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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 March 2016
The idea of finding the radius of a star from the distortion of the Fresnel pattern caused by diffraction at the edge of the Moon during an occultation, was first proposed by Williams in 1938. In subsequent years this idea was again taken up by a number of investigators: Whitford (1938, 1946,) Diercks and Hunger (1952), Evans et al. (1953), Cousins and Guelke (1953), Rakos (1964, 1967), Nather and Evans (1970). The greatest difficulty in carrying out such measures was the lack of a light detector of sufficiently high quantum efficiency and recording equipment of sufficiently short time constant. Modern advances in electronics have overcome these difficulties to such an extent that it now appears feasible to determine the apparent diameters of many stars with a minimum expenditure of observing time and equipment.