noun
definition
An astronomical instrument, based on a telescope, for measuring the diameter of the sun; now used to measure the angular distance between stars and other celestial bodies.
Examples of heliometers in a Sentence
Nor did the measures made by the Germans with heliometers come out any better.
The instruments used were heliometers, the construction and use of which had been greatly improved, largely through the efforts of Gill himself.
To Dollond in 1754 we owe the combination of Savary's idea of the divided object-glass with Bouguer's method of measurement, and the construction of the first really practical heliometers.
The four long-neglected small heliometers made by Fraunhofer were brought into requisition.
It differed only from the three Russian instruments in having a mounting by the Cookes in which the declination circle reads from the eye-end.5 This instrument was afterwards most generously lent by Lord Lindsay to Gill for his expedition to Ascension in 1877.6 These four Repsold heliometers proved to be excellent instruments, 5 For a detailed description of this instrument see Dunecht Publications, vol.
But after the discontinuance of this firm that of Repsold again came to the front, not only in the construction of transit circles, but also of equatorial mountings and more especially of heliometers (see Micrometer) .
An arrangement, afterwards described, has been fitted in modern heliometers for placing the screen in front of either segment by a handle at the eye-end.
Struve's second suggestion has been adopted in nearly all succeeding heliometers.