Our Astronomical Column

Abstract

THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE STARS IN SCHÖNFELD's “DURCHMUSTERUNG.”—The extension of Argelander's survey of the heavens from the North Pole to 2° of south declination undertaken by his successor, Prof. Schönfeld, has recently been published, and contains the places of stars down to mag. 10, situated between 2° and 23° of south declination. Prof. Seeliger, in a paper entitled “Ueber die Vertheilung der Sterne auf der Südlichen Halbkugel nach Schönfeld's ‘Durchmusterung,’” published in the Proceedings of the Mathematico-Physical Section of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, has discussed the question of the distribution of these stars. He divides the stars into eight classes. Class I. contains those of mag. 1–6.5, Class II. those of mag. 6.6–7.0, and so on down to Class VIII., which contains stars of mag. 9.6–10.0. Prof. Seeliger then gives the number of stars in each class arranged in zones embracing 1° in declination, and grouped by intervals of 40m. in R.A. The totals for each class are: Class I. 1265, Class II. 1276, Class III. 1828, Class IV. 3516, Class V. 7601, Class VI. 18,633, Class VII. 55,565, and Class VIII. 43,896. The total number of stars thus counted is 133,580, and adding to this 79 objects which are classified as nebulæ or variables, there results the grand total 133,659. This total agrees with the summation of the numbers given by Prof. Schönfeld. Comparing the results contained in this paper with those in a similar paper on the stars in Argelander's “Durchmusterung,” Prof. Seeliger finds that, as far as Schönfeld's work can be considered typical of the southern hemisphere as a whole (it must be remembered, however, that it only embraces one-third thereof), the influence of the Milky Way on stellar distribution, at least for stars down to mag. 8, appears to be less marked for the southern than for the northern hemisphere. With regard to the question as to which hemisphere is the richer in stars, it appears that there is no decided difference shown by the two surveys under consideration. Reducing Argelander's numbers so as to make them comparable with Schönfeld's, and taking stars down to mag. 9 inclusive, we have for the former the total 34,324, and for the latter 34,119, a difference which may reasonably be attributed to accidental circumstances.