Airy's experiment and the dragging of light by a moving medium

Abstract

Airy observed the star γ Draconis with the telescope vertically. During observation, he introduced a tube with water in the telescope and expected to adjust the inclination of the telescope. The result was that the star's image was the same with or without water in the tube. With water in the tube and no dragging of light by the moving medium, this article indicates that the image captured by the telescope has a shift of 0.053 mm that may not be observable; therefore, there is no need to adjust the inclination of the telescope. Considering the dragging of light by the water in the tube, the derived formula of the drag coefficient in the framework of Newtonian physics based on Airy's experimental result is identical to that offered by Fresnel based on the ether theory.