"As 2012 comes to a close and you toast the New Year, be sure to also raise a glass to one
Vesto Melvin Slipher...
On the night of September 17, 1912, Slipher observed [photographed] the
Andromeda nebula, for a total of six hours and 50 minutes. Later, he made even lengthier observations including two over consecutive nights, and one over the last three nights of 1912. It was a cosmic breakthrough.
Slipher had finally recorded useful spectra. In 1913 he
announced that the Andromeda nebula was moving toward us at an astonishing rate of 300 km/s.
At the time, the majority of stars had much smaller velocities, measured in the tens of km/s. Sliphers' velocity was quite startling."
http://theconversation.edu.au/expand...osmology-10885
