"Fred Hoyle - The Black Cloud" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hoyle Fred)

your drawer for a month! Pity you didn't show it to me right away. But of course,
you weren't to know."
 "I don't see why you're so surprised by this one plate though."
"Well, look at this dark circular patch. It's obviously a dark cloud obscuring the
light from the stars that lie beyond it. Such globules are not uncommon in the
Milky Way, but usually they're tiny things. My God, look at this! It's huge, it must
be the best part of two and a half degrees across!"
"But, Dr. Marlowe, there are lots of clouds bigger than this, especially in the
region of Sagittarius."
"If you look carefully at what seem like very big clouds, you'll find them to be
built up of lots of much smaller clouds. This thing you've got here seems, on the
other hand, to be just one single spherical cloud. What really surprises me is how
I could have missed anything as big as this."
Marlowe looked again at the markings on the plate.
"It is true that it's in the south, and we're not so concerned with the winter
sky. Even so, I don't see how I could have missed it when I was working on the
Trapezium in Orion. That was only three or four years ago and I wouldn't have
forgotten anything like this."
Marlowe's failure to identify the cloud - for this is undoubtedly what it was -
came as a surprise to Jensen. Marlowe knew the sky and all the strange objects
to be found in it as well as he knew the streets and avenues of Pasadena.
Marlowe went over to the sideboard to renew the drinks. When he came back,
Jensen said:
"It was this second plate that puzzled me."
Marlowe had not looked at it for ten seconds before he was back to the first
plate. His experienced eye needed no 'blinker' to see that in the first plate the
cloud was surrounded by a ring of stars that were either absent or nearly absent
in the second plate. He continued to gaze thoughtfully at the two plates.
"There was nothing unusual about the way you took these pictures?"
"Not so far as I know."
"They certainly look all right, but you can never be quite sure."
Marlowe broke off abruptly and stood up. Now, as always when he was excited
or agitated, he blew out enormous clouds of aniseed-scented tobacco smoke, a
South African variety. Jensen marvelled that the bowl of his pipe did not burst
into flames.
"Something crazy may have happened. The best thing we can do is to get
another plate shot straight away. I wonder who is on the mountain tonight."
"You mean Mount Wilson or Palomar?"
"Mount Wilson. Palomar's too far."
"Well, as far as I remember one of the visiting astronomers is using the 100-
inch. I think Harvey Smith is on the 60-inch."
"Look, it would probably be best if I went up myself. Harvey won't mind letting
me have a few moments. I won't be able to get the whole nebulosity of course,
but I can get some of the star fields at the edge. Do you know the exact
coordinates?"
"No. I phoned as soon as I'd tried the plates in the 'blink'. I didn't stop to
measure them."
"Well, never mind, we can do that on the way. But there's no real need to
keep you out of bed, Knut. Why don't I drop you at your apartment? I'll leave a
note for Mary saying I won't be back until sometime tomorrow."