A story which Harvard's peripatetic Astronomer Harlow Shapley described as that of "a celestial Harun al-Raschid parading through the heavens in the raiment of a beggar" was related by him last week at a meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in Manhattan. Forty years ago a British amateur named Denning spotted a faint blur in the constellation Camelopardus. It was identified as a nebular nucleus, or blob of cosmic matter. This apparently pusillanimous thing was of the twelfth magnitude, far below naked-eye visibility. Astronomers did not bother to name it but...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
