test-star

Updated: May 5, 2025

Bessel had no sooner made himself acquainted with the exquisite defining powers of the Königsberg heliometer, than he resolved to employ them in an attack upon the now secular problem of star-distances. But it was not until 1837 that he found leisure to pursue the inquiry. In choosing his test-star he adopted a new principle.

Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke - A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century: Fourth Edition