image of a distant body; and the micrometers of Malvasia,
Auzout and Picard are the natural developments of this discovery.
Gascoigne was killed at the battle of Marston Moor on
the 2nd of July 1644, in the twenty-fourth year of his age, and
his untimely death was doubtless the cause that delayed the
publication of a discovery which anticipated, by twenty years,
the combined work of Huygens, Malvaison, Auzout and Picard
in the same direction.
As the powers of the telescope were gradually developed, it was found that the finest hairs or filaments of silk, or the thinnest silver wires that could be drawn, were much too thick for the refined purposes of the astronomer, as they entirely obliterated the image of a star in the more powerful telescopes. To obviate this difficulty Felice Fontana of Florence (Saggio del real gabinetto di fisica e di storia naturale, 1755) first proposed the use of spider webs in micrometers,[1] but it was not till the attention of Troughton had been directed to the subject by Rittenhouse that the idea was carried into practice.[2] In 1813 Wollaston proposed fine platinum wires, prepared by surrounding a platinum wire with a cylinder of silver, and drawing out the cylinder with its platinum axis into a fine wire.[3] The surrounding silver was then dissolved by nitric acid, and a platinum wire of extreme fineness remained. But experience soon proved the superiority of the spider web; its perfection of shape, its lightness and elasticity, have led to its universal adoption.
Beyond the introduction of the spider line it is unnecessary to mention the various steps by which the Gascoigne micrometer assumed the modern forms now in use, or to describe in detail the suggestions of Hooke,[4] Wren, Smeaton, Cassini, Bradley, Maskelyne, Herschel, Arago, Pearson, Bessel, Struve, Dawes, &c., or the successive productions of the great artists Ramsden, Troughton, Fraunhofer, Ertel, Simms, Cooke, Grubb, Clarke and Repsold. It will be sufficient to describe those forms with which the most important work has been done, or which have survived the tests of time and experience.
Before astronomical telescopes were mounted parallactically, the measurement of position angles was seldom attempted. Indeed, in those days, the difficulties attached to such measures, and to the measurement of distances with the filar micrometer, were exceedingly great, and must have taxed to the utmost the skill and patience of the observer. For, on account of the diurnal motion, the direction of the axis of the telescope when pointed to a star is always changing, so that, to follow a star with an altazimuth mounting, the observer requires to move continuously the two handles which give slow motion in altitude and azimuth.
Sir William Herschel was the first astronomer who measured position angles; the instrument he employed is described in Phil. Trans. (1781), lxxi, 500. It was used by him in his earliest observations of double stars (1779–1783); but, even in his hands, the measurements were comparatively crude, because of the difficulties he had to encounter from the want of a parallactic mounting. In the case of close double stars he estimated the distance in terms of the disk of the components. For the measurement of wider stars he invented his lamp-micrometer, in which the components of a double star observed with the right eye were made to coincide with two lucid points placed 10 ft. from the left eye. The distance of the lucid points was the tangent of the magnified angles subtended by the stars to a radius of 10 ft. This angle, therefore, divided by the magnifying power of the telescope gives the real angular distance of the centres of a double star. With a power of 460 the scale was a quarter of an inch for every second.
The Modern Filar Micrometer.
When equatorial mountings for telescopes became more general, no filar micrometer was considered complete which was not fitted with a position circle.[5] The use of the spider line or filar micrometer became universal; the methods of illumination were improved; and micrometers with screws of previously unheard of fineness and accuracy were produced. These facilities, coupled with the wide and fascinating field of research opened up by Sir William Herschel's discovery of the binary character of double stars, gave an impulse to micrometric research which has continued unabated to the present time. A still further facility was given to the use of the filar micrometer by the introduction of clockwork, which caused the telescope automatically to follow the diurnal motion of a star, and left the observer’s hands entirely at liberty.[6]
The micrometer represented in figs. 1, 2, 3 is due to Troughton. Fig. 1 is a horizontal section in the direction of the axis of the telescope.
Fig. 1.Fig. 2.Fig. 3.
The eyepiece ab consists of two plano-convex lenses a, b, of nearly the same focal length, and with the two convex sides facing each other. They are placed at a distance apart less than the focal length of a, so that the wires of the micrometer, which must be distinctly seen, are beyond b. This is known as Ramsden’s eyepiece, having been made originally by him. The eyepiece slides into the tube cd, which screws into the brass ring ef, through two openings in which the oblong frame, containing the micrometer slides, passes. These slides are shown in fig. 2, and consist of brass forks k and l, into which the ends of the screws o and p are rigidly fitted. The slides are accurately fitted so as to have no sensible lateral shake, but yet so as to move easily in the direction of the greatest length of the micrometer box. Motion is communicated to the forks by female screws tapped in the heads m and n acting on the screws o and p respectively. Two pins q, r, with spiral springs coiled round them, pass loosely through holes in the forks k, l, and keep the bearings of the heads m and n firmly pressed against the ends of the micrometer box. Thus the smallest rotation of either head communicates to the corresponding slide motion, which, if the screws are accurate, is proportional to the amount through which the head is turned. Each head is graduated into 100 equal parts on the drums u and v, so that, by estimation, the reading can easily be carried to 11000th of a revolution. The total number of revolutions is read gif by a scale attached to the side of the box, but not seen in the gure.
Two spider webs are stretched across the forks, one (t) being cemented in a fine groove cut in the inner fork k, the other (s) in a similar groove cut in the outer fork l. These grooves are simultaneously cut in situ by the maker, with the aid of an engine capable of ruling fine straight lines, so that the webs when accurately laid in the grooves are perfectly parallel. A wire st is stretched across the centre of the field, perpendicular to the parallel wires. Each movable web must pass the other without coming in contact with it or the fixed wire, and without rubbing on any part of the brass-work. Should either fault occur (technically called “fiddling”) it is fatal to accurate measurement. One of the most essential points in a good micrometer is that all the webs shall be so nearly in the same plane as to be well in focus together under the highest powers used, and at the same time absolutely free from “fiddling.” For measuring position angles a brass circle gh (fig. 3), fixed to the telescope by the screw i, has rack teeth on its circumference that receive the teeth of an endless screw w, which, being fixed by the arms xx to the oblong box mn, gives the latter a motion of rotation round the axis of the telescope; an index upon this box points out on the graduated circle gh the angular rotation of the instrument.
- ↑ In 1782 (Phil. Trans. lxxii. 163) Sir W. Herschel writes:— “I have in vain attempted to find lines sufficiently thin to extend them across the centres of the stars, so that their thickness might be neglected.” It is a matter of regret that Fontana’s suggestion was unknown to him.
- ↑ J. T. Quekett in his Treatise on the Microscope ascribes to Ramsden the practical introduction of the spider web in micrometers. The evidence appears to be in favour of Troughton.
- ↑ Phil. Trans. (1813), pp. 114–118.
- ↑ Dr Hooke made the important improvement on Gascoigne’s micrometer of substituting parallel hairs for the parallel edges of its original construction (Hooke’s Posthumous Works, p. 497).
- ↑ Herschel and South (Phil. Trans., 1824, part iii. p. 10) claim that the micrometer by Troughton, fitted to their 5 ft. equatorial telescope, is the first position micrometer constructed capable of measuring position angles to 1′ of arc.
- ↑ So far as we can ascertain, the first telescope of large size driven by clockwork was the 9-in. equatorial made for Struve at Dorpat by Fraunhofer; it was completed in 1825. The original idea appears to be due to Claude Simeon Passemant (Mem. Acad., Paris, 1746). In 1757 he presented a telescope to the king, so accurately driven by clockwork that it would follow a star all night long.
