantly near the Sun, in comparifon of our immenfe dif- tance from the Stars: for a fpedlator, placed as near to any Star as we are to the Sun, would fee that Star a body as large and bright as the Sun appears to us ; and a fpe6tator, as far diflant from the Sun as we are from the Stars, would fee the Sun as final 1 as wc lee a Star, divefled of all it’s circumvolving Planets, and would reckon it one of the Stars in nuinbering them. B3