Coelostat Sentence Examples

Also, if the axis is made to revolve at half the apparent diurnal motion of the stars, the image of the celestial sphere, viewed by reflection from such a moving mirror, will appear at rest at every point - hence the name coelostat applied to the apparatus.

Thus, any fixed telescope directed towards the mirror of a properly adjusted coelostat in motion will show all the stars in the field of view at rest; or, by rotating the polar axis independently of the clockwork, the observer can pass in review all the stars visible above the horizon whose declinations come within the limits of his original field of view.

Therefore, to observe stars of a different declination it will be necessary either to shift the direction of the fixed telescope, keeping its axis still pointed to the coelostat mirror, or to employ a second mirror to reflect the rays from the coelostat mirror along the axis of a fixed telescope.

In the latter case it will be necessary to provide means to mount the coelostat on a carriage by which it can be moved east and west without changing the altitude or azimuth of its polar axis, and also to shift the second mirror so that it may receive all the light from the reflected beam.

Besides these complications there is another drawback to the use of the coelostat for general astronomical work, viz., the obliquity of the angle of reflection, which can never be less than that of the declination of the star, and may be greater to any extent.

For these reasons the coelostat is never likely to be largely employed in general astronomical work, but it is admirably adapted for spectroscopic and bolometric observations of the sun, and for use in eclipse expeditions.