Abstract
THE PERIOD OF ALGOL.—Mr. S. C. Chandler publishes, in Nos. 165, 166, and 167 of Gould's Astronomical Journal, a careful and thorough discussion of the period of this interesting variable. Starting with the observations of Goodricke in 1782, he had at his disposal the times of nearly 700 minima as observed by about fifty astronomers, spread over a little more than a century. His first task was to reduce these observations to a common system—an operation the more necessary, since, in the present low state of our knowledge, differences in the processes of reduction are more important in their effect, if they do not completely overshadow personal differences in observation. Mr. Chandler decided, therefore, to abandon the use of the minimum phase as a reference-point, and re-reduced the entire mass of observations on a method the essential principle of which consisted in taking, as the reference-point, the mean between the times of equal brightness on the descending and ascending branches of the light curve. This involved the abandonment of 199 minima, for which sufficient details could not be procured, but left 496 to be employed in the investigation. Unfortunately these are not by any means evenly distributed as to time, and in the earlier part of the present century satisfactory observations are very scarce.
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Our Astronomical Column . Nature 37, 544–545 (1888). https://doi.org/10.1038/037544a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/037544a0