Abstract
THE results of observation made at the United States Naval Obervatory with the 9-in. transit circle during the period 1935·5–1945·2 have been issued as Publications of the United States Naval Observatory, Second Series, Vol. 15, Part 5 (Washington, 1948). The programme included: (1) observation the sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, 76 day stars, 225 clock and 36 azimuth stars ; (2) ten observations of each of the stars north of – 36° declination contained in a number of specified publications ; (3) four observations of each of approximately 800 zodiacal stars fainter than mag. 7·5 contained in the “Albany General Catalogue’ ; (4) six observations of each of about 3,000 stars, mag. 5·5 to about 8·0, uniformly spaced in the declination zone 0° to – 30° ; (5) about four observations of each star in a miscellaneous list, including 144 stars of the ”International List’ for the thirty-ninth parallel, 100 stars of the Washington photographic zenith tube list, and 113 stars, most faint or double stars not in the Yale re-observation of the Astronomische Gesellschaft zone, – 10° to – 20° declination. A detailed description is given of the personnel, instrumental equipment, general plan of observing, etc. Corrections to the equator and equinox were made, using the sun solutions, Mercury and Venus solutions, and Mars and Jupiter solutions; the results of the solutions of the combined normal equations in each case are given in Table 39. It is expected that the catalogue will represent the results of the last programme to be conducted with the 9-in. transit circle, which has been in service since 1865, but which has been partially dismantled and will be replaced by a new instrument incorporating improved features.
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Work of the United States-Naval Observatory. Nature 164, 177 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1038/164177a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/164177a0