Abstract
Among the various expeditions sent out to observe the total solar eclipse of May 9, 1929, that of the Potsdam Observatory (Einstein Stiftung) seems to be the only one which obtained photographs suitable for determining the light deflection in the Sun's gravitational field. Two instruments were used, but so far only the results of the larger one, a 28foot horizontal camera combined with a coelostat, have been published. The three observers, Freundlich, von Kliiber, and von Brunn,2 claim that these observations (four plates containing from seventeen to eighteen star images each) lead to a value of 2'.'24 for the deflection of a light ray grazing the Sun's edge; a figure that deviates considerably from the results of the 1922 eclipse, and which is in contradiction to Einstein's generalized theory of relativity. In view of the importance and general interest attached to this problem, a few critical remarks on the Potsdam observations and their reduction should not be out of place here :3
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