Letters: Years AGO

50&25
YEARS
AGO
February 1947
Your columns carried an
interesting mention and discussion of the curious reversal effect evident in enlarged
photographs of the moons
surface, whereby, under certain conditions objective or subjective
those parts of the surface in relief appeared
as depressions and vice versa.
Relief reversal became a chronic problem
when in 1964 the Ranger spacecraft began returning close-up pictures of soft-edged craters
on the Moons surface. In the February 1967
issue of Sky & Telescope, the celebrated astronomer Marcel Minnaert explained the phenomenon as a psychological effect resulting
from preconceived notions concerning the direction of illumination, which affect ones interpretation of shadows. In his experiments,
the vast majority of subjects saw craters as
holes if the sunlight came from above or to
the left.
Birthday of the Amateur Astronomers
League was November 15, 1946, when the
10th ratification was received by the Committee on Permanent Organization. But more
ratifications quickly followed, so that by December 31st the list of member societies had
reached 22.
February 1972
The Apollo 12, 14, and 15
seismic stations continued to
operate and have recorded
hundreds of natural seismic
events true moonquakes
and meteorite impacts. . . .
An informative peculiarity of true moonquakes is that with few exceptions they occur
close to the times when the moon is at the
perigee or apogee part of its orbit. During
the week of perigee, nearly 85 percent of the
monthly moonquake energy is released. The
tide-raising force that the earth exerts on
the moon is a maximum at the time of perigee. Hence it is believed that most moonquakes represent the releases of strains within the moon that are triggered by tidal forces.
These seismic measurements provide a
glimpse into the lunar interior. Some moonquakes seem to originate in the upper mantle,
at a depth of a few hundred kilometers, while
others emanate from deeper down. The current view is that the lunar crust, some 70 km
thick on average and containing about 12 percent of the Moons volume, is shattered down
to a depth of a few tens of kilometers. Below
about 25 km the fractures have annealed. Deeper down the lunar rock may still be largely intact, except under giant impact basins such as
Mare Imbrium.
Sky & Telescope February 1997
LETTERS
Calling All Amateurs
My book Star Ware was published in
1994. The purpose of this book was
twofold. It surveyed, in an unbiased way,
the astronomical-equipment marketplace,
to help amateurs answer the question:
Which telescope is right for me? It also
explained terminology and concepts that
might confuse readers new to astronomy.
To keep Star Ware up-to-date, I invite
all readers of Sky & Telescope to help
me by completing a simple survey, telling
me what you think of your astronomical
equipment. The form is available on the
World Wide Web at http://www.rahul.net/
resource/surveys.html. You may request
a copy from me via e-mail at 103055.2357
@compuserve.com or by sending a selfaddressed, stamped envelope to the address below.
I am also looking for 10 new build-athome projects to include in the book. I
am not interested in complete telescopes
but rather accessories and observing aids.
No project is too small! If your project
is selected for the book you will receive
a free copy when it is published in mid1998. Project ideas may be submitted by
e-mail as above or to http://www.tiac.net/
users/atm/starware.html.
PHILIP S. HARRINGTON
54A Dillmont Dr.
Smithtown, NY 11787
More Ways to Order the Days

Eld Boths interesting hypothesis
(S&T: September 1996, page 8) relating
the order of the days of the week to the
Sun, Moon, and five naked-eye planets as
well as perfect fifths in the musical scale
deserves some comment. Both is not the
first to have wrestled with the dilemma
that the days of the week do not follow
the astronomical order of the celestial objects for which they are named.
Camille Flammarion, in his Astronomie
Populaire (1881), suggested that the days
achieved their present order thanks to a
favorite cabalistic symbol of ancient astrologers. If the Sun, Moon, and five
naked-eye planets are arranged in a circle in order of increasing orbital period
as seen from Earth and are then connected to form a seven-pointed star, the
lines follow the order of the days in
their proper sequence.
Flammarion also explains the two systems reported by Roman historian Dio
Cassius. One is a music-based system
similar to Boths, but it follows the plan1996 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
ets in decreasing order of orbital period

and uses perfect fourths. The second allots the planet names, again in order of
decreasing period, to the hours of the day
in a continuously repeating sequence of
seven. The first hour of each new day
then gives the proper day order. All three
systems are mathematically equivalent.
EWEN A. WHITAKER
4332 E. Sixth St.
Tucson, AZ 85711
Suspicious Star Names

I read with interest the Focal Point
concerning companies that will name a
star after you for a fee (S&T: October
1996, page 6). Some may frown on the
practice of naming stars for personal
fame, but history does provide at least
one precedent.
I have recently examined a portion of
the voluminous correspondence between
19th-century astronomers Otto Struve,
Pulkovo Observatorys second director,
and Giovanni Schiaparelli, director of
Brera Observatory in Milan. Schiaparelli
visited Pulkovo for an extended period
in 1859 and 1860. On June 14, 1869, Schiaparelli wrote to Struve: I should like to
conclude this letter with some curiosum.
Among the Arabic names of stars that
were listed by [Giuseppe] Piazzi there
are two whose Arabic origin always
seemed doubtful to me; these are the
two stars in the Dolphin, SVALOCIN
and ROTANEV [ and Delphini].
They sound more Russian than Arabic:
if you change the order of the letters you
shall find Nicolaus Venator! Here you
have a funny forgery that immortalizes
the name of Piazzis assistant. I cannot
say whether Piazzi had been the author
of this cunning invention or Niccolo
Cacciatore himself. (The Latin words
Nicolaus Venator are equivalent to Niccolo Cacciatore in Italian, or Nicholas
Hunter in English.)
Few have suspected this witty deception by an 18th- century astronomer,
which can still be found on a few sky atlases today.
VICTOR K. ABALAKIN
Pulkovo Observatory, M-140
196140 Saint Petersburg
Russia
Editors Note: According to Richard Hinckley
Allens Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning, 19th-century British astronomer Thomas
William Webb also uncovered the origin of
Svalocin and Rotanev.

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50&25

Sky & Telescope February 1997

More Ways to Order the Days

ets in decreasing order of orbital period

Suspicious Star Names

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