wargentin's

Updated: May 22, 2025

And more recently Sir David Brewster stated that Wargentin 'had in his possession a good achromatic telescope, which always showed Venus with such a satellite. But Hell admitted that the falsehood of the unreal Venus was easily detected, and Brewster adds to his account of Wargentin's phantom moon, that 'the deception was discovered by turning the telescope about its axis. As Admiral Smyth well remarks, to endeavour to explain away in this manner the observations made by Cassini and Short 'must be a mere pleasantry, for it is impossible such accurate observers could have been deceived by so gross a neglect. Smyth, by the way, was a believer in the moon of Venus.

Richard A. (Richard Anthony) Proctor - Myths and Marvels of Astronomy