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THE UNIVERSITY
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LIBRARY
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EMOTE STORM
Return this book on or before the
Latest Date stamped below.
University of Illinois Library
| OCT 23 1953
NAY 6 1954
L161—H41
ASTRONOMY
WITH AN OPERA-GLASS
A POPULAR INTRODUCTION TO THE
STUDY OF THE STARRY HEAVENS WITH THE
SIMPLEST OF OPTICAL INSTRUMENTS
WITH MAPS AND DIRECTIONS TO FACILITATE THE RECOGNITION
OF THE CONSTELLATIONS AND THE PRINCIPAL STARS
VISIBLE TO THE NAKED EYE
BY
GARRETT P. SERVISS
“* Known are their laws ; in harmony unroll
The nineteen-orbed cycles of the Moon.
And all the signs through which Night whirls her car
From belted Orion back to Orion and his dauntless Hound,
And all Poseidon’s, all high Zeus’ stars
Bear on their beams trne messages to man.”’
PostTE’s ARATUS.
EIGHTH EDITION, WITH APPENDIX
NEW YORK AND LONDON
Dense VON SAND COME AN Y
1923
apex CopyricH, 1888, aoe poe,
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
: ; se
; Pacis . oes
22 We 2 4
|Ve IL
Que
P
Oui
wT
m4
oy ke
S 2 (ad.
— ASF ~
——pnA~TrE, QTOKAWY
Savi) iri"
A ise Va 4
TO THE READER.
In the pages that follow, the author has endeavored to
encourage the study of the heavenly bodies by pointing out
some of the interesting and marvelous phenomena of the uni-
verse that are visible with little or no assistance from optical
instruments, and indicating means of becoming acquainted
with the constellations and the planets. Knowing that an
opera-glass is capable of revealing some of the most beautiful
sights in the starry dome, and believing that many persons
would be glad to iearn the fact, he set to work with such an
instrument and surveyed all the constellations visible in the
latitude of New York, carefully noting everything that it
seemed might interest amateur star-gazers. All the objects
thus observed have not been included in this book, lest the
multiplicity of details should deter or discourage the very
readers for whom it was specially written. On the other
hand, there is nothing described as visible with an opera-glass
or a field-glass which the author has not seen with an instru-
ment of that description, and which any person possessing eye-
sight of average quality and a competent glass should not be
able to discern. |
But, in order to lend due interest to the subject, and place
it before the reader in a proper light and true perspective,
many facts have been stated concerning the objects described,
the ascertainment of which has required the aid of powerful
telescopes, and to observers with such instruments is reserved
the noble pleasure of confirming with their own eyes those
538681
i¥ TO THE READER.
wonderful discoveries which the looker with an opera-glass
can not hope to behold unless, happily, he should be spurred
on to the possession of a telescope. Yet even to glimpse dimly
these distant wonders, knowing what a closer view would re-
veal, is a source of no mean satisfaction, while the celestial
phenomena that lie easily within reach of an opera-glass are
sufficient to furnish delight and instruction for many an
evening. ;
It should be said that the division of the stars used in this
book into the ‘‘Stars of Spring,” ‘‘Stars of Summer,” ‘‘ Stars
of Autumn,” and ‘‘ Stars of Winter,” is purely arbitrary, and
intended only to indicate the seasons when certain constella-
tions are best situated for observation or most conspicuous.
The greater part of the matter composing this volume ap-
peared originally in a series of articles contributed by the au-—
thor to ‘‘The Popular Science Monthly” in 1887~’88. The
reception that those articles met with encouraged him to re-
vise and enlarge them for publication in the more permanent
form of a book. |
G7
Brook.yn, N. Y., September, 1888.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PRYRODUCLION de gay. oe a ren yee ee ae
Popular interest in the phenomena of the BEATERE
The opera-glass as an instrument of observation for beginners in star-
study.
Testing an opera-glass.
- CHAPTER I.
THe STARS OF SPRING . : : : : > a : Sey
Description of the ee sinaionge atten the Charioteer; Berenice’s
Hair; Cancer, the Crab [the Manger]; Canis Minor, the Tener Dog; Cor-
vus, the Crow; Crateris, the Cup; Gemini, the Twins; Hydra, the Water-
Serpent; Leo, the Lion; Ursa Major, the Greater Bear [the Great Dipper];
Ursa Minor, the Lesser Bear [the Pole-Star].
A circular index-map, maps on a larger scale, of the constellations de-
scribed, and pictures of remarkable objects.
CHAPTER II.
THE STARS OF SUMMER . : : - DO
Description of the PA te en the Eagle; Bodtes, the Herds-
man, or Bear-Diver; Canes Venatici, the Hunting-Dogs; Cygnus, the
Swan [the Northern Cross]; Delphinus, the Dolphin; Draco, the Dragon;
Hercules [the Great Sun-Swarm, 13 M]; Libra, the Balance; Lyra, the
Harp; the Northern Crown; Ophiuchus et Serpens, the Serpent-bearer and
the Serpent; Sagitta, the Arrow; Sagittarius, the Archer; Scorpio, the
Scorpion; Sobieski’s Shield; Taurus Poniatowskii, Poniatowsky’s Bull;
Virgo, the Virgin [the Field of the Nebule]; Vulpecula, the Little Fox.
A circular index-map, maps, on a larger scale, of the constellations de-
scribed, and pictures of remarkable objects.
CHAPTER III.
THE Srars oF AUTUMN , aati Sik Satake ay at ot OU
Description of the Constellations—Andromeda [the Great Nebula]; _
Aquarius, the Water-Bearer; Aries, the Ram; Capricornus, the Goat;
Cassiopeia; Cepheus; Cetus, the Whale [Mira, the wonderful eartle
star]; Pegasus, the Winged Horse.
vi CONTENTS.
. . PAGE
Perseus [ Algol, the Demon-Star]; Pisces, the Fishes; Piscis Australis,
the Southern Fish; the Triangles.
A circular index-map, maps on a larger scale, of the constellations de-
scribed, and pictures of remarkable objects.
CHAPTER IV.
THE STARS OF WINTER . : : ees ; : ‘ ; . 89
Description of the Constellations—Argo, Jason’s Ship; Canis Major,
the Great Dog [Sirius]; Eridanus, the river Po; Lepus, the Hare; Mo-
- noceros, the Unicorn; Orion [the Great Nebula]; Taurus, the Bull [the
Pleiades and Hyades].
A circular index-map, maps on a larger scale, of the constellations ae-
scribed, and pictures of remarkable objects.
CHAPTER V. 3
THE MOON, THE PLANETS, AND THE SUN. : : : : . 118
Description of lunar “seas,” mountains, and “craters,” with a map of
the moon, and cuts showing its appearance with a field-glass.
Opera-glass observation of—The sun (one cut), Mercury, Venus, Mars,
Jupiter and his satellites (one cut), Saturn, Uranus (three cuts),
ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
_INTRODUCTION.
STAR-GAZING was never more popular than itis now. In
every civilized country many excellent telescopes are owned
and used, often to very good purpose, by persons who are
not practical astronomers, but who wish to see for themselves
the marvels of the sky, and who occasionally stumble upon
something that is new even to professional star-gazers. Yet,
notwithstanding this activity in the cultivation of astronomi-
cal studies, it is probably safe to assert that hardly one per-
son in a hundred knows the chief stars by name, or can even
recognize the principal constellations, much less distinguish
the planets from the fixed stars. And of course they know
nothing of the intellectual pleasure that accompanies a
knowledge of the stars. Modern astronomy is so rapidly
and wonderfully linking the earth and the sun together, with
all the orbs of space, in the bonds of close physical relation-
ship, that a person of education and general intelligence can
offer no valid excuse for not knowing where to look for Sirius
or Aldebaran, or the Orion nebula, or the planet Jupiter.
As Australia and New Zealand and the islands of the sea are
made a part of the civilized world through the expanding
influence of commerce and cultivation, so the suns and plan-
ets around us are, in a certain sense, falling under the domin-
ion of the restless and resistless mind of man. We have
come to possess vested intellectual interests in Mars and Sat-
urn, and in the sun and all his multitude of fellows, which
nobody can afford to ignore.
2 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
A singular proof of popwar ignorance of the starry heav-
ens, aS well as of popular curiosity concerning any uncom-
mon celestial phenomenon, is furnished by the curious no-
tions prevailing about the planet Venus. When Venus
began to attract general attention in the western sky in the
early evenings of the spring of 1887, speculation quickly
became rife about it, particularly on the great Brooklyn
Bridge. As the planet hung dazzlingly bright over the
New Jersey horizon, some people appeared to think it was
the light of Liberty’s torch, mistaking the bronze goddess’s
real flambeau for a part of the electric-light system of the
metropolis. Finally (to judge from the letters written to the
newspapers, and the questions asked of individuals sup-
posed to know something about the secrets of the sky),
the conviction seems to have become pretty widely distrib-
uted that the strange light in the west was no less than an
electrically illuminated balloon, nightly sent skyward by Mr.
Edison, for no other conceivable reason than a wizardly
desire to mystify his fellow-men. I have positive informa-
tion that this ridiculous notion has been actually entertained
by more than one person of intelligence. And as Venus
glowed with increasing splendor in- the serene evenings of
June, she continued to be mistaken for some petty arti-
ficial light instead of the magnificent world that she was,
sparkling out there in the sunshine like a globe of bur-
nished silver. Yet Venus as an evening star is not so rare
a phenomenon that people of intelligence should be surprised
at it. Once in every 584 days she reappears at the same
place in the sunset sky—
‘““Gem of the crimson-colored even
3
Companion of retiring day.”
No eye can fail to note her, and as the nearest and most
beautiful of the Earth’s sisters it would seem that every-
body should be as familiar with her appearance as with the
INTRODUCTION. 3
face of a friend. But the popular ignorance of Venus, and
the other members of the planetary family to which our
mother, the Earth, belongs, is only an index of the denser
ignorance concerning the stars—the brothers of our great
father, the Sun. I believe this ignorance is largely due to
mere indifference, which, in its turn, arises from a false and
pedantic method of presenting astronomy as a creature of
mathematical formule, and a humble handmaiden of the
art of navigation. I do not, of course, mean to cast doubt
upon the scientific value of technical work in astronomy.
The science could -not exist without it. Those who have
made the spectroscope reveal the composition of the sun
and stars, and who are now making photography picture
the heavens as they are, and even reveal phenomena which
lie beyond the range of human vision, are the men who have
taken astronomy out of its swaddling-clothes, and set it on
its feet as a progressive science. But when one sees the
depressing and repellent effect that has evidently been pro-
ducéd upon the popular mind by the ordinary methods of
presenting astronomy, one can not resist the temptation to
utter a vigorous protest, and to declare that this glorious
science is not the grinning mathematical skeleton that it
has been represented to be.
Perhaps one reason why the average educated man or
woman knows so little of the starry heavens is because it is
popularly supposed that only the most powerful telescopes
and costly instruments of the observatory are capable of deal-
ing with them. No greater mistake could be made. It does
not require an optical instrument of any kind, nor much
labor, as compared with that expended in the acquirement of
some polished accomplishments regarded as indispensable, to
give one an acquaintance with the stars and planets which
will be not only pleasurable but useful. And with the aid
of an opera-glass most interesting, gratifying, and, in some
instances, scientifically valuable observations may be made in
4 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-@LASS.
the heavens. I have more than once heard persons who knew
nothing about the stars, and probably cared less, utter ex-
clamations of surprise and delight when persuaded to look at
certain parts of the sky with a good glass, and thereafter
manifest an interest in astronomy of which they would for-
merly have believed themselves incapable.
Being convinced that whoever will survey the heavens
with a good opera-glass will feel repaid many fold for his
time and labor, I have undertaken to point. out some of the
objects most worthy of attention, and some of the means of
making acquaintance with the stars. 3
First, a word about the instrument to be used. Galileo
made his famous discoveries with what was, in principle of
construction, simply an opera-glass. This form of telescope
was afterward abandoned because very high magnifying pow-
ers could not be employed with it, and the field of view was
restricted. But, on account of its brilliant illumination of
objects looked at, and.its convenience of form, the opera-glass
is still a valuable and, in some respects, unrivaled instrument
of observation.
In choosing an opera-glass, see first that the object-glasses
are achromatic, although this caution is hardly necessary, for
all modern opera-glasses, worthy of the name, are made with
achromatic objectives. But there are great differences in the
quality of the work. If a glass shows a colored fringe around
a bright object, reject it. Let the diameter of the object-
glasses, which are the large lenses in the end farthest from the
eye, be not less than an inch and a half. The magnifying
power should be at least three or four diameters. A familiar
way of estimating the magnifying power is by looking at a
brick wall through one barrel of the opera-glass with one eye,
while the other eye sees the wall without the intervention of
the glass. Then notice how many bricks seen by the naked
eye are required to equal in thickness one brick seen through
the glass. That number represents the magnifying power.
INTRODUCTION. 5
The instrument used by the writer in making most of the
observations for this book has object-glasses 1°6 inch in diam-
eter, and a magnifying power of about 3°6 times.
See that the fields of view given by the two barrels of
the opera-glass coincide, or blend perfectly together. If one
appears to partially overlap the other when looking at a
distant object, the effect is very annoying. This fault arises
from the barrels of
the opera-glass being
placed too far apart,
so that their optical
centers do not coin-
cide with the centers
of the observer’s
eyes.
Occasionally, on
account of faulty cen-
tering of the lenses,
a double image is
given of objects
looked at, as illus-
trated in the accompanying cut. In such a case the glass is
worthless ; but if the effect is simply the addition of a small,
crescent-shaped extension on one side of the field of view
without any reduplication, the fault may be overlooked,
though it is far better to select a glass that gives a perfectly
round field. Some glasses have an arrangement for adjust-
ing the distance between the barrels to suit the eyes of dif-
ferent persons, and it would be well if all were made adjust-
able in the same way.
Don’t buy a cheap glass, but don’t waste your money on
fancy mountings. What the Rev. T. W. Webb says of tele-
scopes is equally true of opera-glasses: ‘‘Inferior articles
may be showily got up, and the outside must go for nothing.”
There are a few makers whose names, stamped upon the in-
A VERY Bap FIE Lp.
t
6 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
strument, may generally be regarded as a guarantee of excel-
lence. But the best test is that of actual performance. I
have a field-glass which I found in a pawn-shop, that has no
maker’s name upon it, but in some respects is quite capable
of bearing comparison with the work of the best advertised
opticians. And this leads me to say that, by the exercise of
good judgment, one may occasionally purchase superior
glasses at very reasonable prices in the pawn-shops. Ask to
be shown the old and well-tried articles ; you may find among
them a second-hand glass of fine optical properties. If the
lenses are not injured, one need not trouble one’s self about
the worn appearance of the outside of the instrument; so
much the more evidence that somebody has found it well
worth using.
A good field or marine glass is in some respects better
than an opera-glass for celestial observations. It possesses a
much higher magnifying power, and this gives sometimes a
decided advantage. But, on the other hand, its field of view
is smaller, rendering it more difficult to find and hold objects.
Besides, it does not present as brilliant views of scattered
star-clusters as an opera-glass does. For the benefit of those
who possess field-glasses, however, I have included in this
brief survey certain objects that lie just beyond the reach of
opera-glasses, but can be seen with the larger instruments.
I have thought it advisable in the descriptions of the con-
stellations which follow to give some account of their mytho-
logical origin, both because of the historical interest which
attaches to it, and because, while astronomers have long since
banished the constellation figures from their maps, the names
which the constellations continue to bear require some ex-
planation, and they possess a literary and romantic interest
which can not be altogether disregarded in a work that is not
intended for purely scientific readers.
CHAPTER I.
THE STARS OF SPRING.
HaAvInG selected your glass, the next thing is to find the
stars. Of course, one could sweep over the heavens at ran-
dom on a starry night and see many interesting things, but
he would soon tire of such aimless occupation. The observer
must know what he is looking at in order to derive any real
pleasure or satisfaction from the sight.
It really makes no difference at what time of the year
such observations are begun, but for convenience I will sup-
pose that they are begun in the spring. We can then follow
the revolution of the heavens through a year, at the end of
which the diligent observer will have acquired a competent
knowledge of the constellations. The circular map, No. 1,
represents the appearance of the heavens at midnight on the
1st of March, at eleven o’clock on the 15th of March, at ten
o'clock on the Ist of April, at nine o’clock on the 15th of
April, and at eight o’clock on the Ist of May. ‘The reason
why a single map can thus be made to show the places of the
stars at different hours in different months will be plain upon
a little reflection. In consequence of the earth’s annual jour-
ney around the sun, the whole heavens make one apparent
revolution in a year. This revolution, it is clear, must be at
the rate of 30° in a month, since the complete circuit com-
prises 360°. But, in addition to the annual revolution, there
is a diurnal revolution of the heavens which is caused by the
earth’s daily rotation upon its axis, and this revolution must,
for a similar reason, be performed at the rate of 15° for each
“LS Va
& ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
of the twenty-four hours. It follows that in two hours of the
daily revolution the stars will change their places to the same
‘“HLYON
SOUTH.
Map 1.
extent asin one month of the annual revolution. It follows
also that, if one could watch the heavens throughout the
whole twenty-four hours, and not be interrupted by daylight,
he would behold the complete circuit of the stars just as he
would do if, for a year, he should look at the heavens at a
particular hour every night. Suppose that at nine o’clock on
WEST.
THE STARS OF SPRING. 9
the 1st of June we see the star Spica on the meridian ; in
consequence of the rotation of the earth, two hours later, or
at eleven o’clock, Spica will be 30° west of the meridian.
But that is just the position which Spica would occupy
at nine o’clock on the Ist of July, for in one month (sup-
posing a month to be accurately the twelfth part of a year)
the stars shift their places 30° toward the west. If, then,
we should make a map of the stars for nine o’clock on the
1st of July, it would answer just as well for eleven o’clock
on the 1st of June, or for seven o’clock on the 1st of August.
The center of the map is the zenith, or point overhead.
The reader must now exercise his imagination a little, for it
is impossible to represent the true appearance of the concave
of the heavens on flat paper. Holding the map over your
head, with the points marked East, West, North, and South
in their proper places, conceive of it as shaped like the inside
of an open umbrella, the edge all around extending clear
down to the horizon. Suppose you are facing the south, then
you will see, up near the zenith, the constellation of Leo,
which can be readily recognized on the map by six stars that
mark out the figure of a sickle standing upright on its handle.
The large star in the bottom of the handle is Regulus. Hav-
ing fixed the appearance and situation of this constellation
in your mind, go out-of-doors, face the south, and try to find
the constellation in the sky. With a little application you
will be sure to succeed.
Using Leo as a basis of operations, your conquest of the
sky will now proceed more rapidly. By reference to the map
you will be able to recognize the twin stars of Gemini, south-
west of the zenith and high up; the brilliant lone star, Pro-
cyon, south of Gemini; the dazzling Sirius, flashing low down
in the southwest ; Orion, with all his brilliants, blazing in the
west; red Aldebaran and the Pleiades off to his right ; and
Capella, bright as a diamond, high up above Orion, toward
the north. In the southeast you will recognize the quadri-
2
10 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
lateral of Corvus, with the remarkably white star Spica glit-
tering east of it. ;
Next face the north. If you are not just sure where
north is, try a pocket-compass. This advice is by no means
unnecessary, for there are many intelligent persons who are
unable to indicate true north within many degrees, though
standing on their own doorstep. Having found the north
point as near as you can, look upward about forty degrees
from the horizon, and you will see the lone twinkler called
the north or pole star. Forty degrees is a little less than
half-way from the horizon to the zenith.
By the aid of the map, again, you will be able to find,
high up in the northeast, near the zenith, the large dipper-
shaped figure in Ursa Major, and, when you have once no-
ticed that the two stars in the outer edge of the bowl of the
Dipper point almost directly to the pole-star, you will have
an unfailing means of picking out the latter star hereafter,
when in doubt.* Continuing the curve of the Dipper-handle,
in the northeast, your eye will be led to a bright reddish star,
which is Arcturus, in the constellation Bodtes.
In the same way you will be able to find the constellations
Cassiopeia, Cepheus, Draco, and Perseus. Don’t expect to
accomplish it all in an hour. You may have to devote two or
three evenings to such observation, and make many trips in-
doors to consult the map, before you have mastered the sub-
ject ; but when you have done it you will feel amply repaid
for your exertions, and you will have made for yourself silent
friends in the heavens that will beam kindly upon you, like
old neighbors, on whatever side of the world you may wander.
Having fixed the general outlines and location of the con-
stellations in your mind, and learned to recognize the chief
stars, take your opera-glass and begin with the constellation
* Let the reader remember that the distance between the two stars in the
brim of the bowl of the Dipper is about ten degrees, and he will have a
measuring-stick that he can apply in estimating other distances in the heavens.
THE STARS OF SPRING. 11
Leo and the star Regulus. Contrive to have some convenient
rest for your arms in holding the glass, and thus obtain not
only comfort but steadiness of vision. A lazy-back chair
makes a capital observing-seat. Be very particular, too, to
get a sharp focus. Remember that no two persons’ eyes are
alike, and that even the eyes of the same observer occasion-
ally require a change. In looking for a difficult object, I
have sometimes suddenly brought the sought-for phenom-
enon into view by a slight turn of the focusing-screw.
You will at once be gratified by the increased brilliancy of
the star as seen by the glass. If the night is clear, it will glow
like a diamond. Yet Regulus, although ranked as a first-
magnitude star, and of great repute among the ancient as-
trologers, is far inferior in brilliancy to such stars as Capella
and Arcturus, to say nothing of Sirius.
By consulting map No. 2 you will next be able to find the
celebrated star bearing the name of the Greek letter Gamma
(y). If you hada telescope, you would see this star as a
close and beautiful double, of contrasted colors. But it is
optically double, even with an opera-glass. You can not fail
to see a small star near it, looking quite close if the magnify-
ing power of your glass is less than three times. You will
be struck by the surprising change of color in turning from
Regulus to Gamma—the former is white and the latter deep
yellow. It will be well to look first at one and then at the
other, several times, for this is a good instance of what you
will meet with many times in your future surveys of the
heavens—a striking contrast of color in neighboring stars.
One can thus comprehend that there is more than one sense
in which to understand the Scriptural declaration that ‘‘one
star differeth from another in glory.”’ The radiant point of
the famous November meteors, which, in 1833 and 1866, filled
the sky with fiery showers, is nearGamma. Turn next to the
star in Leo marked Zeta (¢). If your glass is a pretty large
and good one, and your eye keen, you will easily see three
12 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
minute companion stars keeping company with Zeta, two on
the southeast, and one, much closer, toward the north. The
nearest of the two on the south is faint, being only between
the eighth and ninth magnitude, and will probably severely
test your powers of vision. Next look at Epsilon (e), and
you will find near it two seventh-magnitude companions,
making a beautiful little triangle.
Away at the eastern end of the constellation, in the tail
of the imaginary Lion, upon whose. breast shines Regulus, is
the star Beta (8) Leonis, also called Denebola. It is almost
as bright as its leader, Regulus, and you will probably be
able to catch a tinge of blue in its rays. South of Denebola,
at a distance of nineteen minutes of arc, or somewhat more
than half the apparent diameter of the moon, you will see a
little star of the sixth magnitude, which is one of the several
THE STARS OF SPRING. 18
“companions’’ for which Denebola is celebrated. There is
another star of the eighth magnitude in the same direction
from Denebola, but at a distance of less than five minutes,
and this you may be able to glimpse with a powerful field-
glass, under favorable conditions. I have seen it well with a
field-glass of 1°6-inch aperture, and a magnifying power of
seven times. But it requires an experienced eye and steady
vision to catch this shy twinkler.
When looking for a faint and difficult object, the plan
pursued by telescopists is to avert the eye from the precise
point upon which the attention is fixed, in order to bring a
more sensitive part of the retina into play than that usually
employed. Look toward the edge of the field of view, while
the object you are seeking is in the center, and then, if it can
be seen at all with your glass, you will catch sight of it, as
it were, out of the corner of your eye. The effect of seeing
a faint star in this way, in the neighborhood of a large one,
_ whose rays hide it from direct vision, is sometimes very
amusing. The little star seems to dart out into view as
through a curtain, perfectly distinct, though as immeasur-
ably minute as the point of a needle. But the instant you
direct your eyes straight at it, presto! it is gone. And so it
will dodge in and out of sight as often as you turn your eyes.
If you will sweep carefully over the whole extent of Leo,
whose chief stars are marked with their Greek-letter names
on our little map, you will be impressed with the power of
your glass to bring into sight many faint stars in regions that
seem barren to the naked eye. An opera-glass of 1°5 aper-
ture will show ten times as many stars as the naked eye
can see.
A word about the ‘‘ Lion” which this constellation is
supposed to represent. It requires a vivid imagination to
perceive the outlines of the celestial king of beasts among
the stars, and yet somebody taught the people of ancient
India and the old Egyptians to see him there. and there he
14 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
has remained since the dawn of history. Modern astrono-
mers strike him out of their charts, together with all the
picturesque multitude of beasts and birds and men and
women that bear him company, but they can not altogether
banish him, or any of his congeners, for the old names, and,
practically, the old outlines of the constellations are retained,
and always will be retained. The Lion is the most con-
spicuous figure in the celebrated zodiac of Dendera; and,
indeed, there is evidence that before the story of Hercules
and his labors was told this lion was already imagined shin-
ing among the stars. It was characteristic of the Greeks
that they seized him for their own, and tried to rob him
of his real antiquity by pretending that. Jupiter had placed
him among the stars in commemoration of Hercules’s vic-
tory over the Nemzan lion. In the Hebrew zodiac Leo
represented the Lion of Judah. It was thus always a lion
that the ancients thought they saw in this constellation.
In the old star-maps the Lion is represented as in the act
of springing upon his prey. His face is to the west, and the
star Regulus is in his heart. The sickle-shaped figure covers
his breast and head, Gamma being in the shoulder, Zeta in
the mane of the neck, Mu and. Epsilon in the cheek, and
Lambda in the jaws. The fore-paws are drawn up to the
breast and represented by the stars Zi and Omicron. Dene-
bola is in the tuft of the tail. The hind-legs are extended
downward at full length, in the act of springing. Starting
from the star Delta in the hip, the row consisting of Theta,
Jota, Tau, and Upsilon, shows the line of the hind-legs.
Leo had an unsavory reputation among the ancients be-
cause of his supposed influence upon the weather. The
greatest heat of summer was felt when the sun was in this
constellation :
** Most scorching is the chariot of the Sun,
And waving spikes no longer hide the furrows
_ When he begins to travel with the Lion.”
THE STARS OF SPRING. 15
Looking now westwardly from the Sickle of Leo, at a
distance about equal to twice the length of the Sickle, your
eye will be caught by a small silvery spot in the sky lying
nearly between two rather faint stars. This is the famous
Preesepe, or Manger, in the center of the constellation Can-
cer. The two stars on either side of it are called the Aselli,
or the Ass’s Colts, and the imagination of the ancients pict-
ured them feeding from their silver manger. Turn your
glass upon the Manger and you will see that it consists of
a crowd of little stars, so small and numerous that you will
probably not undertake to count them, unless you are using
a large field-glass. Galileo has left a delightful description
of his surprise and gratification when he aimed his telescope
at this curious cluster and other similar aggregations of
stars and discovered what they really were. Using his best
instrument, he was able to count thirty-six stars in the Man-
ger. The Manger was a famous weather-sign in olden times,
and Aratus, in his ‘‘ Diosemia,” advises his readers to—
6¢
e
. . watch the Manger: like a little mist
Far north in Cancer’s territory it floats.
Its confines are two faintly glimmering stars ;
These are two asses that a manger parts,
Which suddenly, when all the sky is clear,
Sometimes quite vanishes, and the two stars
Seem to have closer moved their sundered orbs.
No feeble tempest then will soak the leas ;
A murky manger with both stars
Shining unaltered is a sign of rain.”
Like other old weather-saws, this probably possesses a
gleam of sense, for it is only when the atmosphere is per-
fectly transparent that the Manger can be clearly seen ; when
the airis thick with mist, the harbinger of coming storm, it
fades from sight.
The constellation Cancer, or the Crab, was represented by
the Egyptians under the figure of a scarabeus. The ob-
server will probably think that it is as easy to see a beetle as
16 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-G@GLASS.
‘acrab there. Cancer, like Leo, is one of the twelve constella-
tions of the Zodiac, the name applied to the imaginary zone
16° degrees wide and extending completely around the heay-
ens, the center of which is the ecliptic or annual path of the
sun. The names of these zodiacal constellations, in their
order, beginning at the west and counting round the circle,
are: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra,
Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius, and Pisces.
Cancer has given its name to the circle called the Tropic of
Cancer, which indicates the greatest northerly declination of
the sun in summer, and which he attains on the 21st or 22d of
June. But, in consequence of the precession of the equi-
noxes, all of the zodiacal constellations are continually shift-
ing toward the east, and Cancer has passed away from the
place of the summer solstice, which is now to be found in
Gemini. .
Below the Manger, a little way toward the south, your eye
will be caught by a group of four or five stars of about the
same brightness as the Aselli. This marks the head of Hydra,
and the glass will show a striking and beautiful geometrical
arrangement of the stars composing it. Hydra is a very long
constellation, and trending southward and eastward from the
head it passes underneath Leo, and, sweeping pretty close
down to the horizon, winds away under Corvus, the tail
reaching to the eastern horizon. The length of this skyey
serpent is about 100°. Its stars are all faint, except Alphard,
or the Hydra’s Heart, a second-magnitude star, remarkable
for its lonely situation, southwest of Regulus. A line from
Gamma Leonis through Regulus points it out. It is worth
looking at with the glass on account of its rich orange-tint.
Hydra is fabled to be the hundred-headed monster that
was slain by Hercules. It must be confessed that there is
nothing very monstrous about it now except its length. The
most timid can look upon it without suspecting its grisly ~
origin.
4
THE STARS OF SPRING. 17%
Coming back to the Manger as a starting-point, look well
up to the north and west, and at a distance somewhat less
than that between Regulus and the Manger you will seea
pair of first-magnitude stars, which you will hardly need to
be informed are the celebrated Twins, from which the con-
stellation Gemini takes its name. The star marked a in the
map is Castor, and the star marked @ is Pollux. No classi-
cal reader needs to be reminded of the romantic origin of
these names.
A sharp contrast in the color of Castor and Pollux comes
out as soon as the glass is turned upon them. Castor is
white, with occasionally, perhaps, a suspicion of a green ray
in its light. Pollux is deep yellow. Castor is a celebrated
double star, but its components are far too close to be sepa-
rated with an opera-glass, or even the most powerful field-
glass. You will be at once interested by the singular cortége
of small stars by which both Castor and Pollux are sur-
rounded. These little attendant stars, for such they seem,
are arrayed. in symmetrical groups — pairs, triangles, and
other figures—which, it seems difficult to believe, could be
unintentional, although it would be still more difficult to sug-
gest any reason why they should be arranged in that way.
Our map will show you the position of the principal
stars of the constellation. Castor and Pollux are in the
heads of the Twins, while the row of stars shown in the map
Xi (€), Gamma (vy), Nu (v), Mu (wz), and Eta (7), marks their
feet, which are dipped in the edge of the Milky-Way. One
can spend a profitable and pleasurable half-hour in exploring
the wonders of Gemini. The whole constellation, from head
to foot, is gemmed with stars which escape the naked eye,
but it sparkles like a bead-spangled garment when viewed
with the glass. Owing to the presence of the Milky-Way,
the spectacle around the feet of the Twins is particularly
magnificent. And here the possessor of a good opera-glass
can get a fine view of a celebrated star-cluster known in the
18 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
catalogues as 835 M. It is situated a little distance northwest
of the star Eta, and is visible to the naked eye, on a clear,
AURIGA
GEMINI!
xd
a4
mee
CANIS MINOR
*
Map 3.
moonless night, as a nebulous speck. With a good glass you
will see two wonderful streams of little stars starting, one
from Eta and the other from Mu, and running parallel toward
the northwest; 35 M is situated between these star-streams.
The stars in the cluster are so closely aggregated that you
will be able to clearly separate only the outlying ones. The
general aspect is like that of a piece of frosted silver over
which a twinkling light is playing. A field-glass brings out
more of the component stars. The splendor of this starry
congregation, viewed with a powerful telescope, may be
guessed at from Admiral Smyth’s picturesque description :
‘Tt presents a gorgeous field of stars, from the ninth to the
sixteenth magnitude, but with the center of the mass less
rich than the rest. From the small stars being inclined to
form curves of three or four, and often with a large one at
the root of the curve, it somewhat reminds one of the burst-
ing of a sky-rocket.” And Webb adds that there is an
THE STARS OF SPRING. 19
‘‘elegant festoon near the center, starting with a reddish
star.”
No one can gaze upon this marvelous phenomenon, even
with the comparatively low powers of an opera-glass, and re-
flect that all these swarming dots of light are really suns,
without a stunning sense of the immensity of the material
universe.
It is an interesting fact that the summer solstice, or the
point which the sun occupies when it attains its greatest north-
erly declination, on the longest day of the year, is close by this
great cluster in Gemini. In the glare of the sunshine those
swarming stars are then concealed from our sight, but with
the mind’s eye we can look past and beyond our sun, across
the incomprehensible chasm of space, and behold them still
shining, their commingled rays making our great God of Day
seem but a lonely wanderer in the expanse of the universe.
It was only a short distance southwest of this cluster that
one of the most celebrated discoveries in astronomy was made.
There, on the evening of March 13, _1781, William Herschel
observed a star whose singular aspect led him to put a higher
magnifying power on his telescope. The higher power
showed that the object was not a star but a planet, or a
comet, as Herschel at first supposed. It was the planet Ura-
nus, whose discovery ‘‘at one stroke doubled the breadth of
the sun’s dominions.’’ |
The constellation of Gemini, as the names of its two chief
stars indicate, had its origin in the classic story of the twin
sons of Jupiter and Leda:
“Fair Leda’s twins, in time to stars decreed,
One fought on foot, one curbed the fiery steed.”
Castor and Pollux were regarded by both the Greeks and
the Romans as the patrons of navigation, and this fact crops
out very curiously in the adventures of St. Paul. After his
disastrous shipwreck on the island of Melita he embarked
20 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
again on a more prosperous voyage in a ship bearing the
name of these very brothers. ‘‘ And after three months,”
writes the celebrated apostle (Acts xxviii, 11) ‘‘ we departed
in a ship of Alexandria, which had wintered in the isle,
whose sign was Castor and Pollux.” We may be certain that
Paul was acquainted with the constellation of Gemini, not
only because he was skilled in the learning of his times, but
because, in his speech on Mars Hill, he quoted a line from
the opening stanzas of Aratus’s ‘‘ Phenomena,” a poem in
which the constellations are described.
The map will enable you next to find Procyon, or the Lit-
tle Dog-Star, more than twenty degrees south of Castor and
Pollux, and almost directly below the Manger. This star will
interest you by its golden-yellow color and its brightness,
although it is far inferior in the latter respect to Sirius, or
the Great Dog-Star, which you will see flashing splendidly
far down beneath Procyon in the southwest. About four de-
grees northwest of Procyon is a third-magnitude star, called
Gomelza, and the glass will show you two small stars which
make a right-angled triangle with it, the nearer one being
remarkable for its ruddy color.
Procyon is especially interesting because it is attended by
an invisible star, which, while it has escaped all efforts to de-
tect it with powerful telescopes, nevertheless reveals its pres-
ence by the effect of its attraction upon Procyon. It is a
curious fact that both of the so-called Dog-Stars are thus
attended by obscure or dusky companion-stars, which, not-
withstanding their lack of luminosity, are of great magni-
tude. In the case of Sirius, the improvement in telescopes
has brought the mysterious attendant into view, but Pro-
cyon’s mate remains hidden from our eyes. But it can not
escape the ken of the mathematician, whose penetrating men-
tal vision has, in more than one instance, outstripped the dis-
coveries of the telescope. Almost half a century ago the
famous Bessel announced his conclusion—in the light of later
THE STARS OF SPRING. 21
developments it may well be called discovery—that both Sir-
ius and Procyon were binary systems, consisting each of a
visible and an invisible star. He calculated the probable
period of revolution, and found it to be, in each case, ap-
proximately fifty years. Sixteen years after Bessel’s death,
one of Alvan Clark’s unrivaled telescopes at last revealed the
strange companion of Sirius, a huge body, half as massive as
the giant Dog-Star itself, but ten thousand times less brill-
iant, and more recent observations have shown that its pe-
riod of revolution is within six or seven months of the fifty
years assigned by Bessel. If some of the enormous tele-
scopes that have been constructed in the past few years
should succeed in rendering Procyon’s companion visible also,
it is highly probable that Bessel’s prediction would receive
another substantial fulfillment.
The mythological history of Canis Minor is somewhat ob-
scure. According to various accounts it represents one of
Diana’s hunting-dogs, one of Orion’s hounds, the Egyptian
dog-headed god Anubis, and one of the dogs that devoured
their master Actzeon after Diana had turned him into a stag.
The mystical Dr. Seiss leaves all the ancient myth-makers
far in the rear, and advances a very curious theory of his
own about this constellation, in his ‘‘ Gospel in the Stars,”
which is worth quoting as an example of the grotesque
fancies that even in our day sometimes possess the minds
of men when they venture beyond the safe confines of this
terraqueous globe. After summarizing the various myths
we have mentioned, he proceeds to identify Procyon, put-
ting the name of the chief star for the constellation, ‘‘as
the starry symbol of those heavenly armies which came forth
along with the King of kings and Lord of lords to the battle
of the great day of God Almighty, to make an end of mis-
rule and usurpation on earth, and clear it of all the wild
beasts which have been devastating it for these many ages.”
The reader will wonder all the more at this rhapsody
92 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
after he has succeeded in picking out the modest Little
Dog in the sky.
Sirius, Orion, Aldebaran, and the Pleiades, all of which
you will perceive in the west and southwest, are generally
too much involved in the mists of the horizon to be seen to
the best advantage at this season, although it will pay you
to take a look through the glass at Sirius. But the splendid
star Capella, in the constellation Auriga, may claim a mo-
ment’s attention. You will find it high up in the northwest,
half-way between Orion and the pole-star, and to the right
of the Twins. It has no rival near, and its creamy-white
light makes it one of the most beautiful as well as one of
the most brilliant stars in the heavens. Its constitution, as
revealed by the spectroscope, resembles that of our sun, but
the sun would make but a sorry figure if removed to the side
of this giant star. About seven and a half degrees above
Capella, and a little to the left, you will see a second-mag-
nitude star called Menkalina. Two and a half times as far
to the left, or south, in the direction of Orion, is another
star of equal brightness to Menkalina. This is El Nath, and
marks the place where the foot of Auriga, or the Charioteer,
rests upon the point of the horn of Taurus. Capella, Men-
kalina, and El Nath make a long triangle which covers the
central part of Auriga. The naked eye shows two or three
misty-looking spots within this triangle, one to the right
of El Nath, one in the upper or eastern part of the constel-
lation, near the third-magnitude star Theta (@), and another
on a line drawn from Capella to El Nath, but much nearer
to Capella. Turn your glass upon these spots, and you will
be delighted by the beauty of the little stars to whose united
rays they are due. :
El Nath has around it some very remarkable rows of
small stars, and the whole constellation of Auriga, like that
of Gemini, glitters with star-dust, for the Milky-Way runs
directly through it.
THE STARS OF SPRING. 98
With a powerful field-glass you may try a glimpse at
the rich star-clusters marked 38 M, 37 M, and 33%.
The mythology of Auriga is not clear, but the ancients
seem to have been of one mind in regarding the constella-
tion as repre-
senting the fig-
“PERSEUS
ure of a man
carrying a goat
and her two
kids in his
arms. Auri-
ga was also
looked upon
as a_ benefi-
cent constella- GEMINI
tion, and the
goat and kids
were believed to be on the watch to rescue shipwrecked
sailors. As Capella, which represents the fabled goat, shines
- nearly overhead in winter, and would ordinarily be the first
bright star to beam down through the breaking clouds of a
storm at that season, it is not diffftult to imagine how it got
its reputation as the seaman’s friend. Dr. Seiss has so spir
ited a description of the imaginary figure contained in this
constellation that I can not refrain from quoting it:
‘The figure itself is that of a mighty man seated on the
Milky-Way, holding a band or ribbon in his right hand,
and with his left arm holding up on his shoulder a she-goat
which clings to his neck and looks out in astonishment upon
the terrible bull; while in his lap are two frightened little
kids which he supports with his great hand.”
It is scarcely necessary to add that Dr. Seiss insists that
Auriga, as a constellation, was invented long before the time
of the Greeks, and was intended prophetically to represent that
Good Shepherd who was to come and rescue the sinful world.
Map 4.
94 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-@GLASS.
If any reader wishes to exercise his fancy by trying to
trace the outlines of this figure, he will find the head of
Auriga marked by the star Delta (6) and the little group
near it. Capella, in the heart of the Goat, is just below his
left shoulder, and Menkalina marks his right shoulder.
El Nath is in his right foot, and Iota (c) in his left foot.
The stars Epsilon (e), Zeta (¢), Eta (y), and Lambda (A) shine
in the kids which lie in Auriga’s lap. The faint stars scat-
tered over the eastern part of the constellation are sometimes
represented as forming a whip with many lashes, which the
giant flourishes with his right hand.
Let us turn back to Denebola in the Lion’s Tail. Now
glance from it down into the southeast, and you will see a
brilliant star flashing well above the horizon. This is Spica.
the chief twinkler of Virgo, and it is marked on our circu-
lar map. Then look into the northwest, and at about the
same distance from Denebola, but higher above the horizon
than Spica, you will catch the sparkling of a large, reddish
star. It is Arcturus in Bootes. The three, Denebola, Spica,
and Arcturus, mark the corners of a great equilateral tri-
angle. Nearly on a line between Denebola and Arcturus,
and somewhat nearer to the former, you will perceive a
curious twinkling, as if gossamers spangled with dew-drops
were entangled there. One might think the old woman of
the nursery rhyme who went to sweep the cobwebs out of the
sky had skipped this corner, or else that its delicate beauty
had preserved it even from her housewifely instincts. This
is the little constellation called Berenice’s Hair. Your opera-
glass will enable you to count twenty or thirty of the largest
stars composing this cluster, which are arranged, as so often
happens, with a striking appearance of geometrical design.
The constellation has a very romantic history. It is related
that the young Queen Berenice, when her husband was
called away to the wars, vowed to sacrifice her beautiful
tresses to Venus if he returned victorious over his enemies.
tod
THE STARS OF SPRING. 95
He did return home in triumph, and Berenice, true to her
vow, cut off her hair and bore it to the Temple of Venus.
But the same night it disappeared. The king was furious,
and the queen wept bitterly over the loss. There is no tell-
ing what might have happened to tle guardians of the tem-
ple, had not a celebrated astronomer named Conon led the
young king and queen aside in the evening and showed
them the missing locks shining transfigured in the sky.
He assured them that Venus had placed Berenice’s lustrous
ringlets among the stars, and, as they were not skilled in
celestial lore, they were quite ready to believe that the sil-
very swarm they saw near Arcturus had never been there
before. And so for centuries the world has recognized the
constellation of Berenice’s Hair.
Look next at Corvus and Crater, the Crow and the Cup,
two little constellations which you will discover on the cir-
cular map, and of which we give a separate representation
in Map 5. You will find that the stars Delta (6) and Eta (n),
in the upper left-hand corner of the quadrilateral figure of
‘Corvus, make a striking appearance. The little star Zeta (£)
is a very pretty double for an opera-glass. There is a very
faint pair of stars close below and to the right of Beta (().
This forms a severe test. Only a good opera-glass will show
these two stars as a single faint point of light. A field-glass,
however, will show both, one being considerably fainter than
the other. Crater is worth sweeping over for the pretty com-
binations of stars to be found in it.
You will observe that the interminable Hydra extends his
lengthening cvils along under both of the constellations. In
fact, both the Cup and the Crow are represented as standing
upon the huge serpent. The outlines of a cup are tolerably
well indicated by the stars included under the name Crater,
but the constellation of the Crow might as well have borne
any other name so far as any traceable likeness is concerned.
One of the legends concerning Corvus avers that it is the
3
26 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
daughter of the King of Phocis, who was transformed tnto a
crow to escape the pursuit of Neptune. She is certainly safe
in her present guise.
Arcturus and Spica, and their companions, may be left
for observation to a more convenient season, when, having
risen higher,
they can _ be
studied to bet-
ter advantage.
It will be well,
| however, to
Bee is merely glance
ai Hag tf *7 5 CRATER. | at them with
the glass in or-
der to note the
great difference
of color—Spica
being brilliant-
ly white and
Arcturus al-
most red.
We will now turn to the north. You have already been
told how to find the pole-star. Look at it with your glass.
The pole-star is a famous double, but its minute companion
can only be seen with a telescope. As so often happens,
however, it has another companion for the opera-glass, and
this latter is sufficiently close and small to make an interest-
ing test for an inexperienced observer armed with a glass of
small power. It must be looked for pretty close to the rays
of the large star, with such a glass It is of the seventh
magnitude. With a large field-glass several smaller compan-
lons may be seen, and a very excellent glass may show an 8’5-
magnitude star almost hidden in the rays of the seventh-
magnitude companion.
With the aid of map No. 6 find in Ursa Minor, which is
CORVUS
THE STARS OF SPRING. 27
the constellation to which the pole-star belongs, the star Beta
(8), which is also called Kochab (the star marked a in the
map is the pole-
star). Kochab has Greece ee att
apairoffaint stars | ie : cane 2
nearly north of it, 7 ui +c : ay
about one degree : os 4 ‘y
distant. With a [im Paes ie
small glass these
may appear as a
single star, but a
stronger glass will
show them _ sepa-
rately.
And now for
Ursa Major and
the Great Dipper
—Draco, Cepheus,
Cassiopeia, and the other constellations represented on the
circular map, being rather too near the horizon for effect-
ive observation at this time of the year. First, as the eas-
iest object, look at the star in the middle of the handle of
the Dipper (this handle forms the tail of Ursa Major), and a
little attention will: show you, without the aid of a glass, if
your eye-sight is good, that the star is double. A smaller
star seems to be almost in contact with it. The larger of
these two stars is called Mizar and the smaller Alcor—the
Horse and his Rider the Arabs said. Your glass will, of
course, greatly increase the distance between Alcor and
Mizar, and will also bring out a clear difference of color dis-
tinguishing them. Now, if you have a very powerful glass,
you may be able to see the Sidus Ludovicianum, a minute
star which a German astronomer discovered more than a
hundred and fifty years ago, and, strangely enough, taking it
for a planet, named it aftera German prince. The position
28 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
of the Sidus Ludovicianum, with reference to Mizar and
Alcor, is represented in the accompanying sketch. You
must look very sharply if you expect to see it, and your
opera-glass will have to be a large and strong one. A field-
glass, however, can not fail to show it.
Sweep along the whole length of the Dipper’s handle, and
you will discover many fine fields of stars. Then look at the
star Alpha (a) in the outer edge of the bowl nearest to the
pole-star. There is a faint star, of about the eighth magni-
tude, near it, in the direction of Beta (8). This will prove a
very difficult test. You will have to try it with averted
vision. If you have a field-glass, catch it first with that, and,
having thus fixed its position in your mind, try to find it
with the opera-glass. Its distance is a little over half that
between Mizar and Alcor. It is of a reddish color.
You will notice nearly overhead three pairs of pretty
bright stars in a long, bending row, about half-way between
Leo and the Dipper. These
mark three of Ursa Major’s
feet, and each of the pairs is
well worth looking at with a
glass, as they are beautifully
grouped with stars invisible
to the naked eye. The letters
used to designate the stars
forming these pairs will be
found upon our map of Ursa
Major. The scattered group
of faint stars beyond the bowl
of the Dipper forms the Bear’s
head, and you will find that also a field worth a few min-
utes’ exploration.
The two bears, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, swinging
around the pole of the heavens, have been conspicuous in
the star-lore of all ages. According to fable, they represent
Mizar, ALCOR, AND THE SIDUS LUDOVICIANUM.
THE STARS OF SPRING. 29
the nymph Calisto, with whom Jupiter was in love, and her
son Arcas, who were both turned into bears by Juno, where-
upon Jupiter, being unable to restore their form, did the
next best thing he could by placing them among the stars.
Ursa Major is Calisto, or Helica, as the Greeks called the con-
stellation. The Greek name of Ursa Minor was Cynosura.
The use of the pole-star in navigation dates back at least
to the time of the Phcenicians. The observer will note the
uncomfortable position of Ursa Minor, attached to the pole
by the end of its long tail.
But, after all, no one can expect to derive from such
studies as these any genuine pleasure or satisfaction unless
he is mindful of the real meaning of what he sees. The
actual truth seems almost too stupendous for belief. The
mind must be brought into an attitude of profound contem-
plation in order to appreciate it. From this globe we can
look out in every direction into the open and boundless uni-
verse. Blinded and dazzled during the day by the blaze of
that star, of which the earth is a near and humble dependent,
we are shut inas by acurtain. But at night, when our own
star is hidden, our vision ranges into the depths of creation,
and we behold them sparkling with a multitude of other
suns. With so simple an aid as that of an opera-glass we
penetrate still deeper into the profundities of space, and
thousands more of these strange, far-away suns come into
sight. They are arranged in pairs, sets, rows, streams, clus-
ters—here they gleam alone in distant splendor, there they
glow and flash in mighty swarms. This is a look into heaven
more splendid than the imagination of Bunyan pictured ;
here is a celestial city whose temples are suns, and whose
streets are the pathways of light.
CHAPTER II.
THE STARS OF SUMMER.
LET us now suppose that the Earth has advanced for
thrée months in its orbit since we studied the stars of spring,
and that, in consequence, the heavens have made one quarter
of an apparent revolution. Then we shall find that the stars
which in spring shone above the western horizon have been
carried down out of sight, while the constellations that were
then in the east have now climbed to the zenith, or passed
over to the west, and a fresh set of stars has taken their
place in the east. In the present chapter we shall deal with
what may be called the stars of summer; and, in order to fur-
nish occupation for the observer with an opera-glass through.
out the summer months, I have endeavored to so choose
the constellations in which our explorations will be made,
that some of them shall be favorably situated in each of
the months of June, July, and August. The circular map
represents the heavens at midnight on the 1st of June; at
eleven o'clock, on the 15th of June; at ten o'clock, on the
Ist of July; at nine o’clock, on the 15th of July; and at
eight o’clock, on the Ist of August. Remembering that the
center of the map is the point over his head, and that the
edge of it represents the circle of the horizon, the reader,
by a little attention and comparison with the sky, will be
able to fix in his mind the relative situation of the various
constellations. The maps that follow will show him these
constellations on a larger scale, and give him the names of
their chief stars.
“L8VR
THE STARS OF SUMMER. dl
The observer need not wait until midnight on the 1st
of June in order to find some of the constellations included
“HLYON
«x
* guvd073Wb9 -
=
genres
HAIR
AS
DQ.
==
a
Sie
~
NiHd 700
WEST.
yew?
02
NY)
ol" He
SOUTH.
Map 7.
inourmap. Earlier in the evening, at about that date, say
at nine o’clock, he will be able to see many of these con-
stellations, but he must look for them farther toward the
east than they are represented in the map. The bright stars
in Bootes and Virgo, for instance, instead of being over in
$2 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
the southwest, as in the map, will be near the meridian ;
while Lyra, instead of shining high overhead, will be found
climbing up out of the northeast. It would be well to begin
at nine o’clock, about the 1st of June, and watch the motions
of the heavens for two or three hours. At the commence-
ment of the observations you will find the stars in Bodtes,
Virgo, and Lyra in the positions I have just mentioned,
while half-way down the western sky will be seen the Sickle
of Leo. The brilliant Procyon and Capella will be found
almost ready to set in the west and northwest, respectively.
Between Procyon and Capella, and higher above the horizon,
shine the twin stars in Gemini.
In an hour Procyon, Capella, and the Twins will be set-
ting, and Spica will be well past the meridian. In another
hour the observer will perceive that the constellations are
approaching the places given to them in our map, and at
midnight he will find them all in their assigned positions.
A single evening spent in observations of this sort will teach
him more about the places of the stars than he could learn
from a dozen books.
Taking, now, the largest opera-glass you can get (I have
before said that the diameter of the object-glasses should not
be less than 1°5 inch, and, I may add, the larger they are the
better), find the constellation Scorpio, and its chief star An-
tares. The map shows you where to look for it at midnight
on the 1st of June. If you prefer to begin at nine o’clock
at that date, then, instead of looking directly in the south
for Scorpio, you must expect to see it just rising in the
southeast. You will recognize Antares by its fiery color,
as well as by the striking arrangement of its surrounding
stars. There are few constellations which bear so close a
resemblance to the objects they are named after as Scorpio.
It does not require a very violent exercise of the imagination
to see in this long, winding trail of stars a gigantic scorpion,
with its head to the west, and flourishing its upraised sting
THE STARS OF SUMMER. 33
that glitters with a pair of twin stars, as if ready to strike.
Readers of the old story of Phaeton’s disastrous attempt to
drive the chariot of the Sun for a day will remember it was
the sight of this threatening monster that so terrified the
ambitious youth as he dashed along the Zodiac, that he
lost control of Apollo’s horses, and came near burning the
earth up by running the Sun into it.
Antares rather gains in redness when viewed with a glass.
Its color is very remarkable, and it is a curious circumstance
that with powerful telescopes a small, bright-green star is
seen apparently almost touching it. Antares belongs to Sec-
chi’s third type of suns, that in which the spectroscopic
appearances suggest the existence of a powerfully absorp-
tive atmosphere, and which are believed on various grounds
to be, as Lockyer has said, ‘‘in the last visible stage of
cooling”; in other words, almost extinct. This great, red
star probably in actual size exceeds our sun, and no one
can help feeling the sublime nature of those studies which
give us reason to think that here we can actually behold
almost the expiring throes of a giant brother of our giant
sun. Only, the lifetime of a sun is many millions of years,
and its gradual extinction, even after it has reached a stage
as advanced as that of Antares is supposed to be, may
occupy a longer time than the whole duration of the human
race.
A little close inspection with the naked eye will show
three fifth- or sixth-magnitude stars above Antares and Sig-
ma (c), which form, with those stars, the figure of an irregu-
lar pentagon. An opera-glass shows this figure very plainly.
The nearest of these stars to Antares, the one directly above
it, is known by the number 22, and belongs to Scorpio, while
the farthest away, which marks the northernmost corner of
the pentagon, is Rho in Ophiuchus. Try a powerful field-
glass upon the two stars just named. Take 22 first. You
will without much difficulty perceive that it has a little star
34 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
under its wing, below and to the right, and more than twice as
far away above it there is another faint star. Then turn to
Rho. Look sharp and you will catch sight of two companion
stars, one close to Rho on the right and a little below, and
the other still closer and directly above Rho. The latter is
quite difficult to be seen distinctly, but the sight is a very
pretty one. |
The opera-glass will show a number of faint stars scat-
tered around Antares. Turn now to Beta (8) in Scorpio,
with the glass. A very pretty pair of stars will be seen
hanging below 8. Sweeping downward from this point to
the horizon you will find many beautiful star-fields. The
star marked Nu (v) is a double which you will be able to
separate with a powerful field-glass, the distance between
its components being 40”. |
And next let us look at a star-cluster. You will see on
Map No. 8 an object marked 4 M, near Antares. Its designa-
&
2 a ~V
ame
< 8180
ee kG
ies eg * TT
1 x p
Map 8.
tion means that it is No. 4in Messier’s catalogue of nebule.
It is not a true nebula, but a closely compacted cluster of
THE STARS OF SUMMER. 35,
stars. With the opera-glass, if you are looking in a clear
and moonless night, you will see it as a curious nebulous
speck. With a field-glass its real nature is more apparent,
and it is seen to blaze brighter toward the center. It is, in
fact, one of those universes within the universe where thou-
sands of suns are associated together by some unknown law
of aggregation into assemblages of whose splendor the slight
view that we can get gives us but the faintest conception.
The object above and to the right of Antares, marked in the
map 80 M., is a nebula, and although the nebula itself is too
small to be seen with an opera-glass (a field-glass shows it as
a mere wisp of light), yet there is a pretty array of small
stars in its neighborhood worth looking at. Besides, this
nebula is of special interest, because in 1860 a star suddenly
took its place. At least, that is what seemed to have hap-
pened. What really did occur, probably, was that a variable
or temporary star, situated between us and the nebula, and
ordinarily too faint to be perceived, received a sudden and
enormous accession of light, and blazed up so brightly as to
blot out of sight the faint nebula behind it. If this star
should make its appearance again, it could easily be seen
with an opera-glass, and so it will not be useless for the
reader to know where to look for it. The quarter of the
heavens with which we are now dealing is famous for these
celestial conflagrations, if so they may be called. The first
temporary star of which there is any record appeared in the
constellation of the Scorpion, near the head, 134 years before
Christ. It must have been a most extraordinary phenome-
non, for it attracted attention all over the world, and both
Greek and Chinese annals contain descriptions of it. In 393
A. D. a temporary star shone out in the tail of Scorpio. In
827 A. D. Arabian astronomers, under the Caliph Al-Mamoun,
the son of Haroun-al-Raschid, who broke into the great pyra-
mid, observed a temporary star, that shone for four months
in the constellation of the Scorpion. In 12038 there was a
836 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
temporary star, of a bluish color, in the tail of Scorpio, and
in 1578 another in the head of the constellation. Besides
these there are records of the appearance of four temporary
stars in the neighboring constellation of Ophiuchus, one of
which, that of 1604, is very famous, and will be described
later on. It is conceivable that these strange outbursts in
and near Scorpio may have had some effect in causing this
constellation to be regarded by the ancients as malign in its
influence.
| We shall presently see some examples of star-clusters and
nebulee with which the instruments we are using are better
capable of dealing than with the one described above. In the
mean time, let us follow the bending row of stars from An-
tares toward the south and east. When you reach the star
Mu (u), you are not unlikely to stop with an exclamation of
admiration, for the glass will separate it into two stars that,
shining side by side, seem trying to rival each other in bright-
ness. But the next star below yw, marked Zeta (¢), is even
more beautiful. It also separates into two stars, one being
reddish and the other bluish in color. The contrast in a clear
night is very pleasing. But this is not all.
Above the two stars you will notice a cu-
rious nebulous speck. Now, if you have
a powerful field-glass, here is an oppor-
tunity to view one of the prettiest sights
in the heavens. The field-glass not only
makes the two stars appear brighter, and
their colors more pronounced, but it shows
a third, fainter star below them, making a small triangle,
and brings other still fainter stars into sight, while the neb-
ulous speck above turns into a charmingly beautiful little
star-cluster, whose components are so close that their rays
are inextricably mingled in a maze of light. This little
cut is an attempt to represent the scene, but no engraving
can reproduce the life and sparkle of it.
ZETA SCORPIONIS.
,
THE STARS OF SUMMER. 37
Following the bend of the Scorpion’s tail upward, we
come to the pair of stars in the sting. These, of course, are
thrown wide apart by the opera-glass. Then let us sweep off
to the eastward a little way and find the cluster known as
7M. You will see it marked on the map. Above it, and
near enough to be included in the same field of view, is 6 M.,
a smaller cluster. Both of these have a sparkling appearance
with an opera-glass, and by close attention some of the sepa-
rate stars in 7 M. may be detected. With a field-glass these
clusters become much more striking and starry looking, and
the curious radiated structure of 7 M. comes out.
In looking at such objects we can not too often recall to
our minds the significance of what we see—that these glim-
mering specks are the lights in the windows of the universe
which carry to us, across inconceivable tracts of space, the
assurance that we and our little system are not alone in the
heavens ; that all around us, and even on the very confines of
immensity, Nature is busy, as she is here, and the laws of
light, heat, gravitation (and why not of life?), are in full
activity.
The clusters we have just been looking at lie on the bor-
ders of Scorpio and Sagittarius. Let us cross over into the
latter constellation, which commemorates the centaur Chiron.
We are now in another, and even a richer, region of won-
ders. The Milky-Way, streaming down out of the north-
east, pours, in a luminous flood, through Sagittarius, inun-
dating that whole region of the heavens with seeming deeps
and shallows, and finally bursting the barriers of the horizon
disappears, only to glow with redoubled splendor in the
southern hemisphere. The stars Zeta (f), Tau (7), Sigma (co),
Phi (¢), Lambda (A), and Mu (yz) indicate the outlines of a
fizure sometimes called the Milk-Dipper, which is very evi-
dent when the eye has once recognized it. On either side of
the upturned handle of this dipper-like figure lie some of the
most interesting objects in the sky. Let us take the star p
38 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
for a starting-point. Sweep downward and to the right a little
way, and you will be startled by a most singular phenomenon
that has suddenly made its appearance in the field of view of
your glass. You may, perhaps, be tempted to congratulate
yourself on having got ahead of all the astronomers, and dis-
covered a comet. It is really a combination of a star-cluster
with a nebula, and is known as8 M. Sir John Herschel has
described the ‘‘nebulous folds and masses” and dark oval
gaps which he saw in this nebula with his large telescope at
the Cape of Good Hope. But no telescope is needed to make
it appear a wonderful object ; an opera-glass suffices for that, —
and a field-glass reveals still more of its marvelous structure. -
The reader will recollect that we found the summer sol-
stice close to a wonderful star-swarm in the feet of Gemini.
Singularly enough the winter solstice is also near a star-clus-
ter. It is to be found near a line drawn from 8 M. to the star
w Sagittarii, and about one third of the way from the cluster
to the star. There is another less conspicuous star-cluster —
still closer to the solstitial point here, for this part of the
heavens teems with such aggregations.
On the opposite side of the star ~—that is to say, above
and a little to the left—is an entirely different but almost
equally attractive spectacle, the swarm of stars called 24 M.
Here, again, the field-glass easily shows its superiority over
the opera-glass, for magnifying power is needed to bring out
the innumerable little twinklers of which the cluster is com-
posed. But, whether you use an opera-glass or a field-glass,
do not fail to gaze long and steadily at this island of stars, for
much of its beauty becomes evident only after the eye has
accustomed itself to disentangle the glimmering rays with
which the whole field of view is filled. Try the method of
averted vision, and hundreds of the finest conceivable points
of light will seem to spring into view out of the depths of the
sky. The necessity of a perfectly clear night, and the ab-
sence of moonlight, can not be too much insisted upon for
THE STARS OF SUMMER. 39
observations such as these. Everybody knows how the moon-
light blots out the smaller stars. A slight haziness, or smoke,
in the air produces a similar effect. It is as important to the
observer with an opera-glass to have a transparent atmos-
phere as it is to one who would use a telescope; but, fortu-
nately, the work of the former is not so much interfered with
by currents of air. Always avoid the neighborhood of any
bright light. Electric lights in particular are an abomination
to star-gazers.
The cloud of stars we have just been looking at isin a
very rich region of the Milky-Way, in the little modern con-
stellation called ‘‘Sobieski’s Shield,” which we have not
named upon our map. Sweeping slowly upward from 24 M.
a little way with the field-glass, we will pass in succession
over three nebulous-looking spots. The second of these,
counting upward, is the famous Horseshoe nebula. Its won-
ders are beyond the reach of our instrument, but its place
may be recognized. Look carefully all around this region,
and you will perceive that the old gods, who traveled this
road (the Milky-Way was sometimes called the pathway of
the gods), trod upon golden sands. Off a little way to the
east you will find the rich cluster called 25 M. But do not
imagine the thousands of stars that your opera-glass or field-
glass reveals comprise all the riches of this Golconda of the
heavens. You might ply the powers of the greatest telescope
in a vain attempt to exhaust its wealth. As a hint of the
wonders that lie hidden here, let me quote Father Secchi’s
description of a starry spot in this same neighborhood, viewed
with the great telescope at Rome. After telling of ‘‘ beds of
Stars superposed upon one another,” and of the wonderful
geometrical arrangement of the larger stars visible in the
field, he adds:
‘*The greater number are arranged in spiral arcs, in which
one can count as many as ten or twelve stars of the ninth to
the tenth magnitude following one another in a curve, like
40 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
beads upon a string. Sometimes they form rays which seem
to diverge from a common focus, and, what is very singular,
one usually finds, either at the center of the rays, or at the
beginning of the curve, a more brilliant star of a red color,
which seems to lead the march. It is impossible to believe
that such an arrangement can be accidental.”
The reader will recall the somewhat similar description
that Admiral Smyth and Mr. Webb have given of a star-clus-
ter in Gemini (see Chapter I).
The milky look of the background of the Galaxy is, of
course, caused by the intermingled radiations of inconceiv-
ably minute and inconceivably numerous stars, thousands of
which become separately visible, the number thus distin-
guishable varying with the size of the instrument. But the
most powerful telescope yet placed in human hands can not
sound these starry deeps to the bottom. The evidence given
by Prof. Holden, the Director of the Lick Observatory, on
this point is very interesting. Speaking of the performance
of the gigantic telescope on Mount Hamilton, thirty-six
inches in aperture, he says:
‘“The Milky-Way is a wonderful sight, and I have been
much interested to see that there is, even with our superla-
tive power, no final resolution of its finer parts into stars.
There is always the background of unresolved nebulosity on
which hundreds and thousands of stars are studded—each a
bright, sharp, separate point.”
The groups of stars forming the eastern half of the con-
stellation of Sagittarius are worth sweeping over with the
glass, as a number of pretty pairs may be found there.
Sagittarius stands in the old star-maps as a centaur, half-
horse-half-man, facing the west, with drawn bow, and arrow
pointed at the Scorpion. |
Next let us pass to the double constellation adjoining
Scorpio and Sagittarius on the north—Ophiuchus and the
Serpent. These constellations, as our map shows, are curi-
THE STARS OF SUMMER. 41
ously intermixed. The imagination of the old star-gazers, who
named them, saw here the figure of a giant grasping a writh-
IIERCULES
160%
Oo
925
OPHIUCHUS
*« 0
Map 9.
ing serpent with his hands. The head of the serpent is
under the Northern Crown, and its tail ends over the star-
gemmed region that we have just described, called ‘‘Sobies-
kis Shield.” Ophiuchus stands, as figured in Flamsteed’s
‘¢ Atlas,’ upon the back of the Scorpion, holding the serpent
with one hand below the neck, this hand being indicated by
the pair of stars marked Epsilon (e) and Delta (6), and with
the other near the tail. The stars Tau (7) and Nu (v) indicate
the second hand. The giant’s face is toward the observer,
A
49 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
and the star Alpha (a), also called Ras Alhague, shines in
his forehead, while Beta (8) and Gamma (vy) mark his right
shoulder. Ophiuchus has been held to represent the famous
physician A‘dsculapius. One may well repress the tendency
to smile at these fanciful legends when he reflects upon their
antiquity. There is no doubt that this double constellation
is at least three thousand years old—that is to say, for thirty
centuries the imagination of men has continued to shape these
stars into the figures of a gigantic man struggling with a huge
serpent. If it possesses no other interest, then it at least has
that which attaches to all things ancient. Like many other
of the constellations it has proved longer-lived than the
mightiest nations. While Greece fiourished and decayed,
while Rome rose and fell, while the scepter of civilization has
passed from race to race, these starry creations of fancy have
shone on unchanged. The mind that would ignore them
now deserves compassion. 7
The reader will observe a little circle in the map, and near
it the figures 1604. This indicates the spot where one of the
most famous temporary stars on record appeared in the year -
1604. At first it was far brighter than any other star in the
heavens ; but it quickly faded, and in a little over a year dis-
appeared. It is particularly interesting, because Kepler—the
quaintest, and not far from the greatest, figure in astronomi-
cal history—wrote a curious book about it. Some of the
philosophers of the day argued that the sudden outburst of
the wonderful star was caused by the chance meeting of
atoms. Kepler’s reply was characteristic, as well as amusing:
‘*T will tell those disputants, my opponents, not my own
opinion, but my wife’s. Yesterday, when I was weary with
writing, my mind being quite dusty with considering these
atoms, I was called to supper, and a salad I had asked for
was set before me. ‘It seems, then,’ said I, aloud, ‘that if
pewter dishes, leaves of lettuce, grains of salt, drops of water,
vinegar and oil. and slices of egg, had been flying about in
THE STARS OF SUMMER. 43
the air from all eternity, it might at last happen by chance
that there would come a salad.’ ‘ Yes,’ says my wife, ‘but
not so nice and well-dressed as this of mine is.’ ”’
‘While there are no objects of special interest for the ob-
server with an opera-glass in Ophiuchus, he will find it worth
while to sweep over it for what he may pick up, and, in par-
ticular, he should look at the group of stars southeast of @
and y. These stars have been shaped into a little modern
asterism called Taurus Poniatowskii, and it will be noticed
that five of them mark the outlines of a letter V, resembling
the well-known figure of the Hyades.
Also look at the stars in the head of Serpens, several of
which form a figure like a letter X._ A little west of Theta (0), -
in the tail of Serpens, is a beautiful swarm. of little stars,
upon which a field-glass may be used with advantage. The
star @ is itself a charming double, just within the separating
power of a very powerful field-glass under favorable circum-
stances, the component stars being only about.one third of a
minute apart.
Do not fail to notice the remarkable subdivisions of the
Milky-Way in this neighborhood. Its current seems divided
into numerous channels and bays, interspersed with gaps
that might be likened to islands, and the star @ appears to be.
situated upon one of these islands of the galaxy. This com-
plicated structure of the Milky-Way extends downward to
the horizon, and upward through the constellation Cygnus,
and of its phenomenal appearance in that region we shall
have more to say further on.
Directly north of Ophiuchus is the constellation Hercules,
interesting as occupying that part of the heavens toward
which the proper motion of the sun is bearing the earth and
its fellow-planets, at the rate, probably, of not less than 160,-
000,000 miles in a year—a stupendous voyage through space,
of whose destination we are as ignorant as the crew of a ship
sailing under sealed orders, and, like whom, we must depend
44 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
upon such inferences as we can draw from courses and dis-
tances, for no other information comes to us from the flag-
ship of our squadron.
In the accompanying map we have represented the beau-
tiful constellations Lyra and the Northern Crown, lying on
BOOTES
>
OPHIUCHUS
Map 10.
either side of Hercules. The reader should note that the
point overhead in this map is not far from the star Eta (7) in
Hercules. The bottom of the map is toward the south, the
right-hand side is west, and the left-hand side east. It 1s im-
portant to keep these directions in mind, in comparing the
map with the sky. For instance, the observer must not ex-
pect to look into the south and see Hercules half-way up the
sky, with Lyra a little east of it; he must look for Hercules
THE STARS OF SUMMER. 45
nearly overhead, and Lyra a little east of the zenith. The
same precautions are not necessary in using the maps of
Scorpio, Sagittarius, and Ophiuchus, because those constella-
tions are nearer the horizon, and so the observer does not
have to imagine the map as being suspended over his head.
The name Hercules sufficiently indicates the mythological
origin of the constellation, and yet the Greeks did not know
it by that name, for Aratus calls it ‘‘ the Phantom whose
name none can tell.” The Northern Crown, according to
fable, was the celebrated crown of Ariadne, and Lyra was the
harp of Orpheus himself, with whose sweet music he charmed
the hosts of Hades, and persuaded Pluto to yield up to him
his lost Eurydice.
With the aid of the map you will be able to recognize the
principal stars and star-groups in Hercules, and will find
many interesting combinations of stars for yourself. An
object of special interest is the celebrated star-cluster 13 M.
You will find it on the map between the stars Eta (7) and
Zeta (€). While an opera-glass will only show it as a faint
and minute speck, lying nearly between two little stars, it is
nevertheless well worth looking for, on account of the great
renown of this wonderful congregation of stars. Sir William
Herschel computed the number of stars contained in it as
about fourteen thousand. It is roughly spherical in shape,
though there are many straggling stars around it evidently
connected with the cluster. In short, it is a ball of suns.
The reader should not mistake what that implies, however.
These suns, though truly solar bodies, are probably very
much smaller than our sun. Mr. Gore has computed their
average diameter to be forty-five thousand miles, and the
distance separating each from the next to be 9,000,000,000
miles. It may not be uninteresting to inquire what would
be the appearance of the sky to dwellers within such a sys-
tem of suns. Adopting Mr. Gore’s estimates, and supposing
9,000,000,000 miles to be very nearly the uniform distance
46 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
apart of the stars in the cluster, and forty-five thousand miles
their uniform diameter, then, starting with a single star in
the center, their arrangement might be approximately in
concentric spherical shells, situated about 9,000,000,000 miles
apart. The first shell, counting outward from the center,
would contain a dozen stars, each of which, as seen by an
observer stationed upon a planet at the center of the cluster,
would shine eleven hundred times as bright as Sirius appears
tous. The number of the stars in each shell would increase
as they receded from the center in proportion to the squares
of the radii of the successive shells, while their luminosity,
as seen from the center, would vary inversely as those
squares. Still, the outermost stars—the total number being
limited to fourteen or fifteen thousand—would appear to our
observer at the center of the system about five times as brill-
- jant as Sirius.
It is clear, then, that he would be dwelling in a sort of
perpetual daylight. His planet might receive from the par-
ticular sun around which it revolved as brilliant a daylight as
our sun gives to us, but let us see what would be the illumi-
nation of its night side. Adopting Zodllner’s estimate of the
light of the sun as 618,000 times as great as that of the full
moon, and choosing among the various estimates of the light
of Sirius as compared with the sun gypggaaa07 AS probably
the nearest the truth, we find that the moon sends us about
sixty-five hundred times as much light as Sirius does. Now,
since the dozen stars nearest the center of the cluster would
each appear to our observer eleven hundred times as bright
as Sirius, all of them together would give a little more than
twice as much light as the full moon sheds upon the earth.
But as only half the stars in the cluster would be above the
horizon at once we must diminish this estimate by one half,
in order to obtain the amount of light that our supposititious
planet would receive on its night side from the nearest stars
in the cluster. And since the number of these stars increases
THE STARS OF SUMMER. 47
with their distance from the center in the same ratio as their
light diminishes, it follows that the total light received from
the cluster would exceed that received from the dozen nearest
stars as many times as there were spherical shells in the clus-
ter. This would be about fifteen times, and accordingly all
the stars together would shed, at the center, some thirty times
as much light as that of the moon. Dividing this again by
two, because only half of the stars could be seen at once, we
find that the night side of our observer’s planet would be illu-
minated with fifteen times as much light as the full moon
sheds upon the earth.
It is evident, too, that our observer would enjoy the spec-
tacle of a starry firmament incomparably more splendid than
that which we behold. Only about three thousand stars are
visible to our unassisted eyes at once on any clear night, and
of those only a few are conspicuous, and two thirds are so
faint that they require some attention in order to be distin-
guished. But the spectator at the center of the Hercules
cluster would behold some seven thousand stars at once, the
faintest of which would be five times as brilliant as the bright-
est star in our sky, while the brighter ones would blaze like
nearing suns. One effect of this flood of starlight would be
to shut out from our observer’s eyes all the stars of the out-
side universe. They would be effaced in the blaze of his sky,
and he would be, in a manner, shut up within his own little
star-system, knowing nothing of the greater universe beyond,
in which we behold his multitude of luminaries, diminished
and blended by distance into a faintly shining speck, floating
like a silvery mote in a sunbeam. :
If our observer’s planet, instead of being situated in the
center of the cluster, circled around one of the stars at the
outer edge of it, the appearance of his sky would be, in some
respects, still more wonderful, the precise phenomena de-
pending upon the position of the planet’s orbit and the sta-
tion of the observer. Less than half of his sky would be
48 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
filled, at any time, by the stars of the cluster, the other half
opening upon outer space and appearing by comparison
almost starless—a vast, cavernous expanse, with a few faint
glimmerings out of its gloomy depths. The plane of the
orbit of his planet being supposed to pass through the center
of the spherical system, our observer would, during his year,
behold the night at one season blazing with the splendors of
the clustered suns, and at another emptied of brilliant orbs
and faintly lighted with the soft glow of the Milky-Way and
the feeble flickering of distant stars, scattered over the dark
vault. The position of the orbit, and the inclination of the
planet’s axis might be such that the glories of the cluster
would not be visible from one of its hemispheres, necessitat-
ing a journey to the other side of the globe to behold them.*
Of course, it is not to be assumed that the arrange-
ment of the stars in the cluster actually is exactly that which
we have imagined. Still, whatever the arrangement, so long
as the cluster is practically spherical, and the stars com-
posing it are of nearly uniform size and situated at nearly
uniform distances, the phenomena we have described would
fairly represent the appearances presented to inhabitants of
worlds situated in such a system. As to the possibility of
the existence of such worlds and inhabitants, everybody
must draw his own conclusions. Astronomy, as a science,
is silent upon that question. But there shine the congre-
gated stars, mingling their rays in a message of light, that
comes to us across the gulf, proclaiming their brotherhood
with our own glorious sun. Mathematicians can not unravel
the interlocking intricacies of their orbits, and some would,
perhaps a priori, have said that such a system was impossi-
ble, but the telescope has revealed them, and there they are!
What purposes they subserve 1, the economy of the uni-
verse, who shall declare ?
* A similar calculation of the internal appearances of the Hercules cluster,
which I made, was published in 1887 in the ‘‘ New York Sun.”
THE STARS. OF SUMMER. 49
If you have a field-glass, by all means try it upon 13 M.
It will give you a more satisfactory view than an opera-glass
is capable of doing, and will magnify the cluster so that there
can be no possibility of mistaking it for a star. Compare this
compact cluster, which only a powerful telescope can par-
tially resolve into its component stars, with 7 M. and 24 M.,
described before, in order to comprehend the wide variety in
the structure of these aggregations of stars.
The Northern Crown, although a strikingly beautiful
constellation to the naked eye, offers few attractions to the
opera-glass. Let us turn, then, to Lyra. I have never been
able to make up my mind which of three great stars is en-
titled to precedence—Vega, the leading brilliant of Lyra,
Arcturus in Bootes, or Capella in Auriga. They are the
three leaders of the northern firmament, but which of them
should be called the chief, is very hard to say. At any rate,
Vega would probably be generally regarded as the most
beautiful, on account of the delicate bluish tinge in its light,
especially when viewed with a glass. There is no possibility
of mistaking this star because of its surpassing brilliancy.
Two faint stars close to Vega on the east make a beautiful
little triangle with it, and thus form a further means of recog-
nition, if any were needed. Your opera-glass will show that
the floor of heaven is powdered with stars, fine as the dust of
a diamond, all around the neighborhood of Vega, and the
longer you gaze the more of these diminutive twinklers you -
will discover.
Now direct your glass to the northernmost of the two lit-
tle stars near Vega, the one marked Epsilon (e) in the map.
You will perceive that it is composed of two stars of almost
equal magnitude. If you had a telescope of considerable
power, you would find that each of these stars is in turn
doable. In other words, this wonderful star which appears
single to the unassisted eye, is in reality quadruple, and
there is reason to think that the four stars composing it are
50 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
connected in pairs, the members of each pair revolving
around their common center while the two pairs in turn cir-
oo URSA MA oe
¢\
aie
wh
BOs
Za)
re)
5)
>
oO
joe
a)
=
Map 11.
cle around a center common to all. With a field-glass you
will be able to see that the other star near Vega, Zeta (€), is
also double, the distance between its components being three
quarters of a minute, while the two stars in e are a little less
than 33’ apart. The star Beta (8) is remarkably variable in
brightness. You may watch these variations, which run
through a regular period of about 12 days, 21% hours, for
yourself. Between Beta and Gamma (y) lies the beautiful
Ring nebula, but it is hopelessly beyond the reach of the
optical means we are employing. 3
THE STARS OF SUMMER. 51
Let us turn next to the stars in the west. In consulting
the accompanying map of Virgo and Bodtes (Map No. 11),
the observer is supposed to face the southwest, at the hours
and dates mentioned above as those to which the circular
map corresponds. He will then see the bright star Spica in
Virgo not far above the horizon, while Arcturus will be half-
way up the sky, and the Northern Crown will be near the
zenith.
The constellation Virgo is an interesting one in mytho-
logical story. Aratus tells us that the Virgin’s home was
once on earth, where she bore the name of Justice, and in the
golden age all men obeyed her. In the silver age her visits
to men became less frequent, ‘‘no longer finding the spirits of
former days’’; and, finally, when the brazen age came with
the clangor of war:
‘* Justice, loathing that race of men,
Winged her flight to heaven ; and fixed
Her station in that region —
Where still by night is seen
The Virgin goddess near to bright Bodtes.”
The chief star of Virgo, Spica, is remarkable for its pure
white light. To my eye there is no conspicuous star in the
sky equal to it in this respect, and it gains in beauty when
viewed with a glass. With the aid of the map the reader will
find the celebrated binary star Gamma (y) Virginis, although
he will not be able to separate its components without a tele-
scope. It isa curious fact that the star Epsilon (e) in Virgo
has for many ages been known as the Grape-Gatherer. It
has borne this name in Greek, in Latin, in Persian, and in
Arabic, the origin of the appellation undoubtedly being that
it was observed to rise just before the sun in the season of the
vintage. It will be observed that the stars e, 6, y, 7, and 8,
mark two sides of a quadrilateral figure of which the oppo-
site corner is indicated by Denebola in the tail of Leo.
Within this quadrilateral lies the marvelous [Field of the
U. OF ILL. LIB.
52 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-@GLASS.
Nebule, a region where with adequate optical power one
may find hundreds of these strange objects thronging to-
gether, a very storehouse of the germs of suns and worlds.
Unfortunately, these nebule are far beyond the reach of an
opera-glass, but it is worth while to know where this curious
region is, even if we can not behold the wonders it contains.
The stars Omicron (0), Pi (7), etc., forming a little group,
mark the head of Virgo.
The autumnal equinox, or the place where the sun
crosses the equator of the heavens on his southerly journey
,about the 2ist of September, is situated nearly between the
stars 7 and 8 Virginis, a little below the line joining them,
and somewhat nearer to 7, Both » and ¢ Virginis are almost
exactly upon the equator of the heavens.
The constellation Libra, lying between Virgo and Scorpio,
does not contain much to attract our attention. Its two chief
stars, a and 8, may be readily recognized west of and above
the head of Scorpio. The upper one of the two, #, has a
singular greenish tint, and the lower one, a, is a very pretty
double for an opera-glass.
The constellation of Libra appears to have been of later
date than the other eleven members of the zodiacal circle.
Its two chief stars at one time marked the extended claws of
Scorpio, which were afterward cut off (perhaps the monster
proved too horrible even for its inventors) to form Libra.
As its name signifies, Libra represents a balance, and this
fact seems to refer the invention of the constellation back
to at least three hundred years before Christ, when the au-
tumnal equinox occurred at the moment when the sun was
just crossing the western border of the constellation. The
equality of the days and nights at that, season. readily
suggests the idea of a balance. Milton, in ‘‘ Paradise
Lost,” suggests another origin for the constellation of the
Balance in the account of Gabriel’s discovery of Satan in
paradise :
THE STARS OF SUMMER. 53
‘“ , . . Now dreadful deeds
Might have ensued, nor only paradise
In this commotion, but the starry cope
Of heaven, perhaps, or all the elements
At least had gone to wrack, disturbed and torn
With violence of this conflict, had not soon
The Eternal, to prevent sueh horrid fray,
Hung forth in heaven his golden scales, yet seen
Betwixt Astrea and the Scorpion sign.”
Just north of Virgo’s head will be seen the glimmering
of Berenice’s Hair. This little constellation was included
among those described in the chapter on ‘‘The Stars of
Spring,” but it is worth
looking at again in - the
early summer, on moonless
nights, when the singular
arrangement of the brighter
members of the cluster at
once strikes the eye.
Bootes, whose leading
brilliant, Arcturus, occupies
the center of our map, also
possesses a curious mythi-
cal history. It is called by
the Greeks the Bear-Driver, |
because it seems continually to chase Ursa Major, the Great
Bear, in his path around the pole. The story is that Bootes
was the son of the nymph Calisto, whom Juno, in’ one of her
customary fits of jealousy, turned into a bear. Bodtes, who
had become a famous hunter, one day roused a bear from
her lair, and, not knowing that it was his mother, was about
to kill her, when Jupiter came to the rescue and snatched
them both up into the sky, where they have shone ever since.
Lucan refers to this story when, describing Brutus’s visit to
Cato at night, he fixes the time by the position of these con-
stellations in the heavens:
BERENICE’S HAIR.
54 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
~
“°*Twas when the solemn dead of night came on,
When bright Calisto, with her shining son,
Now half the circle round the pole had run.”
Bootes is not specially interesting for our purposes, ex-
cept for the splendor of Arcturus. This star has possessed a
peculiar charm for me ever since boyhood, when, having read
a description of it in an old treatise on Uranography, I felt
an eager desire to see it. As my search for it chanced to be-
gin at a season when Arcturus did not rise till after a boy’s
bed-time, I was for a long time disappointed, and I shall
never forget the start of surprise -and almost of awe with
which I finally caught sight of it, one spring evening, shoot-
ing its flaming rays through the boughs of an apple-orchard,
like a star on fire.
When near the horizon, Arcturus has a remarkably red-
dish color; but, after it has attained a high elevation in the
sky, it appears rather a deep yellow than red. There is a
scattered cluster of small stars surrounding Arcturus, form-
ing an admirable spectacle with an opera-glass on a clear
night. To see these stars well, the glass should be slowly
moved about. Many of them are hidden by the glare of Arc-
turus. The little group of stars near the end of the handle
of the Great Dipper, or, what is the same thing, the tail of
the Great Bear, marks the upraised hand of Bodtes. Be-
tween Berenice’s Hair and the tail of the Bear you will seea
small constellation called Canes Venatici, the Hunting-Dogs.
On the old star-maps Bootes is represented as holding these
dogs with a leash, while they are straining in chase of the
Bear. You will find some pretty groupings of stars in this
constellation. :
And now we will turn to the east. Our next map shows
Cygnus, a constellation especially remarkable for the large
and striking figure that it contains, called the Northern
Cross, Aquila the Eagle, the Dolphin, and the little asterisms
Sagitta and Vulpecula. In consulting the map, the observer
THE STARS OF SUMMER. 5d
is supposed to face toward the east. In Aquila the curious
arrangement of two stars on either side of the chief star of
the constellation, called Altair, at once attracts the eye.
Within a circle including the two attendants of Altair you
will probably be able to see with the naked eye only two or
three stars in addition to the three large ones. Now turn
your glass upon the same spot, and you will see eight or
ten times as many stars, and with a field-glass still more can
be seen. Watch the star marked Eta (), and you will find
that its light is variable, being sometimes more than twice as
bright as at other times. Its changes are periodical, and oc-
cupy a little over a week.
The Eagle is fabled to have been the bird that Jupiter
kept beside his throne. A constellation called Antinous, in-
vented by Tycho Brahe, is represented on some maps as oc-
cupying the lower portion of the space given to Aquila.
The Dolphin is an interesting little constellation, and the
ancients said it represented the very animal on whose back
the famous musician Arion rode through the sea after his es-
cape from the sailors who tried to murder him. But some
modern has dubbed it with the less romantic name of Job’s
Coffin, by which it is sometimes called. It presents a very
pretty sight to the opera-glass.
Cygnus, the swan, is a constellation whose mythological
history is not specially interesting, although, as remarked
above, it contains one of the most clearly marked figures to
be found among the stars, the famous Northern Cross. The
outlines of this cross are marked with great distinctness
by the stars Alpha (a), Epsilon (e), Gamma (¥), Delta (6), and
Beta (8), together -with some fainter stars lying along the
main beam of the cross between 8 andy. The star 8, also
called Albireo, is one of the most beautiful double stars in
the heavens. The components are sharply contrasted in color,
the larger star being golden-yellow, while the smaller one is
a deep, rich blue. With a field-glass of 1°6-inch aperture
56 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
and magnifying seven times I have sometimes been able to
divide this pair, and to recognize the blue color of the smaller
star. It will be found a severe test for such a glass.
CYGNUS
oe
“PEGASUS
*
Map 12.
About half-way from Albireo to the two stars ¢€ and e in
Aquila is a very curious little group, consisting of six or
seven stars in a straight row, with a garland of other stars
hanging from the center. ‘Po see it best, take a field-glass, »
although an opera-glass shows it.
I have indicated the place of the celebrated star 61 Cygni
in the map, because of the interest attaching to it as the near-
est to us, so far as we know, of all the stars in the northern
THE STARS OF SUMMER. age
hemisphere, and with one exception the nearest star in all
the heavens. Yet it is very faint, and the fact that so incon-
spicuous a star should be nearer than such brilliants as Vega
and Arcturus shows how wide is the range of magnitude
among the suns that light the universe. The actual distance
of 61 Cygni is something like 650,000 times as great as the
distance from the earth to the sun. }
The star Omicron (0) is very interesting with an opera-
glass. The naked eye sees a little star near it. The glass
throws them wide apart, and divides o itself into two stars.
Now, a field-glass, if of sufficient power, will divide the larger
of these stars again into two—a fine test.
Sweep around a and y for the splendid star-fields that
abound in this neighborhood ; also around the upper part of
the figure of the cross. We are here in one of the richest
parts of the Milky-Way. Between the stars a, y, ¢, is the
strange dark gap in the galaxy called the Coal-Sack, a sort
of hole in the starry heavens. Although it is not entirely
empty of stars, its blackness is striking in contrast with the
brilliancy of the Milky-Way in this neighborhood. The
divergent streams of the great river of light in this region
present a very remarkable appearance.
Finally, we come to the great dragon of the sky. In using
the map of Draco and the neighboring constellations, the
reader is supposed to face the north. The center of the up-
per edge of the map is directly over the observer’s head. One
of the stories told of this large constellation is that it repre-
sents a dragon that had the temerity to war against Minerva.
The goddess ‘‘seized it in her hand, and hurled it, twisted
as it was, into the heavens round the axis of the world, be-
fore it had time to unwind its contortions.” Others say it is
the dragon that guarded the golden apples in the Garden of
the Hesperides, and that was slain by the redoubtable Her-
cules. At any rate, it is plainly a monster of the first magni-
tude. The stars B, y, &, v, and w represent its head, while its
5
58 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
body runs trailing along, first sweeping in a long curve to-
ward Cepheus, and then bending around and passing between
-BOOTES
Rs MINOR
*
POLE
ap ot STAR eee
% ye pate 2
*
* *
CAMELOPARD ..
Map 18.
the two bears. Try v with your opera-glass, and if you suc-
ceed in seeing it double you may congratulate yourself on
your keen sight. The distance between the stars is about Ll’.
Notice the contrasted colors of y and £8, the former being a
rich orange and the latter white. As you sweep along the
winding way that Draco follows, you will run across many
striking fields of stars, although the heavens are not as rich
here as in the splendid regions that we have just left. You
will also find that Cepheus, although not an attractive con-
THE STARS OF SUMMER. 59
stellation to the naked eye, is worth some attention with an
opera-glass. The head and upper part of the body of Ce-
pheus are plunged in the stream of the Milky Way, while his
feet are directed toward the pole of the heavens, upon which
he is pictured as standing. Cepheus, however, sinks into in-
significance in comparison with its neighbor Cassiopeia, but
that constellation belongs rather to the autumn sky, and we
shall pass it by here.
CHAPTER III. .
THE STARS OF AUTUMN.
In the ‘‘ Fifth Evening’’ of that delightful, old, out-of-
date book of Fontenelle’s, on the ‘‘ Plurality of Worlds,’ the
Astronomer and the Marchioness, who have been making a
wonderful pilgrimage through the heavens during their even- ~
ing strolls in the park, come at last to the starry systems be-
yond the ‘‘ solar vortex,” and the Marchioness experiences a
lively impatience to know what the fixed stars will turn out
to be, for the Astronomer has sharpened her appetite for
marvels.
‘‘Tell me,”’ says she, eagerly, ‘‘are they, too, inhabited
like the planets, or are they not peopled? In short, what can
we make of them?”
The Astronomer answers his charming questioner, as we
should do to-day, that the fixed stars are so many suns. And
he adds to this information a great deal of entertaining talk
about the planets that may be supposed to circle around these
distant suns, interspersing his conversation with explanations
of ‘‘ vortexes,” and many quaint conceits, in which he is
helped out by the ready wit of the Marchioness.
Finally, the impressionable mind of the lady is over-
whelmed by the grandeur of the scenes that the Astronomer _
opens to her view, her head swims, infinity oppresses her,
and she cries for mercy.
‘You show me,” she exclaims, ‘‘a perspective so inter-
minably long that the eye can not see the end of it. I see
nlainly the inhabitants of the earth; then you cause me to
THE STARS OF AUTUMN. 61
perceive those of the moon and of the other planets belonging
to our vortex (system), quite clearly, yet not so distinctly as
those of the earth. After them come the inhabitants of plan-
ets in the other vortexes. I confess, they seem to me hidden
deep in the background, and, however hard I try, I can bare-
ly glimpse them at all. In truth, are they not almost anni-
hilated by the very expression which you are obliged to use
in speaking of them? You have to call them inhabitants of
one of the planets contained in one out of the infinity of vor-
texes. Surely we ourselves, to whom the same expression
applies, are almost lost among so many millions of worlds.
For my part, the earth begins to appear so frightfully little
to me that henceforth I shall hardly consider any object wor-
thy of eager pursuit. Assuredly, people who seek so earnest-
ly their own aggrandizement, who lay schemes upon schemes,
and give themselves so much trouble, know nothing of the
vortexes! Jam sure my increase of knowledge will redound
to the credit of my idleness, and when people reproach me
with indolence I shall reply: ‘Ah! if you but knew the his-
tory of the fixed stars!’ ”
It is certainly true that a contemplation of the unthink-
able vastness of the universe, in the midst of which we dwell
upon a speck illuminated by a spark, is calculated to make all
terrestrial affairs appear contemptibly insignificant. We can
not wonder that men for ages regarded the earth as the cen-
ter, and the heavens with their lights as tributary to it, for to
have thought otherwise, in those times, would have been to
see things from the point of view of a superior intelligence.
It has taken a vast amount of experience and knowledge to
convince men of the parvitude of themselves and their belong-
ings. So, in all ages they have applied a terrestrial measure
to the universe, and imagined they could behold human
affairs reflected in the heavens and human interests setting the
gods together by the ears.
This is clearly shown in the story of the constellations,
“LSVa
62 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
The tremendous truth that on a starry night we look, in
every direction, into an almost endless vista of suns beyond
©
oO
<@
ioe
oO
*
‘
\S
Piscis RUS TAAL
SOUTH.
Map. 14.
suns and systems upon systems, was too overwhelming for
comprehension by the inventors of the constellations. So
they amused themselves, like imaginative children, as they
were, by tracing the outlines of men and beasts formed by
those pretty lights, the stars. They turned the starry heav-
ens into a scroll filled with pictured stories of mythology.
Wars tl.
THE STARS OF AUTUMN. 68
Four of the constellations with which we are going to deal
in this chapter are particularly interesting on this account.
They preserve in the stars, more lasting than parchment or
stone, one of the oldest and most pleasing of all the romantic
stories that have amused and inspired the minds of men—the
story of Perseus and Andromeda—a better story than any
that modern novelists have invented. The four constellations
to which I refer bear the names of Andromeda, Perseus, Cas-
siopeia, and Cepheus, and are sometimes called, collectively,
the Royal Family. In the autumn they occupy a conspicu-
ous position in the sky, forming a group that remains un-
rivaled until the rising of Orion with his imperial cortege.
The reader will find them in Map No. 14, occupying the
northeastern quarter of the heavens.
This map represents the visible heavens at about midnight
on September 1st, ten o’clock Pp. M. on October Ist, and eight
o’clock Pp. M. on November ist. At this time the constella-
tions that were near the meridian in summer will be found
sinking in the west, Hercules being low in the northwest,
with the brilliant Lyra and the head of Draco suspended
above it; Aquila, ‘‘the eagle of the winds,” soars high in the
southwest ; while the Cross of Cygnus is just west of the
zenith ; and Sagittarius, with its wealth of star-dust, is disap-
pearing under the horizon in the southwest.
Far down in the south the observer catches the gleam of a
bright lone star of the first magnitude, though not one of the
largest of that class. It is Fomalhaut, in the mouth of the
Southern Fish, Piscis Australis. *« B * XK (
PISCIS AUSTRAUS
SAGITTARIUS
Map 15.
THE STARS OF AUTUMN. 65
counts, though by no means a striking constellation to the
unassisted eye. The stars Alpha (a), called Giedi, and Beta
(8), called Dabih, will be readily recognized, and a keen eye
will perceive that Alpha really consists of two stars. They
are about six minutes of arc apart, and are of the third and
the fourth magnitude respectively. These stars, which to the
naked eye appear almost blended into one, really have no
physical connection with each other, and are slowly drifting
apart. The ancient astronomers make no mention of Giedi
being composed of two stars, and the reason is plain, when it
is known that in the time of Hipparchus, as Flammarion has
pointed out, their distance apart was not more than two
thirds as great as it is at present, so that the naked eye
could not have detected the fact that there were two of
them ; and if was not until the seventeenth century that they
got far enough asunder to begin to be separated by eyes of
unusual power. With an ordinary opera-glass they are
thrown well apart, and present a very pretty sight. Consid-
ering the manner in which these stars are separating, the
fact that both of them have several faint companions, which
our powerful telescopes reveal, becomes all the more inter-
esting. A suggestion of Sir John Herschel, concerning one
of these faint companions, that it shines by reflected light,
adds to the interest, for if the suggestion is well founded the
little star must, of course, be actually a planet, and granting
that, then some of the other faint points of light seen there
are probably planets too. It must be said that the proba-
bilities are against Herschel’s suggestion. The faint stars
more likely shine with their own light. Even so, however,
these two systems, which apparently have met and are pass-
ing one another, at a distance small as compared with the
space that separates them from us, possess a peculiar interest,
like two celestial fleets that have spoken one another in the
midst of the ocean of space.
The star Beta, or Dabih, is also a double star. The com-
66 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
panion is of a beautiful blue color, generally described as
‘“sky-blue.” It is of the seventh magnitude, while the larger
star is of magnitude three and a half. The latter is golden-
yellow. The blue of the small star can be seen with either
an opera- or a field-glass, but it requires careful looking and
a clear and steady atmosphere. I recollect discovering the
color of this star with a field-glass, and exclaiming to myself,
‘“Why, the little one is as blue as a bluebell!” before I
knew that that was its hue as seen with a telescope. Trying
my opera-glass upon it I found that the color was even more
distinct, although the small star was then more or less en-
veloped in the yellow rays of the large one. The distance
between the two stars in Dabih is nearly the same as that
between the components of e Lyre, and the comparative
difficulty of separating them is an instructive example of the
effect of a large star in concealing a small one close beside
it. The two stars in e Lyre are of nearly equal brightness,
and are very easily separated and distinguished, but in 8
Capricorni, or Dabih, one star is about twenty times as bright
as the other, and consequently the fainter star is almost con-
cealed in the glare of its more brilliant neighbor.
With the most powerful glass at your disposal, sweep
from the star Zeta (f) eastward a distance somewhat greater
than that separating Alpha and Beta, and you will find a
fifth-magnitude star beside a little nebulous spot. This is the
cluster Known as 30 M, one of those sun-Swarms that over-
whelm the mind of the contemplative observer with astonish-
ment, and especially remarkable in this case for the apparent
vacancy of the heavens immediately surrounding the cluster,
as if all the stars in that neighborhood had been drawn into
the great assemblage, leaving a void around it. Of course,
with the instrument that our observer is supposed to be
using, merely the existence of this solar throng can be detect-
ed; but, if he sees that it is there, he may be led to provide
himself with a telescope capable of revealing its glories.
THE STARS OF AUTUMN. 6%
Admiral Smyth remarks that, ‘‘although Capricorn is not
a striking object, it has been the very pet of all constellations
with astrologers,” and he quotes from an old almanac of the
year 1386, that ‘‘whoso is borne in Capcorn schal be ryche
and wel lufyd.’? The mythological account of the constella-
tion is that it represents the goat into which Pan was turned
in order to escape from the giant Typhon, who once on a time
scared all the gods out of their wits, and caused them to
change themselves into animals, even Jupiter assuming the
form of aram. According to some authorities, Piscis Aus-
tralis represents the fish into which Venus changed herself
on that interesting occasion.
Directly above Piscis Australis, and to the east or left of
Capricorn, the map shows the constellation of Aquarius, or the
Water-Bearer. Some say this commemorates Ganymede, the
cup-bearer of the gods. It is represented in old star-maps by
the figure of a young man pouring water from an urn. The
star Alpha (a) marks his right shoulder, and Beta (8) his left,
and Gamma (), Zeta (¢), Eta (7), and Pi (7) indicate his right
hand and the urn. From this group a current of small stars
will be recognized, sweeping downward with a curve toward
the east, and ending at Fomalhaut; this represents the water
poured from the urn, which the Southern Fish appears to be
drinking. In fact, according to the pictures in the old maps,
the fish succeeds in swallowing the stream completely, and it
vanishes from the sky in the act of entering his distended
mouth! It is worthy of remark that in Greek, Latin, and
Arabic this constellation bears names all of which signify ‘a
man pouring water.”’ The ancient Egyptians imagined that
the setting of Aquarius caused the rising of the Nile, as he
sank his huge urn in the river to fill it. Alpha Aquarii was
called by the Arabs Sadalmelik, which is interpreted to mean
the ‘‘ king’s lucky star,” but whether it proved itself a lucky
star in war or in love, and what particular king enjoyed its
benign influence and recorded his gratitude in its name, we
68 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
are not informed. Thus, at every step, we find how shreds of
history and bits of superstition are entangled among the
stars. Surely, humanity has been reflected in the heavens
as lastingly as it has impressed itself upon the earth.
Starting from the group of stars just described as forming
the Water-Bearer’s urn, follow with a glass the winding
stream of small stars that represent the water. Several very
pretty and striking assemblages of stars will be encountered
in its course. The star Tau (7) is double and presents a beau-
tiful contrast of color, one star being white and the other
reddish-orange—two solar systems, it may be, apparently
neighbors as seen from the earth, in one of which daylight is
white and in the other red !
Point a good glass upon the star marked Nu (v), and you
will see, somewhat less than a degree and 4 half to the west
of it, what appears to be a faint star of between the seventh
and eighth magnitudes. You will have to look sharp to see
it. It is with your mind’s eye that you must gaze, in order
to perceive the wonder here hidden in the depths of space.
That faint speck is a nebula, unrivaled for interest by many
of the larger and more conspicuous objects of that kind.
Lord Rosse’s great telescope has shown that in form it re-
sembles the planet Saturn; in other words, that it consists
apparently of a ball surrounded by a ring. But the spectro-
scope proves that it is a gaseous mass, and the micrometer—
supposing its distance to be equal to that of the stars, and
we have no reason to think it less—that it must be large
enough to fill the whole space included within the orbit of.
Neptune! Here, then, as has been said, we seem to behold
a genesis in the heavens. If Laplace’s nebular hypothesis,
or any of the modifications of that hypothesis, represents the
process of formation of a solar system, then we may fairly
conclude that such a process is now actually in operation in
this nebula in Aquarius, where a vast ring of nebulous mat-
ter appears to have separated off from the spherical mass
THE STARS OF AUTUMN. 69
within it. This may not be the true explanation of what we
see there, but, whatever the explanation is, there can be no
question of the high significance of this nebula, whose shape
proclaims unmistakably the operation of great metamorphic
forces there. Of course, with his insignificant optical means,
our observer can see nothing of the strange form of this
object, the detection of which requires the aid of the most
powerful telescopes, but it is much to know where that un-
finished creation lies, and to see it, even though diminished
by distance to a mere speck of light.
Turn your glass upon the star shown in the map just
above Mu (wv) and Epsilon (ce). You will find an attractive
arrangement of small stars in its neighborhood. The star
marked 104 is double to the naked eye, and the row of stars
below it is well worth looking at. The star Delta (6) indi-
cates the place where, in 1756, Tobias Mayer narrowly escaped
making a discovery that would have anticipated that which
a quarter of a century later made the name of Sir William
Herschel world-renowned. The planet Uranus passed near
Delta in 1756, and Tobias Mayer saw it, but it moved so
slowly that he took it for a fixed star, never suspecting that
his eyes had rested upon a member of the solar system whose
existence was, up to that time, unknown to the inhabitants of
Adam’s planet.
Above Aquarius you will find the constellation Pegasus.
It is conspicuously marked by four stars of about the second
magnitude, which shine at the corners of a large square,
called the Great Square of Pegasus. This figure is some fif-
teen degrees square, and at once attracts the eye, there being
few stars visible within the quadrilateral, and no large ones
in the immediate neighborhood to distract attention from it.
One of the four stars, however, as will be seen by consulting
Map 15, does not belong to Pegasus, but to the constellation
Andromeda. Mythologically, this constellation represents
the celebrated winged horse of antiquity :
%0 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
‘« Now heaven his further wandering flight confines,
Where, splendid with his numerous stars, he shines.”
The star Alpha (a) is called Markab; Beta (8) is Scheat,
and Gamma (fy) is Algenib; the fourth star in the square,
belonging to Andromeda, is called Alpheratz. Although
Pegasus presents a striking appearance to the unassisted eye,
on account of its great square, it contains little to attract the
observer with an opera-glass. It will prove interesting, how-
ever, to sweep with the glass carefully over the space within
the square, which is comparatively barren to the naked eye,
but in which many small stars will be revealed, of whose ex-
istence the naked-eye observer would be unaware. The star
marked Pi (7) is an interesting double, which can be sepa-
rated by a good eye without artificial aid, and which, with an
opera-glass, presents a fine appearance.
And now we come to Map No. 16, representing the con-
stellations Cetus, Pisces, Aries, and the Triangles. In con-
sulting it the observer is supposed to face the southeast.
Cetus is a very large constellation, and from the peculiar con-
formation of its principal stars it can be readily recognized.
The head is to the east, the star Alpha (a), called Menkar,
being in the nose of this imaginary inhabitant of the sky-
depths. The constellation is supposed to represent the mon-
ster that, according to fable, was sent by Neptune to devour
the fair Andromeda, but whose bloodthirsty design was hap-
pily and gallantly frustrated by Perseus, as we shall learn
from starry mythology further on.
Although bearing the name Cetus, the Whale, the pict-
ures of the constellation in the old maps do not present us
with the form of a whale, but that of a most extraordinary
scaly creature with enormous jaws filled with large teeth, a
forked tongue, fore-paws armed with gigantic claws, and a
long, crooked, and dangerous-looking tail. Indeed, Aratus
does not call it a ‘‘ whale,” but a ‘‘sea-monster,” and Dr.
Seiss would have us believe that it was intended to represent
THE STARS OF AUTUMN. 71
the leviathan, whose terrible prowess is celebrated in the
book of Job.
By far the most interesting object in Cetus is the star
Mira. This is a famous variable—a sun that sometimes
shines a thousand-fold more brilliantly than at others! It
changes from the second magnitude to the ninth or tenth, its
ANDROMEDA
PEGASUS
Map 16.
period from maximum to maximum being about eleven
months. During about five months of that time it is com-
pletely invisible to the naked eye; then it begins to appear
79 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
again, slowly increasing in brightness for some three months,
until it shines as a star of the second magnitude, being then
as bright as, if not brighter than, the most brilliant stars in
the constellation. It retains this brilliance for about two
weeks, and then begins to fade again, and, within three
months, once more disappears. There are various irregulari-
ties in its changes, which render its exact period somewhat
uncertain, and it does not always attain the same degree of
brightness at its maximum. For instance, in 1779, Mira was
almost equal in brilliance to a first-magnitude star, but fre-
quently at its greatest brightness it is hardly equal to an
ordinary star of the second magnitude. By the aid of our
little map you will readily be able to find it. You will per-
ceive that it has a slightly reddish tint. Watch it from one
of its maxima, and you will see it gradually fade from sight
until, at last, only the blackness of the empty sky appears
where, a few months before, a conspicuous star was visible.
Keep watch of that spot, and in due course you will perceive
Mira shining there again—a mere speck, but slowly brighten-
ing—and in three months more the wonderful star will blaze
again with renewed splendor.
Knowing that our own sun is a variable star—though vari-
able only to a slight degree, its variability being due to the
spots that appear upon its surface in a period of about eleven
years—we possess some light that may be cast upon the mys-
tery of Mira’s variations. It seems not improbable that, in
the case of Mira, the surface of the star at the maximum of
spottedness is covered to an enormously greater extent than
occurs during our own sun-spot maxima, so that the light of
the star, instead of being merely dimmed to an almost im-
perceptible extent, as with our sun, is almost blotted out.
When the star blazes with unwonted splendor, as in 1779, we
may fairly assume that the pent-up forces of this perishing
sun have burst forth, as in a desperate struggle against ex-
tinction. But nothing can prevail against the slow, remorse-
THE STARS OF AUTUMN. 73
less, unswerving progress of that obscuration, which comes
from the leaking away of the solar heat, and which consti-
tutes what we may call the death of a sun. And that word
seems peculiarly appropriate to describe the end of a body
which, during its period of visible existence, not only pre-
sents the highest type of physical activity, but is the parent
and supporter of all forms of life upon the planets that sur-
round it. .
We might even go so far as to say that possibly Mira
presents to us an example of what our sun will be in the
course of time, as the dead and barren moon shows us, as in
a magician’s glass, the approaching fate of the earth. Fortu-
nately, human life is a mere span in comparison with the
geons of cosmic existence, and so we need have no fear that
either we or our descendants for thousands of generations
shall have to play the tragic rd/e of Campbell’s ‘‘ Last Man,”
and endeavor to keep up a stout heart amid the crash of time
by meanly boasting to the perishing sun, whose rays have
nurtured us, that, though his proud race is ended, we have
confident anticipations of immortality. I trust that, when
man makes his exit from this terrestrial stage, it will not be
in the contemptible act of kicking a fallen benefactor.
There are several other variable stars in Cetus, but none
possessing much interest for us. The observer should look
at the group of stars in the head, where he will find some in-
teresting combinations, and also at Chi, which is the little star
shown in the map near Zeta (€). This is a double that will
serve as avery good test of eye and instrument, the smaller
companion-star being of only seven and a half magnitude.
Directly above Cetus is the long, straggling constellation
of Pisces, the Fishes. The Northern Fish is represented by
the group of stars near Andromeda and the Triangles.
distinguishing a planet from the fixed stars by its change of
place. In the first cut we have the two planets and three
neighboring stars as they ap-
peared on May 29th. These
stars were best seen with a
field-glass, although an opera-
glass readily showed them.
On June ist the relative
positions of the planets: and
stars were as shown in the sec-
ond cut. A glance suffices to
show that not only Mars but
Uranus also has shifted its po-
sition with respect to the three
Immovable stars. This change of place alone would have
sufficed to indicate the identity of Uranus. To make sure,
the inexperienced observer had only to continue his observa-
tions a few nights longer.
On June 6th Mars and Uranus were in conjunction, and
their position, as well as that of the same set of three stars,
is shown in the third cut. It will be seen that while Mars
had changed its place very much more than Uranus, yet that
the latter planet had now moved so far from its original po-
sition on May 29th, that there could be no possibility that the
merest tyro in star-gazing would fail to notice the change.
Whenever the observer sees an object which he suspects to
be a planet, he can satisfy himself of its identity by making
a series of little sketches like the above, showing the position
of the suspected object on successive evenings, with respect
to neighboring stars. The same plan suffices to identify the
larger planets, in the case of which no glass is necessary.
The observer can simply make a careful estimate by the
naked eye of the supposed planet’s distance and bearing
from large stars near it, and compare them with similar ob-
servations made on subsequent evenings.
MARS AND URANUS, JUNE 6, 1888.
THE MOON, THE PLANETS, AND THE SUN. 145
THE Sun.—That spots upon the sun may be seen with no
greater optical aid than that of an opera-glass is perhaps well
known to many of my readers, for during the past ten years
public attention has been drawn to sun-spots in an especial
manner, on account of their supposed connection with me-
teorology, and in that time there have been many spots upon
the solar disk which could not only be seen with an opera-
glass, but even with the unassisted eye. At present (1888)
we are near a minimum period of sun-spots, and the number
to be seen even with a telescope is comparatively very small,
yet only a few days before this page was written there was a
spot on the sun large enough to be conspicuous with the aid
of a field-glass. During the time of a spot-maximum the sun
is occasionally a wonderful object, no matter how small the
power of the in-
strument used in
viewing it may be.
Strings of spots of
every variety of
shape sometimes
extend completely
across the disk.
Our illustration
shows the appear-
ance of the sun, as
drawn by the au-
thor on the 1st of
September, 1883.
Every one of the
spots and _ spot-
groups there repre-
sented could be seen with a good field-glass, and nearly all
of them with an opera-glass.
As in all such cases, our interest in the phenomena in-
creases In proportion to our understanding of their signifi-
THE SuN, SEPTEMBER 1, 1883.
146 — ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
cance and their true scale of magnitude. In glancing from
side to side of the sun’s disk, the eye ranges over a distance
of more than 860,000 miles—not a mere ideal distance, or an
expanse of empty space, but a distance filled by an actual
and, so to speak, tangible body, whose diameter is of that
stupendous magnitude. One sees at a glance, then, the enor-
mous scale on which these spots are formed. The earth
placed beside them would be but a speck, and yet they are
mere pits in the surface of the sun, filled perhaps with par-
tially cooled metallic vapors, which have been cast up from
the interior, and are settling back again. It is worth any-
body’s while to get a glimpse at a sun-spot if he can, for,
although he may see it merely as a black dot on the shining
disk, yet it represents the play of physical forces whose
might and power are there exercised on a scale really be-
yond human comprehension. The imagination of Milton or
Dante would have beheld the mouth of hell yawning in a
sun-spot.
In order to view the sun it is, of course, necessary to con-
trive some protection for the eyes. This. may be constructed
by taking two strips of glass four or five inches long and an
inch wide, and smoking one of them until you can without
discomfort look at the sun through it. Then place the two
strips together, with the smoked surface inside—taking care
to separate them slightly by pieces of cardboard placed be-
tween the ends—and fasten the edges together with strips of
paper gummed on. Then, by means of a rubber band, fasten
the dark glass thus prepared over the eye-end of your
opera-glass in such a way that both of the lenses are com-
pletely covered by it. It will require a little practice to en-
able you to get the sun into the field of view and keep it
there, and for this purpose you should assume a posture—
sitting, if possible—which will enable you to hold the glass
very steady. Then point the glass nearly in the direction of
the sun, and move it slowly about until the disk comes in
THE MOON, THE PLANETS, AND THE SUN. 147
sight. It is best to carefully focus your instrument on some
distant object before trying to look at the sun with it.
As there is some danger of the shade-glass being cracked
by the heat, especially if the object-glasses of the instrument
are pretty large, it would be well to get the strips of glass for
the shade large enough to cover the object-end of the instru-
ment instead of the eye-end. At a little expense an optician
will furnish you with strips of glass of complementary tints,
which, when fastened together, give a very pleasing view of
the sun without discoloring the disk. Dark red with dark
blue or green answer very well; but the color must be very
deep. The same arrangement, of course, will serve for view-
ing an eclipse of the sun.
A word, finally, about the messenger which brings to us:
all the Knowledge we possess of the contents and marvels of
space—light. Without the all-pervading luminiferous ether,
_ narrow indeed would be our acquaintance with the physical
creation. This is a sympathetic bond by which we may con-
ceive that intelligent creatures throughout the universe are
united. Light tells us of the existence of suns and systems
so remote that the mind shrinks from the attempt to conceive
their distance ; and light bears back again to them a similar
message in the feeble glimmering of our own sun. And can
any one believe that there are no eyes out yonder to receive,
and no intelligence to interpret that message ?
Sir Humphry Davy has beautifully expressed a similar
thought in one of his philosophical romances :
In Jupiter you would see creatures similar to those in Saturn,
but with different powers of locomotion; in Mars and Venus you
would find races of created forms more analogous to those belong-
ing to the Earth; but in every part of the planetary system you
would find one character peculiar to all intelligent natures, a sense
of receiving impressions from light by various organs of vision, and
toward this result you can not but perceive that all the arrange-
ments and motions of the planetary bodies, their satellites and at-
mospheres, are subservient. ‘The spiritual natures, therefore, that
148 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
pass from system to system in progression toward power and knowl
edge preserve at least this one invariable’ character, and their intel.
lectual life may be said to depend more or less upon the influence
of light.*
Light is a result, and an expression, of the energy of cos-
mical life. The universe lives while light exists. But when
the throbbing energies of all the suns are exhausted, and
space is filled with universal gloom, the light of intelligence
must vanish too.
One can not read the wonderful messages of light—one
can not study the sun, the moon, and the stars in any manner
—without perceiving that the physical universe is enormous-
ly greater than he had thought, and that the creation, of
which the Earth is an infinitesimal part, is almost infinitely
more magnificent in actual magnitude than the imaginary
domain which men of old times pictured as the dwelling-
place of the all-controlling gods ; without feeling that he has
risen to a higher plane, and that his intellectual life has
taken a nobler aim and a broader scope.
* See “Consolations in Travel, or the Last Days of a Philosopher”; Diae
logue I,
APPENDIX.
(1890.)
ALTHOUGH only two years have elapsed since the foregoing pages
were written, the advance of astronomical discovery has been so rapid
that, it has seemed advisable, in sending out this fourth edition, to add
a brief appendix.
The Wonders of Orion.
~It may have been mere fancy, but it has always seemed to the
writer, when viewing Orion, that there was some hidden splendor
there whose existence was rather felt than seen. ‘The eye can not re-
sist the attraction of that magnificent constellation, when it is above
the horizon. ‘The most indifferent person is made aware of its pres-
ence, and is compelled to look up and behold it. It is like a great
light in the sky ; it draws with the persistence of a magnet. The un-
common brilliance of its stars and the striking form in which they
are arrayed doubtless account for this peculiar attraction ; but a re-
cent discovery made by means of photography proves that, at any
rate, those who thought that new wonders were waiting to be revealed
in Orion had made an exceedingly good guess. Photographs taken
on Wilson’s Peak, in California, and at an elevated station in the
Andes, show that the larger part of the constellation is involved in
the spirals of an enormous nebula, of which the great nebula in the
Sword, described on page 107, is simply a brighter twist. This vast
nebulous region extends from Beta (8) to Kappa (x) (see map, page
93), and thence spreads upward, involving the stars in the Belt, and
extending beyond them more than half-way to the Giant’s Head.
On the west it includes Beta (8) Eridani. While the observer with-
the opera-glass can not, of course, see this nebulous mass, he will find
scattered all over the region indicated wonderful streams and curving
lines of small stars. Look particularly around the stars forming the
Belt. Epsilon (e), the middle star of the Belt, is completely encircled
150 | ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS,
by a garland of this sort, from which a beautiful curve runs as an
offshoot toward the northwest, winding half round Delta (8) in the
upper end of the Belt. ‘That these rows and loops of stars have been
formed by condensation along the spiral folds of the stupendous
nebula, which we now know lies hidden just beyond eye-shot there,
seems the only reasonable way to account for the strange order in
which they have been marshaled.
The Nebulous System in Andromeda.
On the 29th of December, 1888, Mr. Isaac Roberts, of England,
succeeded in obtaining a photograph of the great nebula in Androm-
eda (see page 80) which reveals that object in an entirely new light.
Mr. Roberts’s photograph shows that this nebula really consists of a
number of concentric spirals surrounding a bright central condensa-
tion, and recalling in a general way the conventional representation
of the solar system in its primal stages, according to the nebular
theory of Laplace. In this case, however, the system of solar and
planetary bodies that will be evolved, if such is really to be the out-
come of the condition of things now presented by the Andromeda
nebula, will be enormously more extensive than that of which our sun
is the center. It appears that the rifts which Bond discovered in the
nebula were simply the effect of the great spirals, of which he could
catch only partial glimpses that did not reveal their true nature.
Algol and some other Curious Double Stars.
It is stated on page 85 that the remarkable periodic changes in the
light of Algol, the ‘‘demon star,” are probably due to a huge dark
body revolving around the star at close quarters. Since that was
written, Vogel has made it certain by means of spectroscopic obser-
vations that there is just such a body revolving around Algol; and he
has also been able to determine approximately its distance from the
star, which amounts to about 3,250,000 miles. The diameter of Algol
is shown to be about 1,100,000 miles, and that of its dark companion
840,000 miles, the latter being nearly equal to the diameter of our
sun. The density of both these bodies, however, is very small, so
that their united mass is only two thirds that of the sun.
Prof. Pickering, of Harvard University, has recently announced
the most remarkable discovery that the larger component of the well-
known double star, Mizar (see page 27) is itself again double, but in
this case the two stars are so close that no telescope has ever been
able to separate them ; and the fact that there are two stars 1s only
APPENDIX. 151
made manifest by the shifting of the lines in the spectrum caused by
their alternate approach toward and recession from the earth as they
revolve around one another. The precise phenomenon observed in
this case is the splitting of the lines, the explanation of which is
highly interesting. When astar is approaching the observer, the lines
in its spectrum are shifted toward the violet end; when it is receding,
the lines are shifted toward the red end. In the case of Mizar, since
the two stars composing it are not separately distinguishable by the
telescope, their spectra are combined into one; and as they revolve
around one another in an orbit that has its edge presented toward the
earth, or lies flat to our line of sight, when one is approaching us on
one side of the orbit the other must be receding on the other side.
The effect of these two contradictory motions is integrated, so to
speak, in their combined spectrum, and the lines being simultaneously
shifted both ways, appear doubled, or split. This only occurs when
the two stars are near the extremities of that diameter of their orbit
which les at right angles to our line of sight. As they swing into
coincidence with.that line, and their motion, instead of being toward
and from the earth, becomes across the line of view, the spectral lines
resume their normal position and appearance. The time of revolu-
tion of these twin suns is about 104 days, and their distance apart is
about 140,000,000 miles, approximating the distance of Mars from the
sun. ‘Their size is stupendous, their combined mass being forty times
as great as that of the sun. The star Beta (8) Aurige, or Menkalina
(see page 23), has a similar companion at a distance of only about
8,000,000 miles. Spica in Virgo (page 51), and Rigel in Orion (page
106), both show indications of having comparatively small, close, and
dark companions revolving around them. One can not help asking
whether we may not here be dealing with phenomena that indicate
the existence of actual planetary systems belonging to these giant suns.
Additional Objects for Observation.
The star Gamma (y) Leporis (see map, page 93) is a beautiful
double that can readily be separated by a strong field-glass. In fact, I
have divided it, under favorable conditions, with a large opera-glass.
The larger star is of the fourth magnitude, and its companion of
magnitude 6°5. The color of the latter is greenish. This is one of
the few stars classed as telescopic doubles that can be separated with
such slight instrumental means. The distance between the stars is
about 93”.
The little star close to the right of Iota (c) Leporis is well worth
152 ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
careful observation, on account of its beautiful red color. The ob-
server will find other small red stars in this quarter of the sky, par-
ticularly in Orion and Monoceros.
Giant Suns.
On page 112 we have shown that the distance of Sirius is not less
than 50,000,000,000,000 miles, and that it must pour forth at least
seventy-two times as much light as our sun gives. The accurate meas-
urement of the distance of the stars is a destderatum that astronomers
are yet far from having attained, but considerable advances have been
made within a few years, and photography has recently been applied
to the problem with very promising results. If some of Dr. Elkin’s
photographic determinations of stellar parallax are accepted, we find
that Sirius is very far from being the greatest sun in space, although
it appears to our eyes as the brightest star in the sky. According to
Dr. Elkin’s results, Vega, the beautiful bluish star in Lyra (see page
49), must be equal in light-giving power to 900 suns like ours, while
its distance is no less than 558,000,000,000,000 miles. Arcturus, the
leading star of Bodtes (page 54), is, according to the same determina-
tion of parallax, a still grander phenomenon, being situated at a dis-
tance of more than 1,000,000,000,000,000 miles, and equal to 3,00¢
suns |
THE END.
TNS ax
Achernar, 94.
Albireo (8 Cygni), 55.
Aleor, 27.
Alcyone, 102.
Miadler’s “ Central Sun,” 104.
Aldebaran, 22, 89, 91, 94, 95, 98.
Algenib (a Persei), 84, 85.
Algol, the Demon-Star), 83.
probable cause of variation of, 85.
Al-Mamoun, the Caliph, observation of a
temporary star, 35.
Almaach (y Andromede), 79, 82.
Alphard, 16.
Alpha Andromede, 79.
Agnarii (Sadalmelik), 67.
Arietis (Hamal), 74.
Capricorni (Giedi), 65.
Ceti (Menkar), 70.
Draconis, formerly the pole-star, 102.
Libre, 52.
Ophiuchi (Ras Alhague), 42.
Orionis (Betelgeuse), 91, 98, 106..
Pegasi (Markab), ‘70.
Urse Majoris, 28.
Alpheratz (a Andromede), 79.
Alps, the lunar, 185.
Altai Mountains, 135.
Altair, 55.
Andromede, map of, 76.
mythology of, 75.
Antares, 32, 33, 98.
Antinous, 55.
Apennines, the lunar, 135.
Apollonius, regarded the moon as a mir-
ror, 119.
Aquarius, map of, 64.
mythology of, 67.
11
Aquila, map of, 56.
mythology of, 55.
Aratus, description of the Manger, 15.
the “ Diosemia” of, 15.
the Phenomena of, 20.
story of Virgo, 51.
description of the “ Royal Family,” 78.
description of Cetus, 70.
Arcturus, 10, 24, 26, 49, 56.
Argo, map of, 110.
mythology of, 115.
Aries, map of, 71.
mythology of, 75,
Ariosto, story of a trip to the moon, 186.
Aristarchus, the shining mountain, 125.
Aselli, 15.
Asterope, 103.
Atlas, 102.
Auriga, map of, 23.
mythology of, 23.
star swarms in, 22.
Autumn, map of the Stars of, 62.
Bartschius invents Monoceros, 117.
Bay of Dew, 129.
Bay of Rainbows, 129.
Bear’s head, stars forming the, 28.
Bellatrix, 90, 107.
Belt, Orion’s, 90, 107.
Berenice’s Hair, the constellation of, 24.
picture of, 53.
Bessel, studies of Sirius and Procyon, 20
letter about “dark stars,” 114.
Beta Andromede (Mirach), 79.
Arietis (Sheratan), 75.
Capricorni (Dabih), 65.
Cassiopeia, 74.
154
Beta Corvi, 25.
Cygni (Albireo), 55.
Libra, 52.
Leonis (Denebola), 12.
Lyre, 50.
Pegasi, 70.
Scorpionis, 34,
Urs Minoris (Kochab), 27.
Betelgeuse (a Orionis), 91, 98, 106.
Bethlehem, the so-called Star of, 87.
Biela’s comet, it breaks up, 82.
Biela meteors, radiant point. of the, 82.
Bodtes, map of, 50.
mythology of, 58.
Calisto, another name of Ursa Major, 29
Cancer, map of, 18.
mythology of, 15.
Canes Venatici, 54.
Canis Major, map of, 110.
mythology of, 115.
Canis Minor, map of, 18,
mythology of, 21.
Canopus, 114.
Capella, 9, 22, 49, 89, 91.
Cape Heraclides, 129.
Laplace, 129.
Capricornus, map of, 64,
mythology of, 67.
Cassiopeia, map of, 76.
mythology of, ‘75.
Castor, 17.
Catharina, 135.
Caucasus Mountains, 135.
Celeeno, 103.
Central Gulf, 129.
“Central Sun,” Miadler’s ideas about a,
104.
Cepheus, map of, 58, 76.
Cetus, map of, 71.
mythology of, 70.
Chi Ceti, 78.
Clavius, 124, 182, 138.
Coal-Sack, 57.
Comet, Biela’s, 82.
Comet, Halley’s, the Crab Nebula mis-
taken for, 97.
Constellations, origin of, 6, 42, 61.
along the Milky-Way, 116.
the zodiacal, 16.
ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
Constellations, St. Paul’s
19,
Copernicus, 136.
Corvus, map of, 26.
mythology of, 25.
“Crimson Star,” 110.
Crisian Sea, 127.
Cynosura, a name of Ursa Minor, ay.
Cygnus, map of, 56.
Cyrillus, 135.
knowledge of,
Dabih (6 Capricorni), 65.
Dark Stars, Bessel’s suggestion about, 114.
Davy, Humphry, on life in other worlds
147.
Delta Canis Majoris, 11%.
Cephei, 88.
Tauri, 99.
Deltoton, 75.
Denebola (8 Leonis), 12, 14, 24,
Dipper, the Great, 10, 27.
Dog-Days, origin of the, 111.
Dog-Star, 111.
Dolphin, map of the, 56.
mythology of the, 55.
Draco, map of, 58.
mythology of, 57.
El Nath, 22, 97.
Epsilon Leonis, 12.
Lyre, 49.
Tauri, 99.
Virginis, 51.
Equinox, autumnal, 52.
vernal, 74.
Kridanus, map of, 93,
Eta Aquila, 55.
Field-glass, 6.
Field of the Nebule, 51.
Flammarion, on a Capricorni, 65.
Flood traditions connected with the
Pleiades, 101, 102.
Focus, importance of a sharp, 11,
Fomalhaut, 63.
Fontenelle, “ Plurality of Worlds,” 60.
Galileo, his telescope an opera-glass, 4.
his description of Preesepe, 15.
his description of the moon, #18,
power of his telescope, 119.
INDEX.
Gamma Andromede, 79, 82.
Leonis, 11.
Pegasi, 70.
Tauri, 99. +
Virginis, 51.
“ Garnet Star” (Mu Cephei), 88.
Gemini, map of, 18.
mythology of, 19.
Genesis, a celestial, 68.
Giedi (a Capricorni), 65.
Glass, use of smoked or colored, 130, 146.
Goldschmidt sees a nebula in the Pleiades,
104.
Gomelza, 20.
Gore, estimate of the stars in 13 M, 45.
“ Grape-Gatherer ” (e Virginis), 51.
Grensted, Rev. Mr., suggestion about
lunar rays, 182.
Grimaldi, 130.
Halley’s comet and Crab Nebula, 97.
Hamal (a Arietis), 74. .
Hemus Mountains, 128.
Henry, Paul and Prosper, photographs
of the Pleiades, 105. ~
Hercules, map of, 44.
mythology of, 45.
motion of solar system toward, 48.
Herschel, William, discovers Uranus, 19.
computation of stars in 13 M, 45.
advice about seeing star-colors, 88.
thinks he sees lunar volcano, 125.
John, description of 8 M, 34.
suggestion about a Capricorni, 65.
Holden, Prof., on the Milky-Way, 40.
structure of Ring Nebula, 105.
-Hooke, discovers first telescopic douhle
star, 75.
Hyades, 89, 95, 98, 99.
Hydra, map of part of, 26.
mythology of, 16.
Hydra’s Heart (Alphard), 16,
Humboldt Sea, 130.
Jeaurat, chart of the Pleiades, 104.
Job’s coffin, 55. ;
Jupiter, 141.
satellites of, 142.
Kappa Argus, 116,
Tauri, 100.
Kepler observes the star of 1604, 42.
Kingsley, story of Andromeda, 77.
“ King’s lucky star,” 67.
Kochab (Beta Urse Minoris), 27.
Lake of Death, 129.
of Dreams, 129.
Land of Drought, 130.
of Hoar Frost, 130.
Leo, map of, 12.
mythology of, 13.
sickle-shaped figure in, 9, 14.
Lepus, map of, 93.
Lick telescope, views of Milky-Way, 40.
views of Ring Nebula, 105.
Light, the messenger of the universe,
147.
in a star-cluster, 45.
Libra, description and mythology of, 52.
Life, does it exist beyond the earth? 37,
48, 137, 189, 140, 147.
Locke, Richard Adams, author of the
* Moon Hoax,” 125.
‘Lyra, map of, 44.
mythology of, 45.
Midler, on the “ Central Sun,” 104,
Maginus, 124.
Maia, 103, 105.
Man in the Moon, 121. —
Manger (Presepe), 15.
Marine glass, 6.
Markab (a Pegasi), 70.
Marsh of Mists, 129.
of Putrefaction, 129,
of Sleep, 127.
Mars, 140.
Medusa, the head of, 83,
Menelaus, 128.
Menkalina, 22.
Menkar (a Ceti), 70.
Mercury, 139. :
Merope, 102, 103.
Mesarthim, 75.
Meteors, radiant point of November, 11,
radiant point of Biela, 82.
Micromegas, the story of, 115.
Milk-Dipper, 34.
Milky-Way, 17, 34, 39, 40, 48, 57, 81, 86,
116,
156
Mira (0 Ceti), 71.
probable cause of its variations, 72.
Milton, account of Libra, 52.
Mirach (8 Andromede), 79.
Mizar, 27.
Moon, mountains of the, 120.
shadows on the, 120.
map of the, 123.
list of mountains, “seas,” etc., 123.
inhabitableness of the, 1386,
the other side of the, 138.
“ Moon Hoax,” 125, 128.
Monoceros, map of, 110.
Mu Argus, 116.
Scorpionis, 36.
Nebule (and Star-Clusters) :
4 M, 34.
6 M, 37.
7 M, 37.
8 M, 38.
13 M, 45.
24 M, 38.
25 M, 39.
30 M, 66.
34 M, 86.
35 M, 18.
37 M, 28.
38 M, 28.
41 M, 112.
46 M, 116.
50 M, 117,
80 M, 35.
93 M, 116.
a OE
337, 28.
388, 116.
Andromeda, Great Nebula in, 79, 80.
Aquarius, Nebula in, 68.
Crab Nebula, 97, 98.
Field of the Nebule, 51.
Horseshoe Nebula, 39.
Orion, Great Nebula in, 107,
Perseus, Great Cluster in, 86.
Pleiades, nebule in the, 104.
Ring Nebula in Lyra, 50.
Nebular hypothesis, 68.
Neison, description of sunrise on Clavius,
133.
Newton, 134,
ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
“ Nile-Star,” 111.-
Northern Cross, 54, 55.
Northern Crown, map of the, 44,
Northern Fish, 73, 79.
Nu Andromede, 79, 82.
Aquarii, a pointer to a nebula, 68,
Canis Majoris, 112.
Draconis, 58.
Scorpionis, 34.
Ocean of Storms, 1380.
Omicron Ceti (Mira), 71, 72.
Cygni, 57. “
Omicron two Eridani, a flying-star, 95.
Opera-glass, views of the stars with, 3.
how to choose a good, 4.
magnifying power of, 4,
defects of, 5.
Ophiuchus and Serpens, map of, 41.
mythology of, 41.
Orion, map of, 93.
mythology of, 109.
great array of stars around, 90,
riches of, 106.
spectacle of the rising of, 89.
Orpheus, fancies about the moon, 119.
Pegasus, map of, 64.
mythology of, 69.
Perseus, map of, 76.
mythology of, 75.
great cluster in, 86.
Phantom, another name of Hercules, 4&
Photography, astronomical, 3, 105,
Pi Argus, 116.
Five Orionis, 109.
Pegasi, 70.
Pisces, map of, 71.
mythology of, 74,
Piscis Australis, 67.
Plato, 135.
Pleiades, 10, 22, 89, 95.
names of the, 100.
mythology of, 100.
and the Flood, 101, 102.
and the Great Pyramid, 101.
picture of the, 103.
common motion of the, 104,
Pleione, 102, 1038.
} Pole-star, 10, 26.
Pollux, 17.
Preesepe (the Manger), 15.
Prime Meridian, 74.
Proclus, 127.
Procyon, 9, 20.
Pyramid of Cheops and the Pleiades, 101,
Pyrenees Mountains, 128.
Ras Aihague (a Ophiuchi), 42,
Rays of the Moon, 1381.
Regulus, 9, 11.
Revolution of the heavens, 7, 30.
Rho Ophiuchi, 33.
Rigel, 91, 94, 98, 108.
Ring Nebula, 50.
“ Royal Family,” 63, 75.
Rutherford, photograph of the moon, 122.
Sadalmelik (a Aquarii), 67,
Sagitta, map of, 56.
Sagittarius, map of, 34,
mythology of, 34.
Saiph, 90.
Saturn, 142,
Scorpio, map of, 34.
mythology of, 32.
pair,of stars in sting of, 3%
Schickhard, 180.
Sea of Clouds, 180.
Sea of Cold, 129,
Sea of Fertility, 127.
Sea of Humors, 130
Sea of Nectar, 128.
Sea of Serenity, 128.
Sea of Showers, 129.
Sea of Tranquillity, 12’.
Sea of Vapors, 129.
Secchi, Father, types of the stars, 106,
description of a star-swarm, 39,
Seiss, Rev. Dr., on Canis Minor, 21.
description of Auriga, 23.
Sheratan (8 Arietis), 75.
Sidus Ludovicianum, 27.
sirius, 9, 22, 91.
color of, 111.
size and distance of, 112.
the companion of, 21, 114.
its light compared with the sun’s, 46.
Sigma Tauri, 99.
Sixty-one Cygni, 56.
INDEX. aoa Rg
Smyth, Admiral, on Capricorn, 67.
description of Aldebaran, 98.
description of 35 M, 18.
Solstice, summer, 16, 19.
winter, 38.
Sobieski’s Shield, 38.
Solar system, voyaging of, in space, 48,
Southern Cross, 91, 116.
South Sea, 130.
Spectroscopic analysis, 3, 98.
Spica, 10, 24, 26, 51.
Spring, map of the stars of, 8.
Square of Pegasus, 69.
St. Paul, acquainted with the constella
tions, 19.
Star-Clusters (see Nebula, etc.).
Star-Cluster, light in a, 45.
Summer, map of the stars of, 31.
.| Sun, opera-glass observations of the, 145,
the, a variable star, 72.
Sword of Orion, 107.
Taurus, map of, 93.
mythology of, 102.
the “Golden Horns” of, 96,
Poniatowskil, 42.
Tau Aquarii, 68.
Taygeta, 103.
Temporary stars:
134 B. c. the first on record, 35,
393 A.D., 35.
G27, 35.
1203, 35.
1572, Tycho’s star, 87.
1578, 36.
1604, 36, 42.
1860, 35, 81.
1885, 80.
Temple, discovers a nebula in the Plei-
ades, 104.
Tennyson, describes the Pleiades, 105.
Theophilus, 135.
Theta Orionis, 107,
Serpentis, 43.
Tauri, 99.
Tobias Mayer, sees the planet Neptune, 69
4Triangles, map of the, 71.
mythology of, ‘75.
Twenty-two Cais Majoris, 112,
Scorpii, 33.
158 - ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
Tycho Brahe, invents Antinous, 59.
places Hamal in Aries, 75.
studies the star of 1572, 87.
Tycho, 122, 1381.
Upsilon Tauri, 100.
Uranus, discovery of, 19.
how to find, 142.
Ursa Major, map of, 27.
mythology of, 28.
stars in the feet of, 28.
Ursa Minor, map of, 27.
mythology of, 28.
Vega, 49.
Venus, mistaken for artificial light, 2.
opera-glass observation of, 139.
Virgil, description of Taurus, 96.
Virgo, map of, 50.
mythology of, 51.
Vision, seeing with averted, 13.
Voltaire, story of ‘‘ Micromegas,” 115.
Vulpecula, map of, 56.
Webb, Rev. T. W., on telescopes, 5.
on 85 M, 18.
Western Fish, 78.
Winter, brilliancy of the heavens in, 91.
map of the stars of, 92.
Woman in the Moon, 121.
Zeta Corvi, 25.
Cassiopeia, 86.
Leonis, 11.
Lyre, 50.
Scorpionis, 36.
Tauri, a pointer to the Crab Nebula, 97.
Zi Argus, 116.
Zodiac, 16.
Zodiac, divided among the Twelve Apos-
tles, 86.
of Dendera, 14.
Zollner, estimate of Sirius’s light, 46.
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