letters

Your item in the May issue on

computing Sun pillars (bright
columns of light in the sky
produced by reflections from
atmospheric ice crystals) gave
an interesting account of the
modern understanding of
their origin. The ancients had
no such knowledge, though,
and at times attached great
In hoc signo? A vertical Sun pillar and a horizontal parhelic
significance to such apparicircle can form an impressive cross, as in this example
tions. An excellent, historychanging example may well be photographed above Halley Station, Antarctica.
that of Constantine the Great
in A.D. 312. It seems likely that he witthe empire. A decade later he issued a
nessed such a phenomenon, the outcome decree recognizing the Sabbath as a day
being the ascendancy of Christianity.
of rest, leading to the ascendancy of the
Early in the 4th century the state relig- seven-day week so familiar to us all.
ion of the Roman Empire involved worThese events, which I describe in more
ship of the planets and especially the
detail in my book Marking Time (Wiley,
Sun. While marching south through Italy October 1999), seem to have been set in
in civil war against other claimants to
train by a combined Sun pillar and
the emperorship, Constantine saw what
parhelic circle seen by Constantine and
he took to be the image of a cross over
his men almost 1,700 years ago. Sky &
the Sun. The description sounds very
Telescope has printed articles on historic
much like that of a Sun pillar, which was eclipses, comets, sunspots, and meteors
certainly a possibility at that time of year that changed history. We have good rea(the end of October), when an icy upper son to believe a Sun pillar can be added
atmosphere would be plausible.
to that list.
This would explain the vertical beam,
Duncan Steel
but what of the horizontal crossbar?
Armagh Observatory
Constantines apparition occurred while
College Hill
the Sun was low in the sky, making posArmagh, BT61 9DG
sible the halo structure called the parhelNorthern Ireland, U.K.
ic circle, so named because the two
dis@star.arm.ac.uk
bright parhelia, or sundogs, 22 from
the Sun lie upon it.
The combined effect would have
A Globular Planet
looked to Constantine very much like
Your Hipparcos-based 3-D view of the
the symbol employed by the growing
Hyades cluster (June issue, page 40) reChristian faith. His whole army agreed
minded me of a fine 3-D view of a very
that they saw this vision, so that it seems different astronomical showpiece, Jupito have been a real phenomenon, though ter. In the September 1997 issue, page
their leader later embellished the story
90, you printed a series of enhanced-color
somewhat, saying that he had also seen
CCD images of Jupiter showing the Great
Greek words in the sky instructing him
Red Spot and many more details shifting
to conquer by this sign.
due to Jupiters fast rotation. Although the
Constantine himself did not convert to pictures werent intended for 3-D viewing,
Christianity until on his deathbed in 337,
pairs of them can be free-fused to probut this vision led him to take a softer line duce a vividly globular planet. Jupiters rotoward Jews and Gentiles than they had
tation in the course of a few minutes propreviously endured, and with the Edict
vides the necessary different perspectives,
of Milan in 313 he legislated for the tolas if your two eyes were far apart in space.
eration of Christian worship throughout
It is a new experience to see Jupiters
12

October 1999 Sky & Telescope

1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

P. GIBBS, BRITISH ANTARCTIC SURVEY

A Sun Pillar That

Changed the World

The Essential
Magazine of
Astronomy

50&25
Y

OCTOBER 1974 We, the

crew of Skylab III, were very
fortunate to have been in
Earth orbit and able to observe Comet Kohoutek during its perihelion passage at
the end of 1973. For us it was
a very elegant and impressive sight. . . . During this
time period, the comet . . .
could not be properly seen from the ground.
So wrote astronaut Edward G. Gibson about
the most over-hyped comet of the 20th century.
One of the most important advantages of
space research is the ability to observe celestial objects in the ultraviolet spectral region. . . .
In December, 1973, during the flight of the
Soviet spaceship Soyuz 13 . . . ultraviolet spectra
of many stars were obtained. . . .
The 1960s and 70s saw much activity in ultraviolet research, capped by the launch of the
hugely successful International Ultraviolet
Explorer satellite in 1978.
14

October 1999 Sky & Telescope

DONALD C. PARKER

OCTOBER 1949 A picture of the nucleus

of a comet as a conglomeration of ices of compounds that are gases at room temperature, but
frozen solid at the extremely low temperatures
of outer planetary
space, was painted by
Dr. Fred L. Whipple, of
Harvard College Observatory. . . .
As a comet of this
nature moves in its
eccentrically shaped
orbit nearer and
nearer to the sun
the heat of the suns radiation would cause the
ices to evaporate and to produce the huge
cloud of gas that we observe to be the coma
or head of the comet.
This remark preceded by two years Whipples
dirty snowball model for a comets nucleus, one
of the most enduring astronomical paradigms of
the 20th century.
The three-day convention was held on
August 2224, 1949, in the Bovard auditorium,
University of Southern California. . . .
Walter DePalma . . . recommended the formation of a congress of western amateur societies. . . .
Thus the seed for the Western Amateur
Astronomers was sown. The organization flourished for several decades.

Jupiter rotated 6 during the 10 minutes between these images. To see the planet in three dimensions, hold the page against your face so each image is in front of one eye. Relax and gaze into the
distance through the paper while slowly moving it away to reading distance or a little beyond.
If you get the images to fall exactly on top of each other, they will fuse into a single spherical globe.

details printed on a ball-shaped surface.

In addition, one of Jupiters moons appears to be emerging from behind the
planets body.
Klaus Schulze-Frerichs
16 Langendiebacher Str.
Neuberg 63543, Germany
k.schulze-frerichs@t-online.de

Eye Surgery and Skywatching

Many nearsighted people are undergoing
LASIK refractive eye surgery to correct
their vision, but astronomers have special
concerns to consider before choosing
any refractive surgery.
LASIK is the latest FDA-approved
procedure for reshaping the cornea of
the eye. It is done by lifting off a small
section of the outer layer of the cornea,
using a laser to resculpt the layer beneath,
and putting back the outer flap. This
flap and zap procedure aids healing
and reduces negative side effects.
Because the cornea is thin, the resculpting cannot be done very deeply, so
the diameter of the ablated area is limited by the FDA to 6 millimeters. This is
large enough for daytime vision, when
your pupil is much smaller than 6 mm,
but an astronomer whose pupil routinely opens to 7 or 8 mm at night risks
having the uncorrected area of the cornea substantially compromise his or her
observing. Even among nonastronomers,
the most common complaint after refractive surgery is glare and halos
around lights at night. Its like having

eyes with the worlds worst turneddown edge.

Moreover, when you use averted vision
the good area of your cornea should be
larger than your pupil. For instance, a
light source 15 from your visual axis requires 6 mm of good cornea when your
pupil is only about 4.7 mm wide.
Astronomers considering laser eye
surgery should have their nighttime
pupil size determined and consider these
issues carefully. The pupil gauge sold by
Sky & Telescope [$2.95 postpaid] can
help you estimate your pupil size under
observing conditions, though it is not a
substitute for medical advice. Useful information can also be found at
http://209.157.186.247/faq/faq.html and
in the discussion group sci.med.vision.
Barry Santini
384 Sunrise Hwy.
Seaford, NY 11783
bsantini@fnol.net

For the Record

On a neutron star in 200 billion gs of
gravity, a teaspoonful of average neutronstar material would weigh eight times
what the Moon would weigh on the Earths
surface not just a quarter of the Moons
weight (July issue, page 30).
The Parkes radio telescope in Australia
has an aperture of 64 meters, not 100
(July issue, page 32 caption). The graph of
pulsar data under the caption is a short
segment of data repeated several times.

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1999 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.