Title: Round the year with the stars: The chief beauties of the starry heavens as seen with the naked eye
Author: Serviss, Garrett Putman
Language: English
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  ROUND THE YEAR
  WITH THE STARS

  THE CHIEF BEAUTIES OF
  THE STARRY HEAVENS AS
  SEEN WITH THE NAKED EYE

  BY

  GARRETT P. SERVISS

  AUTHOR OF
  “ASTRONOMY WITH THE NAKED EYE”
  “CURIOSITIES OF THE SKY” ETC.

  WITH MAPS SHOWING THE ASPECT OF
  THE SKY IN EACH OF THE FOUR SEASONS
  AND CHARTS REVEALING THE OUTLINES
  OF THE CONSTELLATIONS AND THE
  DESIGNATIONS OF THE PRINCIPAL STARS

  [Illustration]

  NEW YORK AND LONDON

  HARPER _&_ BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
  MCMX



  Copyright, 1910, by HARPER & BROTHERS

  Published September, 1910.

  _Printed in the United States of America_



  CONTENTS


  CHAP.                                             PAGE

  PREFACE                                              7

  INTRODUCTION                                         9

  I. THE EVENING SKY AT THE VERNAL EQUINOX            21

  II. THE EVENING SKY AT THE SUMMER SOLSTICE          50

  III. THE EVENING SKY AT THE AUTUMNAL EQUINOX        71

  IV. THE EVENING SKY AT THE WINTER SOLSTICE          93

  V. THE PLANETS                                     118

  APPENDIX                                           129

  PRONUNCIATION OF STAR AND CONSTELLATION NAMES      141

  INDEX                                              143



  LIST OF CHARTS


                                                    PAGE

  CHART I. THE VERNAL EVENING SKY                     23

  CHART II. THE SUMMER EVENING SKY                    51

  CHART III. THE AUTUMN EVENING SKY                   73

  CHART IV. THE WINTER EVENING SKY                    95

  CHART V. THE FIRST SIX HOURS FROM THE VERNAL
  EQUINOX                                            134

  CHART VI. FROM VI H. TO XII H. FROM THE VERNAL
  EQUINOX                                            135

  CHART VII. FROM XII H. TO XVIII H. FROM THE VERNAL
  EQUINOX                                            136

  CHART VIII. FROM XVIII H. TO XXIV H. FROM THE
  VERNAL EQUINOX                                     137

  CHART IX. POLAR CONSTELLATIONS FROM VI H. TO
  XVIII H.                                           138

  CHART X. POLAR CONSTELLATIONS FROM XVIII H. TO
  VI H.                                              139



PREFACE


This book represents an attempt to cultivate the love of the stars, and
to offer a guiding hand to all those who are willing to believe that
some of the most exquisite joys of life are to be found, like scattered
and unregarded gems, waiting to be picked up by any chance wayfarer
who, without special knowledge, or optical aids, or mathematical
attainments, or any of the paraphernalia or advantages of the
professional astronomer, will simply turn his eyes to the sky and open
his mind to its plain teachings and its supernal inspirations.

The writer’s only real excuse for appearing again in this particular
field is that he has never yet finished a book, and seen it go forth,
without feeling that he had overlooked, or cast aside, or of necessity
omitted a multitude of things quite as interesting and important as
any he had touched upon. Accordingly, he yields once more to the lure
of this inexhaustible and illimitable subject, and strives again to
find expression for the thoughts which it continually awakens, and
to exhibit, however imperfectly, the endless procession of marvels
which stream before him who knows and loves the stars like a dazzling
_rivière_ of brilliants.

This book in no way duplicates another work of the same hand,
_Astronomy with the Naked Eye_. In _that_ the effort was to revive
the romance of the constellations by retelling their fascinating
history, their mythology, their immemorial legends and traditions, and
indicating their poetic background in the presence of the imaginary
figures which, “from times of which the memory of man runneth not to
the contrary,” have been associated with them; in _this_ the writer
tries to draw the reader into more intimate relations with the stars
by dwelling upon their individual peculiarities and beauties, and the
impressions which either singly or in constellated groups they make
upon the mind of the beholder. Surely there is not another field of
human contemplation so wondrously rich as astronomy! It is so easy
to reach, so responsive to every mood, so stimulating, uplifting,
abstracting, and infinitely consoling. Everybody may not be a chemist,
a geologist, a mathematician, but everybody may be and ought to be,
in a modest, personal way, an astronomer, for star-gazing is a great
medicine of the soul. There is the writer’s text.



INTRODUCTION


The charts illustrating this book have been drawn by the writer
especially to meet the needs of beginners--of those who, feeling what
a void in their intellectual life ignorance of the stars has created,
would now fill that void, and thus round out their spiritual being with
some knowledge of Nature on her most majestic and yet most beautiful
and winning side.

On account of the necessarily diminutive scale of the charts,
everything has been omitted from them which did not seem essential.
But for the purpose in view they gain by this process of exclusion,
for with more details they would have been confusing. It is the
broad, general aspect of the sky with which the beginner must first
familiarize himself. At the start the heavens appear to him to be
filled with an innumerable multitude of scintillating sparks, scattered
everywhere in disorder. But with a little attention he perceives
that there is discipline in this host, and immediately the discovery
gives him pleasure and awakens his admiration, as the perception of
order always does. The great leaders of the firmament come forth,
unmistakable, plainly recognizable, and thereupon the rank and
file fall into their places. Then the ineffable beauty of the whole
assemblage bursts like a revelation upon the mind. This revelation
is not for the dull in spirit, but he who has once had it becomes
henceforth, and even in spite of previous prejudice or indifference, a
devotee of the stars, with a zeal flaming brighter with every swing of
the pendulum of his years.

In the four circular charts representing the aspect of the heavens
respectively at the Vernal Equinox, the Summer Solstice, the Autumnal
Equinox, and the Winter Solstice, few stars fainter than the fourth
magnitude are included, and not all even of that magnitude, because the
sole purpose is to enable the beginner to recognize the constellations
by their characteristic groupings of stars and their relative
situations in the sky. The insuperable difficulty is to picture the
_hemispherical_ sky on a _flat_ page. A certain amount of distortion
cannot be avoided, and the reader’s imagination must supply the effect
of perspective. He must always remember that the centre of the chart
stands for the middle of the sky _overhead_, and that the circular
boundary represents the full round of the horizon, from east through
south, west, and north, to east again. If he is comparing the chart
with the sky while facing south, he should hold the chart upright as
it is printed in the book; if he makes the comparison while facing
north, he should turn the chart upside down. If he lies on his back
with his head to the north (and in no other way can one get so vast an
impression of the starry dome), and holds the chart over his head, it
will represent the entire vault of the firmament.

The names of the constellations will be found on the charts, and
also the individual names of the most celebrated stars, but the
constellation boundaries are not shown, because, in nine cases out
of ten, the precise limits of a constellation are not important for
the beginner to know, and to search for them would simply lead to
confusion. As he progresses in his knowledge of the sky any uncertainty
about the constellation to which particular stars belong can be settled
by consulting the six charts, drawn to a larger scale, at the end of
the book. On _these_ charts more of the small stars are shown, and in
addition there will be found the Greek letters which astronomers attach
to the principal stars of each constellation for the sake of ready
identification. On these charts, too, the constellation boundaries
will be seen, indicated by dotted lines. The tracing of these lines is
more or less a matter of arbitrary choice. There are no international
boundary disputes among the heavenly powers, and the frontier lines
may run anywhere, provided only that they do not include in one
constellation any stars which by common usage, or prescription, belong
to another. The constellations have been reshaped many times in the
past. The “geography of the heavens” has known as many changes as that
of the earth, the ambition of the old astronomers being sometimes as
insatiable as that of founders of terrestrial kingdoms and empires.
About three centuries ago the starry sky was “Christianized,” St.
Matthew, St. Peter, St. John, St. Joseph, St. Michael, St. Stephen,
St. Gabriel, St. Mary Magdalen, St. Katharine, together with Noah,
Aaron, Job, and Eve, taking the places of the heathen gods, goddesses,
and heroes in the sky, while Saturn became Adam, Jupiter Moses, Mars
Joshua, Mercury Elias, Venus St. John Baptist (!), the Moon the Virgin
Mary, and the Sun Christ (see Appendix). It is not an unheard-of
thing in uranography (“description of the heavens”; analogue to
geography) for a star, or a group of stars, to change allegiance, or
even to belong to two constellations at the same time. The bright star
Alpheratz is still an example of this double nationality, for, although
it shines on the head of Andromeda and is her jewel _par excellence_,
yet her neighbor Pegasus also lays claim to the star, and uranographers
so far admit the justice of his claim that they call Alpheratz,
according to circumstances, either Alpha (α) Andromedæ or Delta (δ)
Pegasi.

For many of their purposes astronomers find no use for the
constellations, preferring to identify the stars by their position in
right ascension and declination (equivalent to longitude and latitude),
and in the great modern _Durchmusterungs_, or star catalogues, this
plan is universally followed. Still, the constellations afford a very
convenient classification of the stars, and probably they will never
be abandoned even by professional astronomers; while from another
standpoint they never can be abandoned, because they are among the
most ancient and precious of human documents, valuable for history and
for the understanding of mythology, and resistlessly charming in their
poetic associations.

But, to return to the description of the charts, the reader should be
informed as to the meaning of the lines shown upon them, and of the
indications found round their borders. In the four circular charts
the closed curve crossing the sky from right to left represents the
equator of the heavens, which is directly over the equator of the
earth; the vertical line through the centre shows the meridian, or
north and south line, which, so to speak, follows the observer wherever
he may go, occupying the same place in the sky, _at the same hour of
local time_, in all longitudes; and the dotted curve is the ecliptic,
or the apparent annual path of the sun through the sky. The crossing
points of the equator and the ecliptic are respectively the Vernal and
the Autumnal Equinox, where the sun is at the two dates in the year
when day and night are of equal length; and the farthest northern and
southern points of the ecliptic are respectively the Summer and the
Winter Solstice, where the sun is at the times of the longest and the
shortest days in our hemisphere. These four fundamental points are all
shown on the charts. Around the border the hours of right ascension are
indicated by Roman numerals. Each hour corresponds to 15° of space, or
one twenty-fourth of a circle of the sphere. The hours begin at the
Vernal Equinox, which is graphically described as the “Greenwich of the
Sky.”

In the larger-scale charts at the end of the book the hours of right
ascension are indicated at the bottom, and the degrees of north and
south declination (the sign + standing for north and - for south) are
shown at the side. In both cases the declination is reckoned from
the equator. The four oblong charts of this series, taken together,
represent the entire circuit of sky between 40° north and 40° south
declination, and the two semicircular charts, taken together, show the
stars within 50° of the north pole. Thus the entire set of six charts
exhibits the complete dome of the heavens from the north pole to 40°
south declination. In passing from the oblong to the semicircular
charts it is only necessary to bring the hours of right ascension into
accord. In the semicircular charts the hours will be found round the
curved borders.

Each of the four circular charts in the body of the book represents the
aspect of the _evening_ sky at one of the equinoctial or solstitial
epochs. To be more precise, these charts show the sky as it appears,
at about the latitude of New York, at 10 P.M., on, respectively, March
20th (the Vernal Equinox), June 21st (the Summer Solstice), September
23d (the Autumnal Equinox), and December 22d (the Winter Solstice).

But the reader must not think that it is necessary to confine himself
to the exact latitude, date, or hour just mentioned. Undoubtedly it
would be better for the beginner to do that approximately, but it is
not essential. The effect of a change of latitude is, perhaps, the
least important. If the observer is farther south than about 40° north
latitude, the southern stars will appear higher in the sky than they
are shown in the charts, and some of the stars close to the northern
horizon will sink from view. If, on the other hand, he is farther north
(as in Canada or Northern Europe), the northern stars will appear
higher, and some of those near the southern horizon will be invisible.
But if he confines his attention to the stars and constellations
represented in the central parts of the charts (which he should, in any
case, do for other reasons), the effect of the shift due to difference
of latitude will not be found very serious.

As to the effects of a departure from the hours and dates for which the
charts are drawn, they, too, can readily be allowed for. Suppose that,
without changing the date, the reader makes his observations an hour
earlier than that given, say at 9 P.M., March 20th. Then he will find
that some of the eastern stars, seen along the left-hand edge of the
chart when it is held upright, have not yet come into view above the
horizon, while other stars, not seen on the chart drawn for that date,
are visible above the horizon in the west. To the stars thus carried
out of, or brought into, view he should pay no attention; he will find
them again on other charts when they are better placed for observation.

Next, suppose that without changing the hour of observation he changes
the date, and instead of observing on the 20th of March he observes
on the 5th. Then he will notice precisely the same difference that
was manifest when his observation was made an hour too early on March
20th--_i. e._, some of the eastern stars on the chart will not yet have
risen, and other stars, not on that particular chart, will be visible
in the west. Although at first all this may be a little confusing to
the beginner, he will soon find that he can make due allowance for the
changes of aspect. The whole matter becomes very simple when it is
remembered that the heavens have a double revolution toward the west;
one of these revolutions, due to the earth’s rotation on its axis,
being effected in twenty-four hours, and the other, due to the earth’s
revolution round the sun, requiring an entire year. One hour of the
daily revolution (represented by an hour of right ascension) produces
the same effect on the position of the stars as two weeks of the annual
revolution; or two hours of the first correspond to one month of the
second.

If the observations are made at a later date or a later hour than
those indicated on the chart, the changes will occur in the reverse
order--_i. e._, western stars will have disappeared and eastern stars
will have come up into view.

I particularly wish to impress upon the beginner the needlessness of
being troubled about these discrepancies. He can avoid all possibility
of perplexity by fitting his observations to the exact times of
the charts. As I have already said, a difference of a few degrees
in his latitude on the earth may be disregarded. The charts, with a
slight allowance for the shift of position of the extreme northern
and southern stars, are available for any of the middle latitudes of
the northern hemisphere. And if the effects of a change of hour or
date prove in the least confusing, the beginner has only to await the
given date and the given hour, and all will be clear. Then, as soon as
he has become familiar with a few of the leading constellations, the
others, which in themselves are not so easily recognizable, will fall
into their proper places, after which there can be no possibility of
confusion. In fact, much less effort is required to become familiar
with the aspect of the starry sky than is demanded for a similar
acquaintance with the fundamental data of botany, mineralogy, geology,
or any other of the observational branches of natural science.

It was at first the intention to indicate the course of the Milky Way
on the circular charts by dotted outlines, but this was abandoned in
view of the restricted space. Any one can easily trace the meanderings
and branchings of this starry scarf, the contemplation of which carries
the mind to greater heights of intellectual perspective than any other
phenomenon of the world of matter. If the reader has the good-fortune
to be situated where artificial lights do not interfere with the
splendor of the heavens, he can observe the course of the Milky
Way on any clear night; and, if he possesses skill in delineation,
he may make charts of it and its offshoots which will be of real
value. Better still if he has the means of photographing it. Here is
a non-mathematical field of astronomy which is ripe for the harvest,
and in which the laborers are few. The Milky Way is so full of wonders
that centuries of observation and study cannot exhaust them. There is
nothing more impressive than to see how it often follows curves of
lucid stars as if some mysterious attraction were drawing it toward
them; and yet it itself consists of stars.

A few more words of practical advice to the beginner. Let him, at
first, confine himself to the bright and conspicuous stars and the
striking groups shown in the charts, assigning each to its proper
constellation. When he has become familiar with these in their
broadest aspects, he can turn to the charts at the end of the book and
familiarize himself with the constellation boundaries. After that, if
he wishes to go further, as he almost certainly will, he can obtain a
large star atlas, furnish himself with a telescope, and open up a new
side of his life which will make him rejoice to be, for a few short
years, a dweller on a planet inhabited by beings intelligent enough
to lift their eyes above the horizon and to feed their minds with the
inspirations of the universe.

Yet another thing, which may be a novelty to many, and which is
sure to afford unexpected pleasure--when you have fairly learned
the constellations, take a mirror and study them by reflection.
This is a counsel of intimacy. Orion will seem less remote and more
comprehensible when his living image is enclosed in a frame, which
you can hold on your lap like an album. There is something startling
in the sight of the starry heavens under your feet. I once enjoyed
the sensation in perfection while stalking deer in a boat at midnight
on the placid bosom of a forest pond. The water was as motionless as
so many acres of black glass, and I forgot to look for the deer, in
the shaft of light from the hooded “flare” at the bow, when we seemed
to be drifting out into an ocean of ether, in the middle of the sky,
with stars below as well as stars above. When we silently crossed the
pond, and got far from the shores, the sensation was overpowering;
it took one’s breath away. We drifted right over the Milky Way, and
Vega, Altair, and the “Northern Cross” gleamed beneath the keel. Be
sure that your mirror is freshly silvered and clean, and remember the
reversals of position which all reflections produce. If you hold the
mirror before you inclined downward, the position of objects in the sky
will be reversed top for bottom; if you hold it inclined upward, so as
to see objects behind your head, they will be reversed right for left.
With these precautions you will find the mirror a great convenience
for studying constellations which are nearly overhead. It is the
principle of the “diagonal prism” employed with telescopes, and of the
hand-mirrors used by many visitors at the Vatican Palace to view with
comfort the ceiling pictures of Michael Angelo in the Sistine Chapel.
Thus the sky becomes an atlas, and you can study its living charts at
leisure.



ROUND THE YEAR WITH THE STARS



I

THE EVENING SKY AT THE VERNAL EQUINOX


The year has its morning no less unmistakable in its characteristic
features than the dawn of the day. The earth and all of its inhabitants
feel the subtle influences of the dawning year, and Nature awakes
at their touch. This annual morning comes when the sun transits the
equator, moving north, at the beginning of his long summer tour, about
the 20th of March. This is the epoch of the Vernal Equinox, when the
springs of life begin, once more, to flow. Then the sun truly rises
on the northern hemisphere. Then the mighty world of the north, which
Providence has made the chief abode of vital organisms on this planet,
rouses itself and shakes off the apathy of winter, and men, animals,
and plants, each after their manner, renew their activities, and in
many cases their very existence. This annual reawakening is one of
the profoundest phenomena of nature, and there are secrets in it which
science has not yet penetrated.

Bliss Carman has beautifully pictured the terrestrial charms of the
vernal season in his “Spring’s Saraband”:

  “Over the hills of April,
    With soft winds hand in hand,
  Impassionate and dreamy-eyed
    Spring leads her saraband.
  Her garments float and gather
    And swirl along the plain,
  Her headgear is the golden sun,
    Her cloak the silver rain.”

But why do not the poets see and express the hyperphysical charm of
the spring evenings? When the light of the vernal day has faded the
stars come forth, and in the quality of their shining reduplicate and
heighten the impressions left by the quickening landscapes. More than
half is lost if this be missed. But perhaps this side of nature is too
transcendent even for poetry. One can behold but not tell it. Emerson
has come nearest to its expression, and he puts it in prose:

 “The grass grows, the buds burst, the meadow is spotted with fire and
 gold in the tint of the flowers. The air is full of birds, and sweet
 with the breath of the pine, the balm-of-Gilead, and the new hay.
 _Night brings no gloom to the heart with its welcome shade._ Through
 the transparent darkness the stars pour their almost spiritual rays.
 Man under them seems a young child, and his huge globe a toy. The cool
 night bathes the world as with a river, and prepares his eyes again
 for the crimson dawn.”

[Illustration: CHART I--THE VERNAL EVENING SKY]

There was not only poetic but logical fitness in the old English
custom, abandoned since 1751, of dating the opening of the year from
the last week of March. How can the real birth of the year be imagined
to occur when all nature is still deep in slumber under the January
snows? The seasons are manifestly the children of the sun, waxing and
waning with his strength, and surely that one should be reckoned the
eldest which is the first birth of his vivific springtime rays. It
seems remarkable that the beginning of the year in ancient times, when
men felt more keenly than we do now the symbolism of natural phenomena,
was not more frequently fixed at, or near, the Vernal Equinox, and I
suspect some defect in our information on this subject. In Attica,
George Cornewell Lewis tells us, the year began at the Summer Solstice.
But this was to make the second of the sun’s seasonal offspring the
senior, thus ignoring the just claim of the true heir, the season
of buds. In Sparta and Macedonia, according to the same authority,
the year began with the Autumnal Equinox, which was still worse, for
in summer the year is at the zenith of its life, while in autumn it
is already stumbling toward the tomb. In Bœotia, at Delphi, and in
Bithynia they contradicted nature more decidedly, as we do to-day, by
making the year begin at the Winter Solstice, when the chilled world
is yet asleep. The Romans adopted this plan eventually, but it is
interesting to observe that they had an older custom of beginning the
year in March, which many cherished in their domestic life as well
as for some legal purposes, after the lawful opening of the year had
been fixed on the 1st of January. And finally _we_ have perpetuated
the illogical system of absolutely reversing nature’s rule in the
succession of the seasons by making the year begin about nine days
after the Winter Solstice. But in spite of calendars and laws nature
prevails, and everybody instinctively feels that the true beginning
of the year is in the season when the currents of life resume their
youthful flow. At any rate, however it may be with strictly terrestrial
affairs, that is the time when the call of the stars becomes the most
insistent and irresistible. Accordingly the epoch of the Vernal Equinox
is chosen for our opening chapter. But the reader at the commencement
of his star-gazing is not confined to this season; he can begin at any
time convenient to him.

To avoid misapprehension it is important to point out that our concern
is not with that half of the heavens which the sun illumines when he
crosses the equator, coming north, at the Vernal Equinox, but with
the diametrically opposite half, where in countless multitudes shine
his fellow suns--his peers, his inferiors, and his superiors--turning
physical night into intellectual day. Accordingly, in Chart I we see
not that part of the sky which contains the point called the Vernal
Equinox, but the opposite part, where the sun pursues his course when
he is declining from the Summer Solstice toward the Autumnal Equinox.
The chart represents the appearance of the sky at 10 P.M. on the 20th
of March (see Introduction). It also represents the sky as it appears
about 11.30 P.M. at the beginning of March, about 9 P.M. the first week
of April, and 8 P.M. about April 20th.

Let us, then, near one of these dates and hours, go out-of-doors and
transport ourselves to the universe. Why does not everybody feel the
thrill that comes to the astronomer when, with eager expectation,
he watches the fading sunset light, the slow withdrawal of the vast
curtain of illuminated air which for twelve hours has hidden the
prodigious marvel of the spangled heavens, and the first peering
forth of the great stars? I believe that everybody _does_ feel it
when he gives himself the opportunity and abandons his mind to its
own reflections--but so few embrace the opportunity or encourage the
reflections!

Select, if possible, a high place, where the eyes can range round the
whole horizon unobstructed. Then try to seize the entire view at once,
as one glances for the first time at the map of a new country. Get
the _ensemble_ by sweeping all around the sky, not pausing to note
details, but catching at a glance the location of the brighter stars
and those that form striking groups. Note where the Milky Way runs, a
faint, silvery zone at this season, arched across the western half of
the firmament, hanging like starry gossamers in places, brilliant in
the northwest, but becoming fainter as it dips toward the southwestern
horizon--a mere anticipation of its summer splendor, hiding its light
and fading away as it approaches the imperial presence of Sirius.
Notice the great hexagon of first magnitude stars that surrounds Orion
in the west--Sirius, Rigel, Aldebaran, Capella, Castor and Pollux, and
Procyon marking the angles, and Betelgeuse glittering not far from the
centre of the figure. Observe Regulus with the “Sickle” of Leo on the
meridian. Look for the glimmer of the “Beehive” in Cancer, between
Gemini and Leo, and for the pentangular head of Hydra beneath it. Still
lower you will see the reddish gleam of the starry serpent’s heart,
Cor Hydræ, or Alphard, and then, running eastward, and dipping ever
nearer the horizon, the long, winding line of his stars passing under
the overset cup of Crater and the quadrilateral of Corvus, the “Crow,”
until they disappear, unended, in the southeast, for from mid-heaven to
the horizon there is not space enough to display all of these beautiful
coils, which take a kind of life as you watch them.

Away over in the east, close to the ecliptic, you will see Virgo with
her diamond, Spica, flashing in her hand. You are now facing east;
to your left, then, north of Spica, glows great Arcturus, with his
attendants shaping the figure of Boötes. Of Arcturus, a star that among
a million finds no rival, we shall speak more particularly elsewhere.
Farther to the left, beyond Boötes, shines the exquisite “Northern
Crown,” Corona Borealis. That too will claim attention in a later
chapter. The square of Hercules is just above the horizon below the
Crown in the northeast, and to its left, as you face north, is seen
the diamond-shaped head of Draco, the “Great Dragon” that Athena
was fabled to have entangled with the axis of the world. His stars
wind upward between the “Dippers”--the “Little Dipper,” which has the
Polestar at the end of its handle, and the “Great Dipper,” which, brim
downward, shines east of the meridian, almost as high as the zenith, if
you are as far north as 40° or more. The handle of the “Great Dipper”
is the tail of Ursa Major, who treads lumberingly about the pole, with
his back downward, his head out-thrust west of the meridian, and his
feet, marked by three striking pairs of stars, up in the middle of the
sky. On the meridian south of Ursa Major stands the “Sickle” of Leo
already mentioned. Away round in the northwest, beyond Capella, are
Perseus and Cassiopeia, immersed in the Milky Way.

Having fixed the location and general appearance of all these
constellations in the mind, you are prepared to study them, and their
stars, in more detail. Let us begin in the east. For some occult reason
the rising stars always seem more attractive than those that are near
setting. In the east, then, the eye is at once drawn to the beautiful
Spica, which the impassive, immemorial Virgo wears as her only
ornament. It is a fascinating star with its pure white rays, dashed
with swift gleams of exquisite color as the atmospheric waves roll over
it. There is not another equal to it in the impression of purity which
it gives. We may imagine that some dim sense of this immaculate quality
in the light of Spica led to the naming of the constellation the
“Virgin,” thus called by nearly all peoples, each in its own language:
Παρθέυος, Kóρη, _Puella_, _Kauni_, _She-Sang-Neu_, _Pucella_, _Vièrge_,
_Mæden_, _Jungfrau_, _Virgine_--all, ancient and modern, Greek, Roman,
Indian, Chinese, Norman, French, Anglo-Saxon, German, Italian, and
English worshipping together at this shrine of ideal purity. If the
Assyrians made her the wife of Bel that was hardly a disparagement, for
Bel was the sun. So, too, the identification of Virgo with the Greek
Persephone, the Roman Ceres, and the Jewish Bethula, all goddesses
concerned with the harvest and the fertility of the land, in no way
detracted from her virginal character, nor did her association with
Astræa, the goddess of justice.

Beside Spica, Virgo has no very bright stars, and it is hardly doubtful
that the imaginary purity ascribed to the constellation was derived
entirely from the unsullied whiteness of Spica. While gazing at that
beautiful star all of these associations, coming from times so remote
and peoples so distant, crowd into the mind, increasing the interest
with which one regards it. The nations who named it the vernal star,
before all others, have gone the way of terrestrial things, but the
star remains, as pearly fair as when Aratus sang to it:

  “Lo, the Virgin!...
  Her favor be upon us!”

Then science comes to carry the thoughts to grander, if less romantic,
heights. Spica, it tells us, is a sun which might well claim to be
included in Newcomb’s wonderful “XM” class--_i. e._, stars excelling
our sun at least _ten thousand times_ in splendor, for, notwithstanding
the brilliance with which it delights us, it is so remote that no
certain estimate of its distance can be made, its parallax escaping
measurement--what, then, must be the intolerable blaze with which it
illumines its immediate neighborhood! But when Science begins her
revelations no man can foretell the wonders that she will discover.
The spectroscope avers that Spica is speeding hitherward at a pace
of more than 32,000 miles per hour! Each night that star is almost
700,000 miles nearer than it was the night before, and yet it is not
perceptibly brighter than it was in the days of Homer. Such are the
star depths! Such is the measureless playground of the spinning suns!
Then Science, inspired by its spectroscopic sibyl, whispers another
startling word in our ears: That core of white fire glowing so softly
in the vernal midnight has an invisible companion star, with which it
circles in an orbit 6,000,000 miles in diameter, and every four days
they complete a swing in their mighty waltz!

The star Epsilon (ε) in Virgo (see Chart VII, at the end of the book)
is _Vindemiatrix_, the “Grape-gatherer,” thus named from some imagined
association with the vintage. _Mukdim-al-Kitaf_, “The Forerunner of the
Vintage,” the Arabs called it, taking their hint from the Greeks before
them. Admiral Smyth, in his _Cycle of Celestial Objects_, has these
curious lines on this star:

  “Would you the Star of Bacchus find on noble Virgo’s wing,
  A lengthy ray from Hydra’s heart unto Arcturus bring;
  Two-thirds along that fancied line direct th’ inquiring eye,
  And there the jewel will be seen, south of Cor Caroli.”

The reader may be interested in trying the star-loving admiral’s plan
for finding _Vindemiatrix_.

Gamma (γ) is _Porrima_, a prophetic goddess of ancient Latium,
consulted especially by the women. But for us this star is most
interesting as being one of the first binaries discovered in the
heavens. It is a charming object for a small telescope. The two
components revolve round their common centre of gravity in a period of
about one hundred and eighty years.

As the reader progresses in his studies he will find Virgo full of
interesting objects, including the celebrated “Field of the Nebulæ,”
marked out by the stars Beta (β), Gamma (γ), Delta (δ), Epsilon (ε),
and Eta (η); but to see the nebulæ, which are thickly scattered there,
he must have a powerful telescope.

Southwest of Virgo, but near the southeastern horizon, the
quadrilateral figure of the constellation Corvus, the “Crow,” catches
the eye. Its brightest star is of less than the second magnitude,
yet by their apparent association the four stars immediately attract
attention. One sees no special reason why the figures marked out by
these stars should be likened to the form of a bird; but it was a raven
to both the Greeks and the Romans, and similarly symbolical to other
early peoples. The Arabs, however, at first called it the “Tent,” a
designation which at least had a real resemblance for its basis. But
these stars possess a charm independent of any fancied likeness to
terrestrial things. In looking at them we do not think of the billions
of miles which actually separate them from each other, but only of
their seeming companionship. If, on the other hand, we force ourselves
to consider the immense distances between them the mind is overwhelmed
with the reflection that here, plainly staked out before us, is a field
of space of absolutely unthinkable magnitude with its angles as clearly
marked as if a celestial surveyor had placed corner-stones there.
Note that the star Alpha (α), once the leader of the constellation
in brightness as well as in alphabetical rank, is now so faint that
you have to look for it where it shrinks, in half concealment, below
one of its now brighter neighbors. These abasements are not very
uncommon among the stars. Their glory, too, is mutable; they also have
their ups and downs. The Arabic name for Alpha (α) was _Al Chiba_, or
_Al Hiba_, meaning the “Tent.” Gamma (γ), now the brightest star of
the constellation, was called _Gienah_, the “Wing,” and Delta (δ),
_Algorab_, or _Al Ghurab_, the Arabic name for “Raven,” but Beta (β),
which is perhaps as bright as Gamma (γ), has no special designation.

From Corvus the eye wanders naturally to its neighbor on the west,
Crater, the “Cup.” Both of these constellations rest on the back of
the long serpentine Hydra. Crater is far less conspicuous than Corvus;
but its resemblance to a cup is rather striking, although the imaginary
vessel lies tipped up on its side with the open part toward the east.
Among the many ascriptions of this starry cup in ancient mythology to
various gods and goddesses, none is more interesting than that which
made it the cup of Medea, thus including Crater among the numerous
constellations which were associated in the imagination of the Greeks
with their great romance of the Argonautic Expedition. Its brightest
stars are only of the fourth and fifth magnitudes, and individually not
worth much attention.

Hydra, which stretches its immense coils across about seven hours of
right ascension, passing under Cancer, Leo, Crater, Corvus, Virgo, and
a part of Libra, also carries the mind back through the golden mists of
the morning of Greek mythology to the adventures of Jason and his crew
of Argonauts, for it was once identified with the Aonian Dragon. It
would be interesting to inquire how much of the perennial fascination
of this ancient romance may be due to its traditional association
with the stars. Look first at the head of Hydra, now well west of the
meridian, below the glimmering “Beehive” in Cancer. It is marked by
five stars of various magnitudes making an irregular pentagon. Then
let the eye follow the line down southeastward until it encounters Cor
Hydræ, or _Alphard_, the latter its Arabic name, meaning the “Solitary
One.” It is of the second magnitude and of a reddish color, and the
space about it is vacant of conspicuous stars. There is an attraction
about these solitary bright stars that is almost mystical, their very
loneliness lending interest to the view, as when one watches some
distant snow-clad peak gleaming in the rays of sunset after all the
lower mountains have sunk into the blue shadows of coming night. Cor
Hydræ is the Alpha (α) of its constellation.

Above Hydra, northeast of Cor Hydræ, at the crossing of the ecliptic
and the meridian, is the great star Regulus in Leo, the “Lion.” It
stands at the lower end of the handle of a very distinctly marked
sickle-shaped figure, which includes the breast, head, and mane of the
imaginary lion. Regulus is not only a beautiful star, but it possesses
much practical importance as one of the principal “nautical stars,”
having been employed by sailors ever since the beginning of navigation
to determine their place at sea. The sun almost runs over this star
about the 20th of August, and every month the moon passes close beside
it, and sometimes occults it. Thus it serves as a golden mile-stone
in the sky. It has strangely affected the imagination of mankind in
all ages. From the remotest times it has everywhere been known as the
“royal star” _par excellence_. In Greek it was =βασιλίσκος=, in Latin
_Rex_, from which Copernicus constructed our name, Regulus. There are
three other “royal stars,” Aldebaran, Antares, and Fomalhaut, but
Regulus has always been, in a certain way, their chief. For five
thousand years it has been believed, traditionally, to control the
affairs of heaven, and the astrologers have seized upon this idea
by making it the natal star of kings, and those destined to kingly
achievements and rule. In our age of science we may safely indulge
these fancies; they can now do no harm, and they add immensely to the
interest with which we regard the star that gave birth to them. When
the “Royal Star” crosses high on the meridian in the vernal evenings,
the imagination is thrown back over almost the whole course of the
history of the Aryan race, and the rays of Regulus bring again the
dreams of Babylon and Nineveh, of Greece and Rome, of India, and of
the star-watching deserts of Arabia. Cyrus, in his conquering marches,
may have looked to that star for help and inspiration, for it was the
heavenly guardian of the Persian monarchs.

The spectroscope tells us that Regulus, like Spica, is approaching
us, but less rapidly, drawing nearer about 475,000 miles per day. But
its distance is 950,000,000,000,000 miles (parallax 0″.02), and it
outshines the sun one thousand times.

The second star above Regulus, in the curve of the sickle’s blade,
is Gamma (γ), or _Algieba_ (Arabic the “Forehead”), a beautiful
double, probably binary, with a period of revolution which Doberck has
estimated at about four hundred years. The larger star of the pair is
golden-orange and the smaller bronze-green, a marvellous contrast, and
an ordinary telescope shows well the spectacle, the distance between
the components being 3″.78. And this wonderful pair is rushing toward
the solar system at the rate of _two million miles per day_. Yet so
great is its distance that we have no record that in a thousand years
men have noticed a brightening of the headlight of this terrible
locomotive of space! But probably the more refined methods of the
present time, if applied for a similar period, would reveal an ominous
expansion of that oncoming light. Gamma is interesting as marking,
roughly, the spot in the sky which was the apparent centre of radiation
for the November meteors, which were last seen in their splendor in
1866-67, their return in 1899-1900, for which the world had long been
waiting, having been prevented by the disturbing attraction of Jupiter
and Saturn, which shifted their orbit.

The “Sickle” in its entirety is an attractive asterism, and hanging so
conspicuously in the sky on a spring evening it may be imaginatively
regarded as a harbinger of the opening of the season when the thoughts
of men are turning to preparations for future harvests. In the height
of the harvest season the “Sickle” sets near sundown, then no longer
standing upright, but lying along upon the horizon--a symbol of the
wearied husbandman’s approaching hours of rest:

  “Nor shall a starry night his hopes betray.”

Away off at the eastern end of the constellation, in the lion’s tail,
shines its second star in rank, Denebola (Arabic _Al Dhanab_, the
“Tail”). It too is speeding hitherward, but only half as fast as Gamma.
Like Aldebaran, the name Denebola has an indefinite charm, from its
full round vowel sounds, and a certain nobility in the look of it as
it lies on the printed page. As with many sonorous Indian names in
American geography, these old star names lose something of their effect
when they are translated. It is better to take them as they stand,
transcending terrestrial analogy and definition, like the sublime
objects that they designate.

Northeast of Denebola lies the small constellation of Coma Berenices,
“Berenice’s Hair,” remarkable for the confused glitter of the small
scattered stars of which it consists. It is a constellation with a
romantic history which I shall not retell here. It forms an attraction
for an opera-glass.

We now return to the region of sky above the head of Hydra, west of
the meridian. There the attention is arrested by a glimmering spot,
a kind of starry cobweb, which represents the “Beehive” cluster in
Cancer. Its classical name is _Præsepe_, the “Manger.” In _Astronomy
with the Naked Eye_ will be found a copy of Galileo’s drawing of the
stars of Præsepe as they appeared to him with his newly invented
telescope. It is delightful to look at them on a clear night with a
large opera-glass or a small telescope. They are an example of that
clustering tendency so often seen among the stars, and which reaches
its most wonderful manifestations in such assemblages as the famous
globular clusters in Hercules and Centaurus, where countless thousands
of small stars appear to be so crowded together that in the centre they
run up into a perfect blaze. But in Præsepe there is no such apparent
crowding, though the stars are so numerous that they resemble a swarm
of bees. The probability is that none of the stars in this company is
as large as our sun--although we cannot be perfectly sure because we
do not know their distance--but they are, nevertheless, true stellar
bodies, solar children, which seem playing together, overwatched by
larger stars, waiting not far away. Plato, or his disciples, taking the
suggestion from older dreamers, regarded Præsepe as a gateway of souls
through which descended the spirits that were to animate the bodies
of men during their earthly life. There are moods in which one can
hardly consider our coldly scientific way of treating such celestial
wonders as being essentially superior to the more spiritual ideas
and suggestions of the visionaries of antiquity, before man became
possessed with the notion that all science is summed up in measurement.
Unquestionably we have more “facts,” but have we more inspiration? Are
we as near to the stars as were those who knew less about them? Have we
yet got the key to unlock the universe? Do many of us comprehend the
_dictum_ of one of our own modern sages--“Hitch your wagon to a star”?

Cancer has no conspicuous stars, and it covers but a small space on the
sky, yet as a constellation it is as old as any, and it has given us
our “Tropic of Cancer,” because in ancient times, before the Precession
of the Equinoxes had drifted the zodiacal signs and constellations
apart, the place of the Summer Solstice, where the sun is at its
northern extreme of declination, was situated in Cancer, though now we
find it in Gemini, close to the borders of Taurus.

Westward from Cancer we see the great group of mighty stars and
constellations of which Orion is the chief and centre, but Sirius the
brightest jewel. They are now declining rapidly toward the horizon, and
will be better studied at another season. They include, besides Orion,
Gemini, Auriga, Taurus, Canis Major, and Canis Minor, and will be found
more favorably situated in the chart devoted to the sky at the Winter
Solstice. For the present, then, we turn our eyes to the northern
central part of the vernal heavens. There, almost overhead, shines
the “Great Bear,” Ursa Major, always recognizable by the remarkable
figure of the “Great Dipper,” or, as they prefer to call it in Old
England--where brimming dippers of sparkling water lifted dripping
from the “old oaken bucket” are not so familiar as in New England--the
“Wain,” or the “Plough.” We have already remarked that at this season
the Bear has his feet uppermost in the middle of the sky and his back
downward toward the pole. The Dipper, too, is now upside down, drained
of its last imaginary drop, though its stars may be the more brilliant
for that. The figure of the bowl is situated on the flank of the
Bear, and its handle represents his impossible tail. Six of its stars
are of the second magnitude, and one, at the junction of the bowl
and the handle, of the third. Their Greek letters, beginning at the
northwestern corner of the bowl, are, _Alpha_ (α), _Beta_ (β), _Gamma_
(γ), _Delta_ (δ), _Epsilon_ (ε), _Zeta_ (ζ), and _Eta_ (η), and their
names, in the same order, _Dubhe_, _Merak_, _Phæd_, _Megrez_, _Alioth_,
_Mizar_, and _Benetnasch_.

I once knew a country school-teacher who thought that he had acquired
a pretty good knowledge of astronomy when he had learned these names
by heart. He certainly knew more of uranography than most people. The
names seem to be all of Arabic origin, and at the risk of destroying
their charm I will give, from Allen’s _Star Names_, their probable
significations. _Dubhe_ means simply “Bear”; _Merak_ (sometimes
_Mirak_), “Loin”; _Phæd_ (sometimes _Phecda_ or _Phad_), “Thigh”;
_Megrez_, “Root of the Tail”; _Alioth_, meaning uncertain, probably
something to do with the tail; _Mizar_ (originally _Mirak_), “Girdle”;
and _Benetnasch_ (sometimes _Alcaid_), “Chief of the Mourners,” from an
Arabic phrase having that signification.

The star Megrez, now so much fainter than the others, was once as
bright as any of them. It has faded within three hundred years.

Close by Mizar a fairly good eye has no difficulty in seeing a small
star which is named Alcor (signification uncertain). The Arabs are
said to have called these two stars the “Horse and his Rider,” and
to have regarded it as a test of good vision to be able to see them
both. It is certainly not a severe test at present. Mizar itself
is telescopically double, presenting a beautiful sight in a small
telescope, the distance asunder being about 14″. The smaller star is
like an emerald in hue, and the color is usually remarked at once by
the beginner in telescopic observation. The larger star is one of
those strange objects called “spectroscopic binaries”--two suns locked
in the embrace of gravitation and spinning round a centre so near to
each other that to anything less penetrating than the magic eye of the
spectroscope they appear as a single body.

Merak and Dubhe are the celebrated “Pointers,” so called because a line
drawn from the former to the latter, and continued toward the pole,
passes close to Polaris, the Pole-star, of which we shall presently
speak. The distance between these stars is about five degrees, so that
they serve as a rough measuring-stick for estimating distances in the
sky. Immediately west of the meridian will be seen a curving row of
stars which indicate the head of the Bear. Three of his feet, or claws,
are represented by as many pairs of stars between the Great Dipper and
the Sickle of Leo, one of the pairs being east of the meridian, one
west of it, and one nearly upon it. Below the outer end of the handle
of the Dipper, in the direction of Denebola, a fairly bright star, Cor
Caroli, which English loyalty named for the heart of the unfortunate
King Charles I., shines on the collar of one of the “Hunting Dogs,”
Canes Venatici, which Boötes is represented as holding in a leash as
he chases Ursa Major round the pole. This, too, is a beautiful double,
the contrasted colors of whose widely separated stars are finely shown
by a small telescope.

Now let the eye run along the curve of the Dipper’s handle, beginning
at the bowl, and then, springing on, continue the same curve eastward;
it will encounter, at a distance about equal to the whole length of the
Dipper, a very great and brilliant star--Arcturus, brighter than Spica
and Regulus, and usually, when not very far risen from the horizon, of
a distinctly reddish hue. It is the chief star of Boötes, the “Driver,”
the “Vociferator,” the “Herdsman,” or the “Bear-watcher,” as it has
been variously rendered. We shall have more to say about Boötes in
another chapter, but Arcturus is a star so splendid and famous that
it cannot be passed in silence the first time the beginner catches
sight of it. There is a standing dispute concerning the relative rank
in brightness of Arcturus among the leading stars of the northern
hemisphere. Its principal rivals are Vega in the Lyre, and Capella in
Auriga. But all three differ in color, and that makes it more difficult
to decide upon their relative brilliance, since different eyes vary in
their sensitiveness to color. The Harvard Photometric _Durchmusterung_
gives Vega the first and Arcturus the third rank among these three;
but many eyes recognize rather a pre-eminence of Arcturus. My own
impression has usually been that Arcturus looms larger than either Vega
or Capella, but that Vega is the most penetratingly brilliant. It is
very curious to notice the effect of the colors of these stars. The
sharp blue ray in the light of Vega gives it a diamond-like quality
which is lacking in Capella, whose light is white with just a suspicion
of amber. Arcturus is a very pale topaz when high in the sky, and a
ruddy yellow, sometimes flaming red, when near the horizon. It is a
thrilling recollection of the writer’s early boyhood that he felt an
undefined fear of Arcturus when seen rising ominously red and flashing
through the leafless boughs of an apple orchard in the late evenings of
February. All the ancients feared Arcturus for its supposed influence
in producing storms and bad harvests.

Arcturus is a sun of enormous magnitude, estimated all the way from one
to six thousand times as great in luminosity as our sun. It is also
travelling with great rapidity, its speed, according to some estimates,
amounting to two or three hundred miles per second; but most of this
is cross-motion with reference to us, its general direction being
toward the south-southwest. If it is travelling three hundred miles per
second, it would traverse the space between the sun and the nearest
star, Alpha Centauri, in about three thousand years. We shall touch on
Arcturus again when dealing with Boötes in the next chapter.

Disregarding for the present the exquisite circlet of Corona Borealis,
the “Northern Crown,” and the quadrilateral figure in Hercules, seen
northeast of Arcturus, we turn to the great dragon, Draco, whose
diamond-shaped head may be seen far over in the northeast above
sparkling Vega, which is just on the horizon. As a reference to the
charts of the circumpolar stars at the end of the book will show,
Draco is a remarkably crooked constellation, its line of stars winding
round between the “Little Dipper” in Ursa Minor, which has Polaris at
the end of its handle, and the “Great Dipper” of Ursa Major. Its most
interesting, though not now its brightest, star is Alpha, or _Thuban_,
Arabic for “dragon.” It lies between the end of the handle of the Great
Dipper and the bowl of the small one. About forty-six hundred years
ago Alpha Draconis was the Pole-star, and is believed to have shone
down the long tube-like passage in the great pyramid of Cheops into
the watching eyes of the priestly astronomers, assembled to view it
in the mysterious chamber hollowed out of the solid rock deep under
the foundations of the mighty pile. They thus had a telescope more
than three hundred feet long as immovable as the solid earth, but,
alas for their calculations, the star itself shifted its position,
and their gigantic observing tube became useless until modern science
inferred from its position the date of their building. How imposing
to the imagination this association between a particular star and the
mightiest structure made by human hands on the earth! Two centuries
ago Thuban was more than twice as bright as it is now, and when the
Egyptian priests sedulously observed it from their gloomy cavern, more
than a thousand years before the magic-working days of Moses, it may
have been brighter still.

Gamma (γ), or Eltanin (the “Dragon”), in the triangular head, is now
the brightest star in the constellation, and it, too, has a history.
Lockyer and others have identified it as the orientation star of
Rameses’ great temple at Karnak, and of the temples of Hathor and Mut
at Dendera and Thebes. There is something magnificent in this thought
of the ancient temple-builders--to square their work by the stars, and
to construct long rows of sphinxes and majestic columns to conduct a
ray from the sky to the eye of the god in his dark and hidden chamber,
where no impious foot dared follow.

When you are tired of tracing the windings of the Dragon, turn to Ursa
Minor and Polaris. The “Little Bear,” it has been remarked, has an even
more preposterous tail than his greater brother. Polaris is at the end
of the tail, or the end of the handle of the Little Dipper, and the
bowl of the latter is on the bear’s flank.

If one knows nothing else of uranography, one should at least know
Polaris, the “North Star.” To recognize that star is to be able to
orient yourself wherever you may be in the northern hemisphere. A whole
volume could be written on its connection with human affairs. For at
least two thousand years it has been the cynosure of sailors, and of
wanderers by land as well. You cannot be lost if you have Polaris to
guide you. The magnetic compass varies and misleads, the sun and
the moon change their places, all the other stars circle through the
heavens, but Polaris is always there, shining over the pole of the
earth, the image of steadfastness. Only the slow Precession of the
Equinoxes affects it. At the present time it is within one degree and
a quarter of the true pole of the heavens, and it is drawing nearer
that point, so that in two hundred years it will be less than half a
degree from it--less than the apparent diameter of the moon. The little
circle that it daily describes in the sky may be disregarded, for it
is hardly noticeable except with instruments; but it is easy to fix
the star’s position with considerable accuracy by simple observation.
Note that the Great Dipper and the “W”-shaped figure in Cassiopeia are
on opposite sides of the pole. When one is above, the other is below;
when one is on the east, the other is on the west. Draw an imaginary
line from the star Mizar in the Great Dipper to the star Delta (δ) in
Cassiopeia and it will pass almost directly through the pole. Polaris
is on that line, a degree and a quarter from the pole in the direction
of Delta Cassiopeiæ. If the observation is made when Delta is above
the pole and Mizar below it, Polaris will be on the meridian, or north
and south line, a degree and a quarter above the pole; when Delta is
west of the pole and Mizar east of it, Polaris will be a degree and a
quarter west of the meridian; when Delta is below the pole and Mizar
above it, Polaris will be on the meridian a degree and a quarter below
the pole; and, finally, when Delta is east of the pole and Mizar west
of it, Polaris will be a degree and a quarter east of the meridian. The
intermediate positions you can easily deduce for yourself.

But Polaris will not continue to be the unerring guide to the north
that it now is. The Precession of the Equinoxes is carrying the
pole progressively westward in right ascension, so that Polaris
will eventually be left far behind. But the motion of the pole is
in a circle about twenty-three and a half degrees in radius, and it
requires about 25,800 years to complete a revolution round this circle.
Consequently, at the end of that period, Polaris will have come back
to reign again as the North Star for many centuries. In the interim
other stars will have occupied its place. About 11,500 years from now
the brilliant Vega, or Alpha Lyræ, will be the North Star, and in
about 21,000 years Alpha Draconis (Thuban) will once more shine down
the great northward-pointing passage in the pyramid of Cheops, if that
pyramid shall still exist.

Polaris, unlike some of the others stars that we have been looking
at, is running away into space instead of approaching us, at a speed
which has been estimated at about 1,380,000 miles per day. Its present
distance is not less than 200,000,000,000,000 miles. It has an
invisible companion with which it circles in an orbit of a few million
miles diameter in a period of about four days.

Polaris is also a celebrated visual double. With a telescope of two
or three inches aperture you can see close by its flaming rays a
minute blue star, a delicately beautiful sight. In the older days of
telescopes, before they had attained the perfection which improvements
in glass-making and lens-shaping have rendered possible, this little
companion star of Polaris was a universal test of excellence. Its
prestige was historical. The amateur owner of a telescope who could
see that star clearly felt a joy that he could hardly express. The old
makers of object-glasses, by rule of thumb, always tried them on the
companion of the Polestar as a standard test for small apertures. The
small star is of the ninth magnitude, and situated about 18″.6 from its
primary.

The stars Beta (β), or Kochab (the “Star”), and Gamma (γ), in Ursa
Minor, are called the Wardens, or Guards, of the Pole. In low northern
latitudes, where these stars sweep the horizon at their lower
culmination, Shakespeare’s description in _Othello_ would be literally
true during a great storm at sea:

  “The wind-shak’d surge, with high and monstrous mane,
  Seems to cast water on the burning Bear
  And quench the guards of th’ ever-fixed pole.”

The constellations Cepheus, Cassiopeia, and Perseus, now low in the
northwest and north, we leave for description to another chapter.



II

THE EVENING SKY AT THE SUMMER SOLSTICE


At 10 o’clock P.M. on the 21st of June, the longest day of the
northern hemisphere, the aspect of the sky is that shown in Chart II,
accompanying this chapter. The same chart will answer for 11 P.M. on
the 5th or 6th of June; 9 P.M. on the 7th of July, and 8 P.M. on the
22d or 23d of July. In fact, for any of the hours mentioned the date
may be shifted several days forward or backward without seriously
affecting the comparison of the chart with the sky, and the same may be
said of each of the other circular charts. The stars simply rise about
four minutes earlier each evening, and four minutes of time correspond
to one degree of space measured on the face of the sky. So the whole
sky shifts about one degree westward every twenty-four hours.

For the observation of the heavens at the epoch of the Summer Solstice,
observers who are situated at least as far south as 40° north latitude
have an advantage over those whose place on the earth is much farther
north, because in the more northern regions sunset occurs later, and
in England and Northern Europe the day, at this time, may exceed
sixteen hours in length, while twilight is perceptible throughout
the night. This interferes with the brilliancy of the stars.

[Illustration: CHART II--THE SUMMER EVENING SKY]

At no other season do the heavenly bodies seem so intimately associated
with the earth as in summer. All nature is now attuned, and the stars
glow softly in the tepid atmosphere, stirred by faint breezes, like
veritable flowers of the sky. The firmament becomes a vast garden lit
with beautiful lamps, which seem to have been placed there to dimly
illuminate nocturnal wanderers in the transparent gloom beneath. Their
beauty is as refreshing as the cooling breath of night itself. A mystic
influence steals from them over the earth.

“If a man would be alone,” says Emerson, “let him look at the stars.”

Yet he cannot be alone with them; they are too friendly; they speak too
plainly a universal language, which, though he cannot translate it,
he _feels_ in every fibre. There is nothing more absolutely common to
all men than the influence of the stars. No one ever gazed up at them
without feeling a change come over his spirit. Truly, “they separate
between him and what he touches.” They free him from the bondage of
time and space. There is no trouble that they cannot assuage. And there
is no time like the summer for becoming intimate with them. One who has
been touched by the magic of their love could lie all the night long on
a bed of pine-needles and fill his soul with their beauty. The march of
red Antares and his glittering retinue across the meridian while the
earth sleeps in solstitial calm--who can describe that pageant?

Antares is _the_ summer star, and with it and the Scorpion we will
begin. Not so bright as Arcturus or Vega, which are now high aloft, it
has a charm peculiar to itself, arising partly from its fervid color,
partly from its surroundings, and partly from its position, not too
high above the southern horizon, which renders observation of the star
comparatively easy. The color is so distinctive that one might think
that he could recognize Antares chromatically if it were suddenly
transported to some other region of the sky and placed amid a strange
environment. Sometimes a flash of its fiery rays, striking sidewise
into the eye as one is looking elsewhere, startles the observer like a
red meteor. It is well named Antares--“Anti-Mars.” With the telescope
the wonder of color is increased, for close by the great star the
glass reveals a smaller one of a _vivid green_, an all but incredible
combination of complementarily tinted suns. And these suns are
undoubtedly actually linked together into a system, so that, if there
are planets revolving around both or either, the inhabitants of those
planets may behold the spectacle of two suns, one crimson and the other
emerald! The large star is of the first magnitude, and the small one of
the seventh; angular distance 3″.7.

The companion of Antares is historically associated with the most
interesting of American astronomers, a man whose life was a romance,
Gen. O. M. Mitchel. When his long-cherished design of setting up a
great telescope in America was at last fulfilled, at Cincinnati, in
1845, one of his first achievements was the discovery, to the surprise
of the astronomers of Europe, of the green star hiding in the rays of
Antares. At times it has been seen emerging from behind the moon, after
an occultation, ahead of its red comrade.

With a parallax of 0″.02, Newcomb estimated the luminosity of Antares
at nine hundred times that of our sun, and yet the spectroscope
indicates that it is a dying sun, fast approaching extinction. In its
younger days it may have been an orb of prodigious splendor.

The constellation Scorpio, of which Antares is the leader, is one of
the best marked in the sky. The two small stars Sigma (σ) and Tau (τ),
standing like attendants on either side of Antares, lend a singular
aspect to the central part of the constellation. Antares is usually
represented as the heart of the imaginary scorpion. Below Tau a curving
row of stars dips to the southern horizon, and then rises, farther
eastward, terminating with a conspicuous pair in the uplifted sting.
West of Antares a nearly vertical row represents the head. Of the
stars in this row, Beta (β) is interesting as a fine and easily seen
double, the distance being about 13″. A higher magnifying power shows
that the larger star has another faint companion, distant only 0″.7. Nu
(ν) is also telescopically interesting, for it consists of two pairs
of stars. Observe in Chart VII the strange way in which the outlines
of the constellation have been swung into loops in order to include
certain stars in Scorpio, recalling the crooked boundary between
Switzerland and Italy, by which each reserves particular peaks of the
Alps for itself.

East of Scorpio, where the Milky Way, falling in flakes and sheets of
silvery splendor upon the southeastern horizon, spreads abroad like an
overflowing river, lies Sagittarius, the “Archer,” often represented
in the old pictorial charts as a centaur. The stars Lambda (λ), Delta
(δ), and Epsilon (ε) form the bent bow. But modern eyes recognize more
easily a dipper, formed by the stars Zeta (ζ), Tau (τ), Sigma (σ),
Phi (φ), Lambda (λ), and Mu (μ). But the star-clusters in Sagittarius
are more interesting than the separate stars. A little southwest of
Mu is the famous cluster 8 M., of which Barnard has made a photograph
that is amazing beyond all description. Other clusters are all about
in this part of the sky. A good opera-glass or field-glass is almost
indispensable for one who would enjoy the glory of this wondrous
region. Its riches are almost oppressive in their lavish abundance.
Here one can have handfuls of stars for the picking up, like sands of
gold from the bed of Pactolus. As the glittering incrustations that
cover the roofs and walls of the Mammoth Cave are often compared to
the starry heavens, so, reversing the image, Sagittarius is like a
stupendous cavern of space all ablaze and aglitter with millions of
sparkling gems.

Above Scorpio and Sagittarius are the intertwined constellations
of Ophiuchus and Serpens. He who may wish to disentangle them is
referred to _Astronomy with the Naked Eye_. But the outlines can be
traced in Chart VII. The head of Serpens, like those of Hydra and
Draco, is plainly marked by a striking group of stars, in this case
resembling the figure called a “quincunx.” From this point just under
the “Northern Crown,” the serpent’s stars wind downward in beautiful
pairs and groups, crossing the meridian above Scorpio, and rising again
in the eastern part of the sky, above the little constellation of
Sobieski’s Shield, until they meet the borders of Aquila. Ophiuchus,
with his head high up toward Hercules, where it is marked by the
brightest star in that part of the sky, Alpha Ophiuchi, or Ras Alhague,
the “Head of the Serpent Charmer,” stands with legs braced wide apart,
grasping the serpent at the points marked by the stars Delta (δ) and
Epsilon (ε), and Tau (τ) and Nu (ν). It is Esculapius with his Serpent,
said the Greeks; it is St. Paul and the Viper of Melita, or Moses and
the Brazen Serpent, we don’t know which, said the churchmen. I am
not aware that in England they have ever been tempted to call it St.
George and the Dragon. Politics and national pride have not meddled
much with the stars, although there was once an attempt to fix the name
of Napoleon upon Orion. Ras Alhague is described by R. H. Allen as
sapphire in hue, while Alpha Serpentis is yellowish. The star Lambda
(λ) in Ophiuchus, also called Marfik, the “Elbow,” is a beautiful
binary, period 235 years, distance apart 1″.2. The smaller star is
smalt blue, a splendid telescopic object.

But, as in the case of Sagittarius, the greater wonders here are in the
form of star-clusters, and particularly nebulæ. Just above Antares,
in one of the feet of Ophiuchus, is a small star, Rho (to find which
the reader must consult a large star atlas, like Klein’s), around
which Barnard has discovered, by photography, a truly marvellous
nebula, a nebula which appears _to obscure the stars_ like a cloud of
cosmic dust. Great black lanes extend from and around it, and even the
luminous parts of the nebula seem to absorb the light of the stars
behind, diminishing their brightness a whole magnitude or more where
they are veiled by it. This entire region of sky is most strange to the
photographic eye. An outlier of the nebula just mentioned surrounds the
star Nu (ν) in Scorpio, and its veiling effect upon the stars is even
more evident. There is a similar appearance around the star Theta (θ)
Ophiuchi, not far away. The sense of some appalling mystery in this
part of the firmament is heightened by what Barnard says of a thing
which has reappeared again and again on his photographs during the past
fifteen years, at a point which he describes as lying very closely to
R. A. xviii hours, 25 m., 31 s.; Decl. S. 26°, 9′ (near the star Lambda
(λ) in Sagittarius).

“It is a small, black hole in the sky. It is round and sharply defined.
Its measured diameter on the negative is 2′.6. On account of its
sharpness and smallness and its isolation, this is perhaps the most
remarkable of all the black holes with which I am acquainted. It lies
in an ordinary part of the Milky Way, and is not due to the presence or
absence of stars, but seems really to be a marking on the sky itself”
(_Astrophysical Journal_, January, 1910).

These things really transcend explanation (see _Curiosities of the
Sky_).

Above Ophiuchus and his Serpent, almost exactly overhead in the
latitude of 40° N., we see the quadrilateral figure marked out by four
of the principal stars of the constellation Hercules. The head of
Draco, described in Chapter I, is beyond it toward the north-northeast.
Hercules stands feet upward in the sky, his head, indicated by the
star Alpha, or Ras Algethi, the “Kneeler’s Head,” being situated a few
degrees west-northwest of Ras Alhague. Thus the two giants have their
heads together. But while the occupation of Ophiuchus is plain, nobody,
not even in ancient times, when the constellation received its name,
has ever been able to say what Hercules is laboring at. When he was on
the earth everybody followed his deeds and understood, if they could
not emulate, them. He was as comprehensible as a modern pugilist. Now,
however, that he has been translated to the stars, his labors are of
a more mysterious nature, and, judging from his attitude, he finds
them harder than any he undertook for the benefit of mankind here
below. One is tempted to think that the powers he offended, when he
boldly entered the land of shades and snatched the wife of his friend,
King Admetus, from the hand of Death himself, are now taking an ample
vengeance.

Ras Algethi is a very beautiful double star, one red, the other green
or blue, and both, strangely enough, are variable in brightness. Their
distance apart is 4″.7. Their spectrum indicates that they are advanced
toward extinction many stages beyond our sun.

The star Zeta (ζ), one of those in the quadrilateral, is a closer
double, distance about 1″, and is binary, the period of revolution
being about thirty-five years.

And now for a great marvel. Let the eye range slowly from Eta (η)
directly toward Zeta (ζ). When one-third of the distance between
the two stars has been passed, a faint, glimmering speck will be
perceived. Perhaps you will need an opera-glass to make sure that you
see it. This is the “Great Cluster in Hercules.” You must go to the
southern hemisphere to find its match anywhere in the sky. It is a
ball of suns! Now you need a telescope. You _must have one_. You must
either buy or borrow it, or you must pay a visit to an observatory,
for this is a thing that no intelligent human being in these days
can afford not to see. Can it be possible that any man can know that
fifteen thousand suns are to be seen, burning in a compact globular
cluster, and not long to regard them with his own eyes? Of what use is
description in such a case? The language has not yet been invented to
depict such things. Human speech comes down to us from the times when
men did not need the tongue of the gods to tell what they saw. When
Galileo invented the telescope, and Herschel multiplied its powers a
thousandfold, they should have found a language fitted to describe
their discoveries. But if you cannot get a look at the Hercules cluster
through a powerful telescope, photography comes to your aid. Look at
one of the wonderful Lick or Yerkes photographs of it, and pause long
on what you see. Note the crowding of those suns toward the centre,
note the glittering spiral lines formed by those which seem streaming
and hurrying from all sides to join the marvellous congregation--and
then turn again to that faint speck in the sky, which is all that the
naked eye reveals of the wonder, and reflect upon the meaning of space
and the universe.

We now turn farther east, still keeping the eyes directed high in the
sky, and just at the edge of the Milky Way, with two minute stars
making a little triangle with it, we see Vega or Alpha Lyræ, the
astonishing brilliant that flashes on the strings of the heavenly Lyre.
At the Vernal Equinox it was just rising far over in the northeast;
now it is the unquestioned queen of that quarter of the sky. I like to
think of Emerson when looking at that star. There is a sentence of his
which reflects it like a mirror. When he strove to rouse the “sluggard
intellect of this continent,” to “look from under its iron lids,” he
could find no stronger image than that of poetry reviving here and
leading in a new age, “as the star in the constellation Harp, which
now flames in our zenith, astronomers announce, shall one day be the
Pole-star for a thousand years.”

Of the effect of the Precession of the Equinoxes, to which Emerson
refers, we have already spoken. But it is a long time in the future
that Vega will begin, or rather resume, its reign as the Star of
the North. And, curiously enough, when that time comes the northern
hemisphere will have its Summer Solstice when the sun is just opposite
to the place which it now occupies at that season, and when Antares
will be no more a summer star, but will flash its ruddy light upon the
snows of a winter longer and colder than the winters that we know,
while Orion will blaze above the summer landscapes. This immense
revolution, some have thought, may be the measure of the “Great Year”
of Plato, and if the chronology adopted for dating the early remains of
civilization recently uncovered in Crete is correct, we have evidence
that mankind has persisted through one of these vast periods, and that
nations flourished round the Mediterranean when Vega was formerly the
Pole-star.

The beauty of Vega, which has been admired and commented on from the
earliest times, is much enhanced when it is viewed with a telescope.
Then the blueness of its light becomes evident, and one is the more
astonished at the unquestionable fact that it outshines the sun a
hundred times. A _sapphire_ sun, a hundred times more brilliant than
ours! The proper motion of the solar system, which carries us through
space about twelve miles per second, is bearing us almost directly
toward Vega, so that as future ages unroll the star should become
brighter and brighter with decrease of distance, until eventually it
may outshine every other orb in the firmament, and put Sirius himself
to shame by its overpowering splendor.

The little star Epsilon (ε), the northernmost one of the pair near
Vega, is a celebrated quadruple, easily seen as such with a telescope
of moderate power.

A little less than half way from Beta (β) to Gamma (γ) the telescope
discovers the wonderful “Ring Nebula,” a delicate circle of nebulous
light with a star in the centre. This star is more conspicuous in
photographs than in telescopic views. This object has been regarded as
a visual proof of the correctness of Laplace’s theory of the origin of
the solar system from nebulous rings surrounding a central sun, but
the Lick photographs show that the ring in this case is of a strangely
complex constitution. Beta is both a binary and a variable star.

Buried in the Milky Way, east of Lyra, lies the great “Northern Cross”
in the constellation Cygnus. It is more perfect than the famous
“Southern Cross,” and much larger. The star Alpha (α), at the head
of the main beam of the cross, is also called _Denib_, the “Tail,”
as it is situated in the tail of the “Swan,” Cygnus. Its parallax is
undetermined, and Newcomb placed it in his “XM” class, described under
Spica in Chapter I. The Milky Way is exceedingly beautiful in Cygnus.
Note particularly the broad gaps and rifts in it. Around and above the
head of the cross there are dark spaces, which are specially impressive
when the eyes are partly averted from them. Downward from Cygnus the
stream of the galaxy is seen to be partially split longitudinally. It
resembles a broad river meandering, in the droughts of the “dog days,”
over flats and shallows, and interrupted with long sand-bars. How can
stars have been thrown together into such forms? What whirls and eddies
of the ether can have made these _pools of shining suns_?

The star in the foot of the cross, Beta (β), or _Albireo_--a beautiful
name without signification, since Allen shows that it originated in a
blunder (see his _Star Names and Their Meanings_)--is one of the most
attractive objects in the heavens for those who are fortunate enough to
possess a telescope. The smallest glass easily shows it to be double,
and the combination is unrivalled for beauty, the larger star being a
pale topaz and the smaller a deep sapphire. Their magnitudes are three
and seven, and their distance apart about 34″. I have separated them
with a field-glass.

Cygnus contains one of the nearest stars in the sky, a twinkler not
too easily seen with the naked eye--a striking proof of the fact that
the mere faintness of a star is in itself no indication of excessive
distance. This is known as 61 Cygni, and will be found on Chart
X. It is a double, possible binary, easily separated with a small
telescope, the distance being about 21″. The distance of 61 Cygni
is about 40,000,000,000,000 miles. It was long known as the second
nearest star in the sky, the nearest being Alpha Centauri in the
southern hemisphere; but at least one nearer one has more lately been
discovered, and it, too, is a very small star. The combined luminosity
of the two stars in 61 Cygni is only one-tenth that of the sun. Amid
so many giants it is reassuring to find a sun smaller than ours; it
restores our self-esteem to find that our solar hamlet is not the very
least in the empire of space.

Southeast of Cygnus, near the eastern shore of the starry river, is
Aquila, the “Eagle.” Its chief star, Altair, “Eagle,” recalls Antares,
not by its color, for it is not red but white, but by the singular
arrangement of two small stars standing one on either side of it. Here,
too, the Milky Way is very splendid, attaining astonishing brightness
lower down, in Scutum Sobieskii, “Sobieski’s Shield.” The naming of
this constellation was a posthumous reward to the heroic king, John
Sobieski, for saving Europe by the defeat of the Turks under the
walls of Vienna, after their victorious advance from Constantinople,
emphasized in the public mind by the appearance of Halley’s Comet, had
seemed to threaten a Moslem conquest. Twice Halley’s Comet had alarmed
Europe in connection with the Turks, first in 1456, after they had
taken Constantinople, and again in 1682 when they swept upon Vienna,
so that it was a natural thought to associate Sobieski’s victory with
some “sign in the sky,” and a more appropriate one could hardly have
been found than the “shield,” bossed with star-clusters, which Hevelius
selected for the purpose. The southern part of the constellation Aquila
is sometimes called Antinous. For the beautiful Oriental legend of the
Spinning Damsel and the Magpie Bridge connected with Aquila and Lyra,
see _Astronomy with the Naked Eye_. Newcomb gives Altair ten times the
luminosity of the sun.

The constellations Delphinus and Anser et Vulpecula will be dealt with
in the next chapter. In the mean time let us turn to the western half
of the sky.

Just west of the meridian, near the zenith, gleams the glorious
Northern Crown, Corona Borealis. The head of Serpens is right
underneath it. It is, perhaps, the most charming of all asterisms. It
could hardly be called anything else than a crown or a wreath. The
perfection of the figure is surprising. If its stars were larger it
would be the cynosure of the sky, but small as they are they produce
an effect of ensemble that could not have been exceeded if human hands
had arranged them there. The superior brightness of one of them,
Alpha “Gemma,” or “The Pearl,” adds greatly to the effectiveness
of the combination. It is the work of a master jeweller! Yet, as
I have elsewhere shown, this curious assemblage of stars is but a
passing phenomenon, for they are travelling in various directions,
with various speeds, and in the course of time the Northern Crown
will dissolve like a figure in the clouds. In Greek mythology it was
generally called the Crown of Ariadne. Just under the star Epsilon (ε)
is a wonderful variable, which in 1866 suddenly blazed up to the second
magnitude, and was for a time regarded as a new star. Nothing is known
of its periods of change. It is not now visible to the naked eye.

West of Corona the most conspicuous object is Arcturus in Boötes. This
entire constellation is now well placed for observation. But first
a few words about Arcturus, a star of which one can never tire, so
steeped is it in the poetry and history of the most interesting nations
of the past. Like Alpha Centauri, Arcturus was used as a “temple
star” in both Egypt and Greece, and it was of much importance as a
prognosticator of the seasons. When a conspicuous star was seen rising
just ahead of the sun, it was said to rise heliacally, and it served
as a sentinel to announce the oncoming day. To the priests this was
important, because it warned them of the moment when it was necessary
to begin their preparations for the sunrise ceremonies in the temples.
To the husbandman such a herald seemed specially connected with the
particular season in which it appeared. In this way Arcturus came to
give its name to the ancient Greek autumn. In Sophocles’ _Œdipus the
King_ there is a passage which affords striking evidence of the popular
knowledge of Arcturus in this connection. When the herdsman from Mount
Cithæron is brought to prove that he had nurtured Œdipus as a child,
one of his former comrades, to recall the old man’s recollections,
reminds him that they had kept their flocks together “three whole
half-years from Spring to Arcturus” (meaning from Spring to Autumn,
since Arcturus then rose heliacally at the beginning of September).
Whatever might be the local names for Autumn, over all the Greek world
it was popularly known as the “time of Arcturus.”

Although the Revised Version has struck out Arcturus and substituted
“the Bear” in that famous passage in which the Almighty answers Job
“out of the whirlwind,” yet for lovers of the Bible this will always be
“Job’s Star,” always surrounded to the imagination with the momentous
circumstances suggested by that tremendous and unanswerable demand:

  “Canst _thou_ call forth _Arcturus_ and his sons?”

No scientific fact known about it--not its gigantic size, not
its inexplicable flight through space--can be so imposing as the
impressions conveyed in its choice by Jehovah to illustrate His
illimitable power. One likes to think that the Hebrew poet really did
mean to write “Arcturus,” for there is something sublime in the idea of
representing the Great Maker of All as calling one of His stars by name.

Arcturus is sometimes referred to under the name of _Arctophilax_, the
“Bear-driver,” a name properly belonging to the constellation Boötes.
In modern astronomical history it will always be memorable for the
passage over it of the celebrated Comet of 1858, Donati’s Comet. At one
time the star was almost involved in the head of the great comet, and
yet it shone through the obstructing vapors with virtually undiminished
lustre. It was a spectacle, said Professor Nichol, the like of which
no one might see again though he should spend on earth fifty lives.
At the beginning the comet was a little plume of fire, “shaped like a
bird of paradise,” but it soon brightened into a stupendous scimetar,
brandished in the sunset, and when it swept over Arcturus the whole
astronomical world was watching to see what would happen to the star.

Among the other stars of Boötes, Epsilon (ε) is specially worthy of
notice, being a remarkable binary of finely contrasted colors, orange
and sea-green. The distance is 2″.25, and the period of revolution long
but undetermined. Struve called this star “Pulcherrima,” on account of
its exceeding beauty.

Although Arcturus by its splendor belittles the rest of the
constellation, yet it requires no difficult exercise of the imagination
to see a giant form there, towering behind the Bear, and urging on his
dogs in the chase. The dogs are represented by Canes Venatici, of the
beauty of whose chief star, Cor Caroli, I have spoken in the preceding
chapter. In the upper part of Canes Venatici, about 3° southwest
of Benetnasch, is the celebrated “Whirlpool Nebula” of Lord Rosse,
which modern photographs show in a form so suggestive of tremendous
disruptive forces that cosmogonists are at a loss to explain it.

We now drop down to Libra, the “Balance,” which lies just west of
Scorpio and east of Virgo. There is evidence that this constellation
originally represented the outstretched claws of the Scorpion. Yet as
an independent constellation it is very ancient. It has only two stars
of any considerable magnitude, Alpha (α) and Beta (β). The former must
have faded, for it is now the fainter. It lies almost on the ecliptic.
These stars are interesting on account of their curious names, which
themselves tend to prove that Libra once formed a part of Scorpio.
Alpha is Zubenelgenubi, the “Southern Claw,” and Beta Zubeneschemali,
the “Northern Claw.” These titles, as Allen shows, have been derived
through the Arabic from the Greek names current in the time of Ptolemy.
The first is yellowish-white, and the second pale green. Any good eye
detects the difference of color at a glance, although the stars are
about ten degrees apart. Zubenelgenubi is widely double, separable with
an opera-glass.

Along the western horizon we recognize our old friends Virgo, Corvus,
and Leo, while high in the northwest is Ursa Major, head downward, and
directly in the north Ursa Minor, standing on the end of his tail,
poised like an acrobat on Polaris. The head of Draco shows finely east
of the meridian, and low down in the northeast is the “Laconian Key” of
Cassiopeia. But that is for another evening.



III

THE EVENING SKY AT THE AUTUMNAL EQUINOX

  “When descends on the Atlantic
  The gigantic
    Storm-wind of the Equinox,
  Landward in his wrath he scourges
  The toiling surges,
    Laden with sea-weed from the rocks.”


Longfellow’s vivid lines reproduce the popular impression of the
character of the season when the descending sun again touches the
equator, giving the whole world once more days and nights of equal
length, before he dips to the south and leaves the northern hemisphere
to face the oncoming blasts of winter. There is no superstition more
deeply planted than that of the “equinoctial storms.” There _are_
such storms, it is true, but they by no means always burst at the
epoch of the Equinox. The readjustment of atmospheric conditions goes
on gradually, and there is often, just at the equinoctial moment, a
spell of serene weather that can hardly be matched at any other season
of the year. The atmosphere, recovered from the excessive heats of
summer, possesses a quality of softness and “misty fruitfulness” that
tranquillizes the spirit and makes nature doubly charming. It is the
late afternoon of the year, when life, refreshed by the siestas of
summer, resumes its activity, and the heavens no less than the face of
the earth greet the eye with a smile of divine beauty.

To every season its flowers--and to every season its stars. The gardens
of the sky are not the same in autumn as in summer, either in their
arrangement or in the peculiarities of their bloom. There is less
parade of flaming beauty, but the richness of the _coup d’œil_ is not
inferior. And just as in our September parterres some of the summer
beauties remain, though a little faded, to support with their charms
their stately successors, so in the skies of autumn a few of the summer
stars are yet seen, though somewhat robbed of their pristine splendor
as they sink toward the sunset. The garland of the Milky Way has now
been flung all across the firmament, from northeast to southwest, and
while Vega and Altair hang half-way down the curtain of the west,
recalling the glories of the solstice, Capella appears rising in the
northeast, and Cassiopeia, not less beautiful in the sky than when she
awoke the jealousy of the sea-nymphs, is seen seated in her “shiny
chair” east of the meridian in the north. Between Cassiopeia and
Capella flashes Perseus, with his uplifted sword marked by a curve of
stars embedded in the Milky Way, and above Perseus stands Andromeda,
upright, with her feet toward her rescuer and her head touching
the “Great Square of Pegasus,” near the middle of the sky, east of
the meridian. Cepheus, the King, is on the meridian above the pole.
Cassiopeia, Cepheus, Andromeda, and Perseus constitute the “Royal
Family” of the sky, more enduring than the proud dynasties that by
turns have ruled terrestrial affairs.

[Illustration: CHART III--THE AUTUMN EVENING SKY]

Low down in the south, east of the meridian, glows Fomalhaut, the
“Fish’s Mouth,” the leading and the only bright star of Piscis
Austrinus, the “Southern Fish.” With this singular star we may begin
our description of the beauties of the autumn sky. Fomalhaut well
deserves the epithet singular, if for nothing else than on account
of its loneliness. In this respect it is more remarkable than Cor
Hydræ, which it resembles in its ruddy color. Fomalhaut is the
characteristic star of autumn in our latitudes, for the same reasons
that cause Antares to represent the summer. Like Antares, it startles
the wandering eye and fixes the attention, although, unlike the great
star of Scorpio, it has no brilliant _entourage_ to emphasize its
supremacy over the quarter of the sky where it shines. It is one of
the sailors’ stars. To me Fomalhaut is full of boyhood memories and
impressions gained when I learned the stars in the country, among the
hills that shut in the Schoharie before it pours out into the valley of
the Mohawk. Fortunately, Thomas Dick’s works and Burritt’s _Geography
of the Heavens_ had a place in our house, and neither _The Arabian
Nights_ nor _The Swiss Family Robinson_ was able to dull my appetite
for them. In the course of time I knew all the great stars by name, and
found a wonderful pleasure in their acquaintance, although at times
they daunted me with their imposing associations with Egypt, the Nile,
Babylonia, and everything that is most ancient. I shall never forget
Fomalhaut flashing along in the south, just skipping the hilltops on an
autumn night. A great star is never so imposing nor so mysterious as
when it thus appears to be watching the earth.

How immensely would the interest of many travellers’ tales be
heightened if only they had known the names of the stars whose
appearance they have recorded. When you have the name of the star that
was seen, the season and the hour of the night are fixed at once,
and the whole scene is filled with new life. When an Alpine climber,
waiting in his lonely camp high on the mountain-side for the coming of
day, tells me, “I saw Sirius glancing at us over a lofty peak far in
the east,” I know immediately the approximate time of night and the
aspect of the heavens, and the narrative gains in vividness; but if
he says merely that he saw “a star” his stroke of description misses.
And, then, the names of many of the stars, by their oddity and beauty,
enrich the page and awake the imagination. They are, in themselves, an
incantation.

The lover of the stars is grateful for any reference to them by a
great writer, and yet he is often disappointed by the inadequacy
of descriptions that might easily have been made memorable if only
their authors had known the starry heavens a little better. How
disappointing, for instance, is this passage in R. H. Dana’s _Two Years
before the Mast_:

 “Wednesday, November 5th--The weather was fine during the previous
 night, and we had a clear view of the Magellan Clouds and of the
 Southern Cross. The Magellan Clouds consist of three small nebulæ in
 the southern part of the heavens--two bright, like the Milky Way, and
 one dark. They are first seen just above the horizon after crossing
 the southern tropic. When off Cape Horn they are nearly overhead. The
 Cross is composed of four stars in that form, and it is said to be the
 brightest constellation in the heavens.”

That is all, and the reader’s dissatisfaction is not confined to the
evidence of the writer’s lack of familiarity with the stars, but
becomes yet keener when he reflects upon the brilliant picture which
Mr. Dana’s powers of description should have enabled him to make of
those strange sights of the southern sky, which, in his day, were so
rarely seen by northern eyes.

On the equator above Fomalhaut, and close to the meridian, appears a
curious group of stars in the form of a letter Y. They mark the hand
and urn of Aquarius, the “Waterman.” A few degrees westward from this
figure shines the Alpha (α) of the constellation, bearing the strange
name Sadalmelik, the “King’s Luck,” or “Lucky One.” It is situated
in the Waterman’s right shoulder, while Beta (β), some twelve degrees
farther west, marks the left shoulder. Beta’s distinctive name is
Sadalsuud, the “Luckiest of the Lucky.” Several other stars in this
constellation have names implying good-fortune. The Arabs saw the
Y-shaped figure, already referred to, as a tent, and the star Gamma
(γ) in this group is called Sadachbiah, from an Arabic phrase which
Professor Whitney translates “Felicity of Tents.” Upon this R. H. Allen
remarks that the star probably got its name from the fact that it rose
with its companions in the morning twilight of spring, “when, after
the winter’s want and suffering, the nomads’ tents were raised on the
freshening pastures, and the pleasant weather set in.” The star Zeta
(ζ), in this same figure, is a long-period binary, probably 750 years,
and a beautiful telescopic object, the distance being a little more
than 3″, while the two stars are nearly equal, and very white, although
one of them seems whiter than the other.

It will be observed that the outline of the constellation Aquarius is
very curious, somewhat resembling that of the State of Louisiana tipped
on its side. The broader part of it runs down toward Fomalhaut, and the
northern part extends westward, like an L added to a house, between
Equuleus and Capricornus. The latter, the constellation of the “Goat,”
is relatively small and compact. Its two most interesting stars are
Alpha (α), or Algedi, the “Goat,” and Beta (β), or Dabih (signification
uncertain), both in one of the horns of the imaginary animal. Each of
these stars is a wide double. The distance between the Alphas is 373″,
and that between the Betas 205″, the latter being more than a tenth
of the apparent diameter of the moon. A good eye sees at once that
Alpha is double; but the two stars in Beta cannot be seen without a
glass, because one of them is below the sixth magnitude, the _minimum
visible_ for the naked eye. Each of the stars in Beta is a telescopic
double. The Goat heads westward, and the stars Delta (δ) and Gamma
(γ) are in his tail. This constellation has given us our Tropic of
Capricorn, because the place of the winter solstice was once within its
boundaries, although now we find it far west, in Sagittarius.

Above the head of Capricornus we recognize our old acquaintance Altair,
in the Eagle, and east of this the singular little constellation of
Delphinus, the “Dolphin,” often called “Job’s Coffin,” a name for
which I have never been able to find any explanation. Like all small
constellations whose stars are comparatively close together, it
immediately attracts the eye. None of its stars exceeds the fourth
magnitude; but three of them, Alpha, Beta, and Gamma, are telescopic
doubles, the last named being particularly beautiful on account of the
contrast of colors, gold and green; distance 11″.

Directly north of Altair is the very small constellation of Sagitta,
the “Arrow,” interesting when viewed with an opera-glass for its row of
little stars from which, as from a maypole lying horizontally, depend
loops of still smaller stars looking like garlands. In ancient times
this was sometimes called “Cupid’s Arrow,” but they did not venture to
represent the little god himself. Above Sagitta are the small stars
constituting the double constellation of Vulpecula et Anser, the
“Little Fox and the Goose.”

Simply pausing to recognize the presence of the Northern Cross, we
turn to the eastern side of the meridian, where we find Pegasus, with
his Great Square. This is one of the most conspicuous figures in the
sky. The star at the northeastern corner of the square is Alpheratz,
of which I have spoken in the Introduction, as belonging in common to
Andromeda and Pegasus. When we come to Cassiopeia I shall point out
a remarkable fact relating to Alpheratz and its twin, Gamma Pegasi,
about 15 degrees directly south. Every lover of the “classics” of
course feels a thrill of pleasure in seeing Pegasus in the sky, “in
wild flight and free.” One can spare many of the heroes for the sake
of giving him room. Shakespeare’s references to the constellations are
much less frequent and definite than one could wish, but he has clearly
mentioned one or two, and it may be that he had the starry eidolon of
the Winged Horse in his eye when he wrote, in _Troilus and Cressida_:

  “But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage
  The gentle Thetis, and anon behold
  The strong-ribbed bark through liquid mountains cut,
  Bounding between the two moist elements
  Like Perseus’ horse.”

The constellation extends far westward from the Square, and in the
imaginative sky pictures that illustrate old charts of the heavens the
star Epsilon (ε) is in the nose of Pegasus, as he stretches out his
neck to reach his foal, Equuleus. But the horse, with his feet toward
the north, is shown upside down, unless you turn your back to the south
when looking at him. The star Beta (β) is attractive on account of its
neighbors forming a striking triangle with it; but the space within the
Square is relatively vacant. Alpha (α) and Beta (β) are respectively
Markab, the “Saddle,” and Scheat (signification uncertain).

South of the Square of Pegasus we see the western part of the
constellation of Pisces, whose small stars run in streams toward the
eastern horizon. Pisces furnishes one of the most remarkable examples
of this phenomenon, in which the stars are seen arrayed in long,
winding lines, like buttercups following a brook. Cetus is also seen
rising south of Pisces; but we shall deal with these constellations
later. Meanwhile we return to Alpheratz, at the northeast corner of
the Square of Pegasus. The name is derived from an Arabic phrase
meaning the “Horse’s Navel”; but the star is now generally associated
with Andromeda, and is, indeed, the Alpha of that constellation, and
shines on the maiden’s head. The star Delta (δ), in Andromeda, marks
her breast, and her extended arms and chained hands are shown by
rows and groups of small stars on the north and south. Beta (β), or
Mirach, is in her girdle, and the two small stars northwest of it lead
the eye to one of the most wonderful objects in the sky--the Great
Andromeda Nebula. You may detect it as a misty speck with the naked
eye; an opera-glass will show you plainly that it is a little luminous
cloud. In Chart X its position is indicated by a little circle near
the star Nu (ν). In a telescope it appears of a spindle shape, with
a bright axis, but the best views of it are afforded by photography.
On the photographic plate, exposed continuously for hours to its
rays, it gradually builds up its marvellous form--the great central
condensation, with the encircling spirals, emerging in all their
strange splendor. It resembles a whirlwind of snow, and the appearance
of swift motion and terrific force is startling. Its spectrum, instead
of being that characteristic of gases, indicates that it consists
principally of matter in a star-like state of condensation, and some
have imagined that it is an outside universe, composed of stars too
distant to be separately distinguished, and arrayed in mighty spirals,
which recall the form of the Milky Way. The latest investigations show
evidence, however, that it is partly nebular in constitution. These
things once known, the contemplative eye is drawn to that misty speck
as to a magnet.

The star Gamma (γ), or Almaack, the “Badger,” is in Andromeda’s foot.
It is a wonderful triple star, whose largest member is orange in color,
the second emerald-green, and the third blue. The two larger stars are
easily seen with an ordinary telescope, the distance between them
being about 10″, but the third is difficult, the distance from the
second being, in 1908, only 0″.45. The last two form a binary, with a
period of about fifty-four years. When they are nearest to each other
no telescope can separate them. The colors of the two largest stars
are very striking, and yet some eyes seem incapable of appreciating
them. This is also true of many separate stars in the sky which possess
distinctive tints. It is a fine test of the chromatic capacity of the
eye to be able to enjoy the differences among the hues of the stars.
Color-blindness is far more common than is usually suspected, and is
apt to manifest itself in this way when not otherwise noticed. From
theoretical considerations Holmgren has shown that three varieties of
color-blindness may exist: first, where the sense is defective for only
one color, either red, green, or violet; second, where two colors,
either red and green or red and violet, are not perceived; and third,
where the defect extends to three colors, including red, green, and
violet. A person suffering from either of these forms of blindness
would lose much of the peculiar beauty exhibited by certain stars and
combinations of stars.

To the right of Almaack, as one faces north, is the little
constellation of Triangulum, and beyond that, in the same direction,
Aries, the “Ram,” clearly marked by three stars, the two smaller
of which are quite close together. The largest star, Alpha (α), is
called Hamal, the “Ram,” or “Sheep”; and the next largest, Beta (β),
Sheratan, the “Sign,” this name being due to the fact that in the days
of Hipparchus Sheratan marked the place of the Vernal Equinox, and
consequently the point of beginning of the year, of which it was the
sign. Gamma (γ), the companion of Sheratan, sometimes called Mesarthim
(signification uncertain), is a beautiful telescopic double whose
components are 8″.8 apart. The smaller one has a curious tint which
Webb and others have described as “gray.”

Aries was originally the leader of the zodiac, but the Precession
of the Equinoxes has now thrown it into second place, and brought
Pisces to the front, the twelve signs of the zodiac being like a fixed
circular framework through which the constellations drift toward
the east. The _sign_ Aries remains the first of the zodiac, but is
occupied by the constellation Pisces. Is there in any language a word
more mysteriously impressive than “zodiac”? Astrological superstition,
perhaps, partly accounts for this. The word comes from the Greek
for “animal,” because nearly all the constellations of the zodiacal
circle are representations of animals. It surrounds the sky with a
great menagerie of starry phantasms, through the midst of which the
sun pursues his annual round. When he enters the sign of Aries spring
commences; when he enters Cancer summer reigns; when he reaches Libra
it is the beginning of autumn, and when he is in Capricorn winter
is at hand. We have nothing quite equal to the old Greek story of
Phaeton begging from his father, Phœbus Apollo, the privilege of
driving the Chariot of the Sun, and losing his way through terror
of the threatening forms amid which lay his course--the “Scorpion,”
with his fiery sting uplifted to strike; the huge “Crab,” sprawling
across the way; the fierce “Ram,” with lowered head; the great “Bull,”
charging headlong upon him; the terrible “Lion,” with bristling mane;
the “Archer,” with bow bent and arrow aimed; the “Goat,” with crooked,
threatening horns; the sturdy “Waterman,” emptying his vast urn in
a raging flood; the balance of “Libra” extended as if to weigh his
fate--even the benign aspect of the “Twins” and the gentle look of the
sedate “Virgin” could not restore his equanimity. It was the wildest of
all wild rides, and Phaeton was the precursor of the modern chauffeur
gone mad with the speed of his flight, and crazed by the pursuit of
phantoms which rise remorselessly in his path. It was probably in Aries
that the inventors of the story imagined the beginning of the adventure.

Below the feet of Andromeda, in the northeast, appears Perseus,
her rescuer, hurrying to the combat with the oncoming Sea Monster,
and carrying the blood-freezing head of Medusa in one hand and his
diamond-hilted sword in the other. He wraps the glory of the Milky Way
around him like a flying mantle, and brandished in the direction of
Cassiopeia, the maiden’s mother, and of King Cepheus, her father, is
seen his magic blade, made splendid in the sky by one of the finest
assemblages of small stars that can anywhere be seen. This beautiful
star-swarm, visible to the naked eye as a glowing patch in the Milky
Way, is indicated in Chart X by a double cluster of dots above the
star Eta (η). Seen with a powerful opera-glass, or better with a small
telescope, it is an object that one can never cease to admire and
wonder at. It is so bright that the unassisted eye sees it as soon as
it is directed toward that part of the sky. It seems to throw a halo
over the surrounding sky, as if at that point the galaxy had been
tied into a gleaming knot. It is popularly called the “Sword Hand of
Perseus.” But how inadequate seems such terrestrial imagery when we
reflect that here a vast chaotic nebula has been, through æons of
evolution, transformed into a kingdom of starry beauty.

The star Alpha (α) Persei, also known as Algenib (Arabic _Al Janib_,
the “Side”), is the centre of a bending row following the curve
of the Milky Way. The appearance of this curve of stars is very
attractive to the eye. Algenib is a beautiful star, allied to our sun
in spectroscopic character, and approaching us at the rate of about
560,000 miles per day.

But the greatest marvel of Perseus is the “Demon Star,” Algol, in
the head of Medusa, which is represented depending from the hero’s
right hand. Algol bears the Greek letter Beta (β). It is the most
wonderful of variables, and its variations can be watched without any
instrumental assistance. For the greater part of the time it is of
nearly the second magnitude; but once every two days, twenty hours,
and forty-nine seconds it begins suddenly to lose light, and in about
four hours or less it fades to nearly the fourth magnitude, being then
no brighter than some of the faint stars around it. Almost immediately
it begins to brighten again, and in the course of about three hours is
seen shining with its pristine splendor. The cause of these singular
variations is believed to be the existence of a dark star, or a mass of
meteors, revolving round Algol at such close quarters that a distance
of only 3,000,000 miles separates the centres of the two. Algol itself
is demonstrably considerably larger than our sun, but of less density.
The Arabic name for this star was _Al Ghul_, the “Demon,” or “Fiend of
the Woods,” and our word ghoul comes from it. The imagination of a Poe
could not have represented a more startling thing--a sun that winks
like a gloating demon! One may easily cultivate an uncanny feeling
while watching it. No one need be surprised that the astrologers make
much of the malign influence of Algol. If one had faith in them, one
might as well be born with the millstone of fate tied to his neck as to
have Algol in his nativity.

Below Perseus, and not very high above the horizon, sparkles the
brilliant Capella, but that is for the next chapter. We turn to
Cassiopeia. Her “W,” or “Laconian Key,” is a familiar asterism to
all who know anything at all of the starry heavens. The five stars
forming this figure are also represented as marking the Chair in which
the unfortunate though beautiful queen sits. There is a delightful
reference to this “Chair” in Xavier de Maistre’s _Expédition Nocturne
autour de ma Chambre_. When the hero discovers the slipper of his fair
neighbor of the upper flat visible on the balcony above, he wishes “to
compare the pleasure that a modest man may feel in contemplating a
lady’s slipper with that imparted by the contemplation of the stars.”
Accordingly, he chooses the first constellation that he can see. “It
was, if I mistake not, Cassiopeia’s Chair which I saw over my head, and
I looked by turns at the constellation and the slipper, the slipper
and the constellation. I perceived then that these two sensations were
of a totally different nature; the one was in my head, while the other
seemed to me to have its seat in the region of the heart.”

The names of three of the five stars forming the “Chair” are: Alpha (α)
Schedar (from _Al Sadr_, the “Breast”); Beta (β) Caph (Arabic _Kaff_,
“Hand”); and Delta (δ) Ruchbah or Rucbar, the “Knee.” Caph and Ruchbar
are of particular interest, the first because, together with Alpheratz
and Gamma Pegasi (often called Algenib, although that name belongs
to Alpha Persei), it lies almost exactly on the Equinoctial Colure,
or First Meridian of the Heavens; and Ruchbah, because, as explained
in Chapter I, it lies in a line with Polaris and the true pole, thus
serving to indicate the position of Polaris with regard to the pole at
any time. Caph, Alpheratz, and Gamma Pegasi are often called the “Three
Guides,” because, as just explained, they graphically show the line of
the Equinoctial Colure, which is a great circle passing through the
pole and cutting the equator at the Vernal and Autumnal Equinoxes. On
the opposite side of the pole this line passes between the stars Gamma
(γ) and Delta (δ) in Ursa Major.

The star Eta (η) is an extremely beautiful binary, period about two
hundred years, distance at present more than 6″. The combination of
colors is especially remarkable, the larger component being orange, and
the smaller purple. Piazzi Smyth saw the color of the smaller star as
“Indian red,” and others have variously called it “garnet,” “violet,”
and, curiously enough, considering the general opinion to the contrary,
“green.” There is no doubt, whatever the exact hue may be, that this
star wears a livery distinguishing it from any other in the sky. It is
hardly an exaggeration to say that there is as great a variety of color
tones among stars as among flowers. Although the great majority of
stars approximate to white, there are, nevertheless, red stars, green
stars, blue stars, lilac stars, yellow stars, orange stars, indigo
stars, and violet stars, and stars of other tints and shades. All of
those which are deeply colored are linked together in close pairs, but
the colors they exhibit are not an effect of contrast. It is wonderful
to think of _suns_ of such hues, but _there they are_! And, after all,
it would be no more difficult to account for the colors of stars than
for those of flowers. But to live under a purple or an emerald sun
might not be as agreeable as life in the rays of our white orb, whose
light splits into rainbows, as light of a single primary color could
not do. A flower-garden under a green sun would not be the marvel of
prismatic hues that it is in our world.[1]

Cassiopeia is memorable for being the scene of one of the greatest
astronomical occurrences on record. Near the star Kappa (κ), in 1572,
appeared the most splendid new star that has ever been seen. It is
known as “Tycho’s Star,” the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe having been
an assiduous student of the wonderful phenomenon during the sixteen
months that it remained visible. There is a red variable star of less
than the tenth magnitude quite close to the spot where Tycho recorded
the appearance of his _nova_, and it has been thought that this may
be the mysterious object itself. In 1901 a new star, almost equal in
brilliance to Tycho’s, suddenly burst out in Perseus, between Algol
and Algenib, and these two so similar phenomena occurring in the same
quarter of the heavens are usually linked together in the discussion
of new stars. The reader who wishes more particulars about these stars
may consult _Curiosities of the Sky_.

The background of the sky around Cassiopeia is a magnificent field for
the opera-glass and the telescope. In sweeping over it one is reminded
of Jean Paul Richter’s _Dream of the Universe_:

 “Thus we flew on through the starry wildernesses; one heaven after
 another unfurled its immeasurable banners before us and then rolled
 up behind us; galaxy behind galaxy towered up into solemn altitudes
 before which the spirit shuddered; and they stood in long array,
 through which the Infinite Beings might pass in progress. Sometimes
 the Form that lightened would outfly my weary thoughts, and then it
 would be seen far off before me like a coruscation among the stars,
 till suddenly I thought to myself the thought of ‘There,’ and then
 I was at its side. But as we were thus swallowed up by one abyss of
 stars after another, and the heavens above our eyes were not emptier,
 neither were the heavens below them fuller; and as suns without
 intermission fell into the solar ocean like waterspouts of a storm
 which fall into the ocean of waters, then at length the human heart
 within me was overburdened and weary, and yearned after some narrow
 cell or quiet oratory in this metropolitan cathedral of the universe.
 And I said to the Form at my side: ‘O Spirit! has then this universe
 no end?’ And the Form answered and said, ‘Lo! it has no beginning!’”

Westward from Cassiopeia, directly over the pole, and lying athwart the
meridian, is the constellation of Cepheus, the King, less conspicuous
than that of his queen, Cassiopeia, but equally ancient. Its leading
star, Alpha (α), also called Alderamin, the “Right Arm,” is a
candidate for the great office of Pole-star, which it will occupy in
about 5500 years. Beta (β), the second in rank, is named Alfirk, the
“Flock” or “Herd.” If you are sweeping here with an opera-glass you
will perceive, about half-way between Alpha (α) and Zeta (ζ), a small
star which will at once arrest your attention by its color. It is the
celebrated “Garnet Star” of Sir William Herschel, who was greatly
impressed by its brilliant hue, declaring it to be the most deeply
colored star that the naked eye can find in the sky. But its color is
not so striking unless a glass be used.

Low down in the north-northwest we see the Great Dipper, above it the
coiling form and diamond head of Draco, and then, still higher, the
Northern Cross and Vega, bright as a jewel. Hercules and the Northern
Crown are near setting in the northwest.


FOOTNOTES:

[1] The reader who is curious concerning such matters is advised
to consult a paper by Dr. Louis Bell on “Star Colors,” in the
_Astrophysical Journal_ (vol. xxi, No. 3, April, 1910). Dr. Bell’s
experiments with artificial stars seem to show that physiological
effects play a great part in producing the pronounced colors of the
small stars in many telescopic doubles. The paper is very interesting,
especially in its description of a startling imitation of the singular
cluster, Kappa (κ) Crucis, which Sir John Herschel described as
resembling a gorgeous piece of colored jewelry. But, whatever part
physiological optics may play in the phenomena of colored doubles, it
is certain that many single stars, including some of great magnitude,
possess distinctive tints. Compare, for instance, Castor and Pollux or
Rigel and Betelgeuse. Aldebaran and Betelgeuse are both reddish, yet
the color tones that they exhibit are clearly different.



IV

THE EVENING SKY AT THE WINTER SOLSTICE


The magic of the starry heavens does not fail with the decline of
the sun in winter, but, on the contrary, increases in power when the
curtains of the night begin to close so early that by six o’clock the
twilight is gone and the firmament has become a dome of jet ablaze with
clusters of living gems. And when the snows arrive, mantling the hills
with glistening ermine, the coruscating splendor of the sky seems to be
redoubled. If I were to choose a time most suitable for interesting a
novice in the beauties and wonders of uranography, I would select the
winter, and I would lead my acolyte, on a clear, frosty night, when the
landscape was glittering with crusted snow, upon some eminence where
the curve of the horizon was broken only by the leafless tops of a few
trees, through which the rising stars would flash like electric lamps.
The accord between the stars and the seasons is never more evident than
at such a time and in such a place, and the psychology of the stars is
then most strongly felt. When the earth is locked fast in the bonds
of winter the sparkling heavens seem most alive. I would have, if it
were possible, a clump of dark pines or hemlocks near the place of
observation, throwing their shadows on the snow, while Sirius in all
its wild beauty blazed above them, and Aldebaran, Rigel, and Betelgeuse
filled the vibrant air about them with jewelled lances of prismatic
light. Then the sound of sleigh-bells in the resonant atmosphere would
seem an aerial music shaken from the scintillant sky, and a lurking
fox, stealing from his den in the edge of the shadows, would appear
timorously conscious of the splendor over his head. The nocturnal
animals know a day more glorious than ours, but it is never so glorious
as when its multi-colored rays splinter upon crystalled hills at the
winter solstice.

Now the greatest of the constellations reign in the sky. Orion is
high up in the southeast, and around him are arrayed his brilliant
attendants and companions--toward the west Taurus, with Aldebaran and
the glittering Pleiades; above, Auriga and Gemini dipping their feet in
the Milky Way; in the east, Canis Minor, with great, steady Procyon,
and Canis Major proclaiming his precedence with flaming Sirius, the
King of the Stars. We cannot do better than begin with this starry
monarch and his constellation.

[Illustration: CHART IV--THE WINTER EVENING SKY]

To me Sirius will always remain associated with the memory of Christmas
sleigh-bells and the thrilling creak of runners on crisp, hard snow,
for it was during a drive home from a “Christmas-tree” in a country
church that I first made the acquaintance of that imperial star. It
seemed to me more brilliantly beautiful than any of the dazzling
gifts that had hung so magically on the illuminated tree. Its splendor
is unearthly, putting diamonds and sapphires to shame. How people can
live and be happy without ever gazing at such an object surpasses the
understanding of any one who has once beheld and yielded to its charm.
The splendors of Aladdin’s Cave are for children, and fade in the light
of advancing life, but these glories of the universe are for men and
women, and grow brighter with the years.

The renown of Sirius is as ancient as the human race. There has never
been a time or a people in which or by whom it was not worshipped,
reverenced, and admired. To the builders of the Egyptian temples and
pyramids it was an object as familiar as the sun itself. Its name is
usually regarded as being derived from the Greek Σείριος, the “Bright
or Shining One,” but it is also thought that it may be connected with
Osiris. The familiar title of the “Dog Star” comes from its association
with the _dies caniculariæ_ of the Romans.

“As the movable Egyptian year,” says George Cornewell Lewis, “was held
to have originally begun at the heliacal rising of the Dog Star, which
was contemporary with the ordinary commencement of the inundation of
the Nile, this period was, by late writers, entitled the Canicular, or
Sothiac, period, Sothis being the Egyptian name for the Dog Star.”

Norman Lockyer identifies Sirius with the goddess Isis, or Hathor, who
was personified by that star, and the temple of Isis at Dendera was,
he avers, built to watch it. “It has been pointed out, times without
number,” he adds, “that the inscriptions indicate that by far the most
important astronomical event in Egyptian history was the rising of the
star Sirius at this precise time.”

Sirius has sometimes been identified with the “Mazzaroth” of the Book
of Job.

The great star is worthy of all its fame, not only by its magnificent
beauty, but by the revelations which modern science has afforded us
concerning it. While not comparable in actual luminosity with Rigel,
Canopus, or even Arcturus, it immensely outshines the best of them to
our eyes because of its relative nearness. Its distance is only about
50,000,000,000,000 miles (parallax 0″.37), so that it is really one of
the nearest stars in the sky. Light requires about nine years to come
to us from Sirius. Outshining the sun at least thirty times, it is so
bright, even at that distance, that a special rank has been given to
it in stellar photometry. Formerly all very bright stars were ranked
as of the first magnitude, but greater exactness is now employed, the
naked-eye stars being divided among eight magnitudes, running from
6 up to -1. Thus the faintest star visible to the naked eye is of
magnitude 6; a star 2.51 times brighter is of magnitude 5; a star 2.51
times brighter than that is of magnitude 4, and so on up to magnitude
1. A star 2.51 times brighter than magnitude 1 is of magnitude 0; and
one 2.51 times brighter than the 0 magnitude is of magnitude -1, a
degree of brilliance which is attained by Sirius alone. In fact, Sirius
exceeds magnitude -1, its real rank being -1.6. On the same scale the
magnitude of the sun would be -26.3. The standard first magnitude s
usually taken as being represented by the star Altair, although that
star is not _exactly_ of that magnitude. As a ready rule it may be
said that each magnitude is two and a half times brighter than the
next below it, and a difference of six magnitudes corresponds to an
increase of one hundred times in brilliance. Sirius is about ten times
as bright as Altair. While, if _seen from the same distance_, Sirius
would appear at least thirty times as bright as the sun, at our actual
distance from both the light received from the sun is to that received
from Sirius in the ratio of about 7,000,000,000 to 1. While by no means
the largest sun in the universe, Sirius is the largest sun in our part
of space, and some indications have been detected that it may, to a
certain extent, control the motion of the solar system. In other words,
our sun and some of the nearer stars appear to form a group, or family,
of which Sirius is probably the chief.

Sirius is an intensely white star, but its whiteness is shot with a
tint of blue or green. It has not the purity of light of Spica. Owing
also to its great brilliance, it twinkles incessantly, darting, in
an unsteady atmosphere, rays of all the colors of the rainbow. The
spectroscope shows that it is a sun at an earlier stage of development
than ours. It is also a binary. A very massive companion, singularly
faint for its size, revolves round it in a period of about fifty-three
years. At present the distance between these stars is more than 6″. The
small star is more than half as massive as Sirius, but ten thousand
times less brilliant--one would say a dying sun linked by gravitation
with another in the heyday of its life and splendor.

The constellation Canis Major, of which Sirius is the leader, is very
striking in outline when well above the horizon. Some six degrees west
of Sirius is seen the second star of the constellation, Beta (β), or
Murzim (Arabic _Al Murzim_, the “Announcer”), a name which Ideler says
originated in the fact that this star rises ahead of Sirius, and thus
appears to announce its coming. The remainder of the constellation
should be viewed an hour or two later than that for which Chart IV is
drawn, or a month later in the season, when it is farther from the
horizon. It represents the hind-quarters of the imaginary dog. The
star Epsilon (ε), or Adhara, perhaps the brightest in the group, is a
double; colors orange and violet; distance 7″.5. The smaller star is
of only the ninth magnitude. Delta (δ) is called Wezen, the “Weight,”
because “the star seems to rise with difficulty from the horizon,” an
excellent instance of the fanciful titles which the Arabs and others
often gave to stars. Zeta (ζ) is Furud, and Eta (η) Aludra. The meaning
of these names is uncertain. Allen says that the Arabs called Epsilon,
Delta, Eta, and Omicron (ο) “The Virgins.” But they had other names for
them suggested by fancied resemblances as they rose sparkling from the
desert.

From Canis Major the eye rises to Orion, the most glorious of all
constellations:

  “Whoso kens not him in cloudless night
  Gleaming aloft, shall cast his eyes in vain
  To find a brighter sign in all the heaven.”

Brown, in his _Primitive Constellations_, undertakes to derive the
name from the Akkadian Uru-anna, the “Light of Heaven.” Whatever its
origin, it is certainly very ancient. For some thousands of years
it has been associated with a traditional giant who looms in the
background of Greek mythology. In the classical atlases of the heavens
Orion is represented as standing in an attitude of defiance, facing
westward, brandishing a huge club above his head, and lifting his
left arm, covered with a lion’s hide, to meet the charge of Taurus,
the “Bull.” And under some such guise all mankind has seen him for
untold ages--always a gigantic figure, always heroic in character,
always defying or pursuing--the symbol of strength, courage, conquest,
and victory. The same idea underlies every representation of this
constellation; whether it be the mythical “Giant” of the East, or
“Nimrod” or “Joshua” or the “Armed King” or the “Warrior” or the
“Hunter,” it is invariably the figure of a doer of great deeds which is
presented to the imagination. And it must be said that the aspect of
the constellation is in accord with such thoughts. No one can look at
it without a stirring of the blood. It has something of the effect of a
great battle-piece, and it is not surprising that they once endeavored
in France to connect it with the name of Napoleon. Although its two
chief stars are separated some eighteen degrees, and the central “Belt”
forms a striking figure by itself, yet there is an unmistakable unity
about the constellation, and one would hardly think of dividing it into
separate groups. Singularly enough, this sense of oneness is borne out
by the photographic discovery that a vast swirl of nebulous matter
surrounds the entire constellation, and by the spectroscopic proof that
nearly all of its stars belong to one type, which has become known as
the “Orion type.”

Perhaps the first feature of Orion that strikes the eye is the
arrangement of the three nearly equal bright stars which form the Belt.
Their Greek-letter names are Delta, Epsilon, and Zeta, and by these
they are usually designated, but there is a great charm in their Arabic
titles, which, in the same order, are _Mintaka_, “Belt”; _Alnilam_
(from “String of Pearls”); and _Alnitah_, “Girdle.” It will be observed
that all of these names have a similar signification, and probably each
of them was originally employed to designate the whole row.[2]

The Belt is remarkable in another way--it points very nearly toward
Sirius; it is like a glittering signboard indicating the position of
the brightest star in the sky. To hasty observation the row seems to be
perfectly straight, although there is in reality a slight bend, and the
distances separating the three stars appear to be exactly equal. The
effect is as beautiful as it is surprising.

Below the Belt hangs a fainter row of stars constituting the “Sword.”
The central star of this row, Theta (θ), arrests the attention at once
by a curious appearance of nebulosity, especially if it is examined
with an opera-glass. A telescope shows it to be enveloped in one of the
grandest nebulæ in the sky, the celebrated “Great Nebula of Orion.”
With a large glass its appearance is astonishing in the highest degree.
Instead of being elongated like the great nebula in Andromeda, it is
about as broad as long, with no single centre of condensation, but many
curdled accumulations, interspersed with partial gaps, and a great
variety of curved lines of brighter nebulosity, suggesting the misty
skeleton of some nondescript monster impact of phosphorescent clouds.
A large number of stars are scattered over or through it, and some of
them seem clearly to be connected with it, as if created out of its
substance. Unlike the Andromeda nebula, this shows only the spectrum of
glowing gas, so that no such supposition as has been made in the other
case--_viz._, that it may be an outside universe--is admissible here.
It is rather a chaos, rich with the elements from whose combinations
spring suns and planets, and where the effects of organizing forces are
just beginning to become manifest. It resembles a vast everglade filled
with tangled vegetation and uncouth growths, but where the fertile
soil, once cleared and drained, is capable of producing an enormous
harvest.

On either side of the Belt, but far removed from it, shine the two
great stars of Orion, Alpha (α), or Betelgeuse (from an Arabic phrase
meaning the “Armpit of the Central One”), and Beta (β), or Rigel (from
an Arabic phrase meaning the “Leg of the Giant”). These stars differ
remarkably in color, Betelgeuse being orange-hued, and Rigel white.
Although Betelgeuse takes precedence in the Greek-letter ranking, it is
variable in brightness, sometimes exceeding Rigel in brilliance, and
sometimes falling below it. The changes are uncertain in a long and as
yet unascertained period. There is here an opportunity for an amateur
to make valuable observations. But such observations must be continued
over a considerable period of years.

Both stars are of immense actual magnitude. Their distance is so great
that no trustworthy estimate of their parallax has yet been made.
Rigel was put by Newcomb in his “XM” class, to which we have several
times referred. It is without doubt one of the mightiest suns in the
universe. It is also a double, and one of the finest in the sky.
Close to its flaming rays the telescope reveals a small, intensely
blue star. The distance is about 9″.5. In its general aspect Rigel
resembles Vega, but the latter has a more decided blue tint. Scientific
photometry gives the precedence in brightness to Vega, which is ranked
as of magnitude 0.1, while Rigel is 0.3, which means that the first is
one-tenth, and the second three-tenths of a magnitude below the 0 rank.
It is very interesting to bring Rigel and Betelgeuse close together
with a good sextant and then note the difference in their color.

The star Gamma (γ), or Bellatrix, the “Amazon” or “Female Warrior,”
marks the left shoulder of the imaginary giant. Astrological
superstition connects this star with the fortunes of women. Kappa (κ),
or Saiph, “Sword” (although it is far from the Sword), is in the right
knee of the figure. The head is marked by a little triangular group
of stars, the chief of which is Lambda (λ), a fine double, yellow and
purplish; distance 4″.5. The “lion’s hide” which Orion is represented
as carrying on his left arm like a shield is shown by a bending row
of small stars, beginning with Pi (π) and running upward between
Bellatrix and Aldebaran in Taurus. The reader who is not provided
with a telescope is advised, at least, to employ an opera-glass in
sweeping over the whole space included in Orion. It is a region
superb in its beauty and grandeur. Around the Belt, particularly, the
sky is filled with sparkling multitudes infinitely varied in size,
color, and grouping. As already said, this part of the firmament
contains an enormous spiral nebula, which, although it can only be
seen in photographs, seems to manifest its presence to the eye by
the significant arrangement of small stars in curving lines. A word
should be added about the star Zeta, or Alnitah, at the southeastern
end of the Belt. It is a triple, very remarkable for the indescribable
color of its second largest component. The Russian astronomer Struve
could find nothing exactly resembling it in tone in the whole gamut
of spectral colors, and he invented a special name to describe
it--_olivacea-sub-rubicunda_, which may be translated “ruddy-olive.” It
is 2″.5 from its larger companion. The third star is very faint, and
distant 56″. When the telescope is directed to the star Sigma (σ) there
comes into view an astonishing double group of stars, among which such
colors as pale blue, “grape-red,” ruddy, and “gray” have been detected.
The effect upon the mind of seeing such combinations of tinted suns
transcends all power of description. With the feeling of pleasure that
they give goes a sense of staggering wonder.

West of Orion, beginning near Rigel, is seen the constellation
Eridanus, the River Po. Its stars are interesting for their plainly
streaming tendency rather than for their individual peculiarities.
Rising slightly from the neighborhood of Rigel, the stream runs in a
graceful curve under Taurus, and continues westward until it meets
Cetus, where it turns downward toward the horizon, and then sweeps back
eastward again, disappearing behind the southern horizon below Orion
and Lepus. It has no large star visible in northern latitudes, but in
the southern hemisphere it contains one of the brightest stars in the
sky, Achernar, the “End of the River.” All of the ancients saw a river
in this part of the sky, a fact which does not surprise the observer
when he has once noted the arrangement of the stars of Eridanus. Its
stars are so numerous that the old uranographers seem to have grown
weary of attaching letters to them; or rather, perhaps, the alphabet
was too short to answer the demand, for no less than nine of them,
beginning from the one thus lettered in Chart V, are called Tau (τ), as
τ¹, τ², τ³, etc. (For the origin of the association of Eridanus with
the River Po, and with the story of Phaeton, see _Astronomy with the
Naked Eye_).

The constellation Lepus, the Hare, below Orion, and marking the place
where Eridanus turns finally to flow into the far south, is noteworthy
only for its groupings of stars. It contains one star too faint to be
seen with the naked eye near the western border of the constellation,
below and to the right of the little group under Rigel, in Chart V,
which is so intensely crimson that Hind likened its appearance to a
_blood drop_.

We turn next to Taurus. On account of the beauty of Aldebaran and
the Pleiades, this constellation hardly falls behind Orion in
attractiveness. Aldebaran (Arabic _Al Dabaran_, the “Follower”) is the
chief star of the constellation and the leader of the group called
the Hyades, a name which Lewis derives from the Greek word ὕειυ, to
rain, because their rising was connected with the beginning of the
rainy season. Popularly the group is known as the “Letter A,” whose
form it imitates, although it is usually seen nearly upside down.
The letter V would perhaps better represent our view of it. It is a
glorious sight with an opera-glass. Aldebaran is distinctly red, but
of a peculiar tone, which has frequently been called rose-red. Its
redness is certainly unlike the orange tone of Betelgeuse. When gazing
at it in a fanciful mood, I have often likened it imaginatively to
an apple-blossom in color. Flammarion has translated the Hebrew name
of this star, _Aleph_, as “God’s Eye.” Taurus, he says, is the most
ancient of the signs of the zodiac, the first that the Precession
of the Equinoxes placed at the head of the signs, and he adds that
observational astronomy appears to have been founded at the epoch
when the Vernal Equinox lay close to Aldebaran--_i. e._, about three
thousand years before the commencement of our era.

The beauty of Aldebaran, the singularity of the figure shaped by its
attendants, the charming effect produced by the flocks of little
stars, the Deltas and the Thetas, in the middle of the arms of the
letter, and the richness of the stellar groundwork of the cluster, all
combine to make the Hyades one of the most memorable objects in the
sky; but no one can describe it, because the starry heavens cannot be
put into words. Terrestrial analogies, and phrases applied to things
seen on the earth, utterly fail to convey the impressions made by such
spectacles. I can only again urge the reader to examine the Hyades
with a good opera-glass on a clear night when there is no moonlight to
interfere. Some one once said, “If you would test your appreciation of
poetry, read Milton’s _Lycidas_”; so I would say, If you would know
how you are affected by nature’s masterpieces in the sky, look at the
Hyades.

The stars Theta (θ) and Sigma (σ) are both naked-eye doubles for sharp
eyes. Try if you can see both of the pairs.

The Hyades represent the head of the imaginary bull, Aldebaran
standing for the eye, while rows of stars running up toward Zeta (ζ)
and Beta (β) figure the “golden horns.” The Pleiades, the “Atlantid
Nymphs,” hang on the shoulder. They form a much more compact group
than the Hyades, and possess no large star, their chief brilliant,
Alcyone--Eta(η)--being only of the third magnitude. But the effect of
their combination is very striking and beautiful. In looking at them
one can never refrain from quoting Tennyson’s famous lines in which
they are described as glittering “like a swarm of fireflies tangled
in a silver braid.” The adjective silvery exactly describes them. If
you happen to glance at the sky at a point many degrees away from the
place where they shine, your eye will inevitably be drawn to them.
They have greater attractive power than a single large star, and the
effect of their intermingled rays is truly fascinating. With an
opera-glass they look like the glimmering candles on a Christmas-tree.
Their mythological history and the many strange traditions pertaining
to them I have described elsewhere, and shall not repeat here; but it
should be said that there is not in all the sky any object comparable
with the Pleiades in influence over the human imagination. The fancy
of Maedler that Alcyone was the central sun of the universe, and the
inference, so popular at one time, that it might be the very seat of
the Almighty, have vanished in the limbo of baseless traditions; but
the mystic charm of the Pleiades has been increased by the photographic
discovery that they are involved in a wonderful mass of tangled nebulæ.
Their distance is unknown, but evidently very great, some having put it
at 250 light-years, corresponding to about 1,450,000,000,000,000 miles!
If this is correct, Alcyone may be really one of the most gigantic suns
in the universe. They appear to be travelling together like a flock of
birds.

It is always an interesting question how many stars in the cluster
can be seen with the naked eye. Many persons can detect only six, but
better, or more trained, eyes see seven, or even nine. The telescope
and photography reveal thousands thickly sprinkled over the space of
sky that they occupy, or immediately around them. How many of these
are actually connected with the group is unknown. One of the most
persistent legends of antiquity is that of the “Lost Pleiad.” Says Miss
Clerke, in her _System of the Stars_:

 “That they ‘were seven who now are six’ is asserted by almost all
 the nations of the earth from Japan to Nigritia, and variants of the
 classical story of the ‘Lost Pleiad’ are still repeated by sable
 legend-mongers in Victoria, by headhunters in Borneo, by fetish
 worshippers amid the mangrove swamps of the Gold Coast. An impression
 thus widely diffused must either have spread from a common source or
 originated in an obvious fact; and it is at least possible that the
 veiled face of the seventh Atlantid may typify a real loss of light in
 a prehistorically conspicuous star.”

The name Pleiades is derived from the Greek πλεἵν, to sail, because
their heliacal rising occurred at the time when navigation opened in
the seas of Greece, and their heliacal setting at the time of its close.

  “... Rude winter comes
  Just when the Pleiades begin to set.”

But their religious significance seems always to have exceeded their
practical importance as a sign of the seasons, and from the temples
on the Acropolis of Athens to the sanctuaries of Mexico, Yucatan, and
Peru they were regarded with reverence and awe. Modern popular fancies
have been less reverential, and Alcyone and her attendants have been
degraded to the figure of a “hen and her chickens.” Our red-skinned
predecessors on this continent were more poetical, for they saw in the
Pleiades a group of lost children, and in old China they were starry
sisters busy with their needlework.

High overhead, above Orion and Taurus, gleams Capella, the chief star
of the constellation Auriga, the “Charioteer.” This is also a white
star, but no correct eye would confuse it with Rigel or Vega. It has
none of the sapphire tint that is mingled in their rays, but is rather
of the whiteness of cream. It is a very great star, not only in its
apparent brilliance, but in actual luminosity. With a parallax of
0″.09, Newcomb calculated its luminosity at one hundred and twenty
times that of the sun. It is a spectroscopic binary, the invisible
companion revolving round it in a period of one hundred and four days.
In spectroscopic character it closely resembles the sun, being in the
same stage of development. Vogel’s observations indicate that it is
flying away from us at a speed of more than a million and a quarter
miles per day; but, in contradiction to this, some have thought that it
is increasing in brightness. A little elongated triangle of stars below
and somewhat to the west of Capella serves to render its recognition
certain to the beginner in star-gazing. In the evenings of early
November, when one is in the northeast and the other in the northwest,
it is interesting to compare Capella with Vega, both in brightness and
in color. In late January evenings Capella is near the zenith for the
middle latitudes of the United States, and at such times is a superb
object. The Milky Way pouring through Auriga increases the beauty of
the spectacle.

The second star of Auriga, Beta (β), or _Menkalina_, the “Shoulder,” is
also a spectroscopic binary with a period of only four days. It was the
first binary of this class to be discovered. In 1889 Pickering found
that its spectral lines were doubled every two days, from which he
inferred the duplicate character of the star and calculated the period
of revolution of its components.

Farther east we see Gemini, the “Twins.” It is a very beautiful
constellation, independently of the brightness of its leaders, Castor
and Pollux, or Alpha (α) and Beta (β). The feet of the imaginary twins
are dipped in the Milky Way nearly above the uplifted club of the giant
Orion, and close to the summer solstice. The successive belts of stars
crossing the figures of the Twins present an attractive appearance.
Castor, although the literal leader of the constellation, is not now
as bright as its neighbor, Pollux. A change of brightness must have
taken place. Castor is a celebrated binary with a period of about one
thousand years. The distance between the two stars composing it is
about 5″.5, and, both being bright, they can be separated with small
telescopes.

Pollux is very near the standard first magnitude in brightness. It has
a slightly orange tint in contrast with the whiteness of Castor. Like
Orion, Taurus, and Auriga, Gemini offers splendid fields of stars for
the opera-glass. A cluster, M35, not far above the place of the summer
solstice, is an object of rare beauty when seen with a low telescopic
power.

South of Gemini shines the bright star Procyon in Canis Minor, the
Lesser Dog. This star, whose name implies the “Preceder, or Announcer,
of the Dog,” because it rises a little ahead of Sirius, is the only
bright star of its constellation. It is interesting for having a dusky
companion whose existence was detected by the effects of its attraction
before any telescope had revealed it. With this companion Procyon forms
a binary system with a period of revolution of about forty years. The
star Beta (β) is named Gomeisa, from an Arabic word meaning the “Dim
One.” Procyon, Sirius, and Betelgeuse form a magnificent triangle,
through which flows the Milky Way.

We now return to the western part of the sky, where we see, beyond
Eridanus, the vast expanse covered by the constellation Cetus, the
“Whale.” The head lies on and over the equator above the western bend
of Eridanus. It is marked by a striking group of stars, of which Alpha
(α), or Menkar, the “Nose,” is the chief. The star Gamma (γ) is a fine
double; colors yellow and blue; distance 2″.5. Below and toward the
west will be found Omicron (ο), better known by its popular title of
Mira, the “Wonderful.” In some respects this is the most extraordinary
of all variable stars. It excited great astonishment when its
variations were first recorded in the seventeenth century. Most of the
time it is entirely invisible to the naked eye; but once in about ten
months it begins to brighten, and in a few weeks becomes conspicuous,
sometimes equalling the second magnitude in brightness. Then it
fades again, and in about three months disappears from naked-eye
vision, although it is never lost to the telescope, which follows it
down to the ninth magnitude, at which it remains, glowing redly, for
several successive months. Its variations are more or less irregular
both in period and in brightness. The causes are only conjectural.
About all that we can say is that here is a sun which once every ten
months blazes up to a thousand or fifteen hundred times its ordinary
brilliancy. The imagination can work its will with such a star as that.

The western part of Cetus is marked by a striking group of stars shaped
something like the bowl of an upturned dipper and by a lone, bright
star still farther west, Beta (β), or Deneb Kaitos, the “Tail of the
Whale.”

Above Cetus runs the long line of stars composing the constellation
Pisces, now the leader of the zodiac, since it contains the Vernal
Equinox. Alpha (α), or Al Rischa, the “Cord,” because it marks the
ribbon imagined to bind two fishes together by their tails, is directly
under the stars marking the head of Aries, to which we have already
referred. It is a double of very singular colors--green and blue. The
distance is about 3″.6. From Al Rischa the stars of the constellation
stream northward to the figure of the Northern Fish, whose nose touches
Andromeda, and westward to the Western Fish, which is situated under
the Great Square of Pegasus. The extraordinary tendency of the stars of
Pisces to run in streaming lines has been spoken of in Chapter III.

The other stars and constellations now visible are already familiar to
us. But we turn again for a moment to Polaris, which, being practically
fixed in the sky, can be seen at any season. I have referred to the
fact that this star for a long series of centuries has been a universal
guide to all the inhabitants of the northern hemisphere. In that
character its history is no less romantic than practically important.
One of the deepest impressions of my childhood was produced by an
acquaintance with a remarkable man who at that time seemed to me to be
a most wonderful traveller, since he had seen the Gulf of Mexico, the
Everglades of Florida, the Dismal Swamp of Virginia, and, according to
his story (which no boy would doubt), had battled with alligators and
tasted the delights of vagabond life on the great cotton plantations
of the South. I think he was the first who ever pointed out the North
Star to me, and he fired my imagination by tales of its connection
with the escape of negro slaves--escapes in which he professed to have
played a part. Many long winter evenings he sat by my father’s fireside
and fascinated his hearers with narratives of his adventures. But
nothing interested me more than what he said of the slaves following
the lead of the North Star, through the darkness of tangled swamps,
among deadly moccasins and lurking alligators, always fixing their eyes
upon “the star,” falling on their knees to it as their only friend and
guide. Trembling at the bay of pursuing bloodhounds, they would lie in
concealment during the daylight hours, and as soon as night came on
would look for their celestial sentinel, and follow unquestioningly its
indication of the way to freedom. However apocryphal these stories may
have been, they certainly had a basis of truth, and the impressions
then produced upon my mind concerning the character of Polaris as the
sure friend of those who are lost and in trouble have remained undimmed
in my memory. What a triumph will be that of the man who first visits
the north pole by night, and sees that star gleaming directly over his
head, while all the constellations solemnly circle about it, unresting
and unsetting!


FOOTNOTES:

[2] It should be said that throughout this book I am indebted for
many of the translations of star names to Richard Hinckley Allen’s
_Star Names and Their Meanings_, the most complete work of its kind in
existence.



V

THE PLANETS


The beginner will often be troubled in his observations by the presence
in some constellation of a brilliant object which outshines all of the
stars shown in his charts, and is plainly an interloper among them. He
may at once set the stranger down for one of the planets--it may be
Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, or Venus, or possibly, if close to the horizon,
Mercury. Uranus and Neptune will not disturb his equanimity, for the
latter is never, and the former seldom, visible to the naked eye.

Practice will quickly enable him to distinguish a planet from the true
stars, both by its greater apparent size and by the quality of its
light. The planets do not twinkle as do the stars. This arises from the
fact that they present measurable disks which reflect the sunlight,
but do not shine with a light of their own. No star shows a real disk,
even when viewed with a powerful telescope. The stars are mere points,
and the larger and better the telescope the smaller they appear. This
is not to say that they do not look brighter in a telescope, for the
larger stars are dazzling when viewed with a glass of large aperture;
but they are so distant that the mightiest of telescopes cannot reveal
their real surfaces in the form of disks. The apparent disks which they
present are due entirely to irradiation, and the higher the power the
smaller these spurious disks appear.

Another way in which the beginner may identify a planet is by observing
its motion. No planet remains long in the same position with regard
to neighboring stars. They all travel, at varying rates, from west to
east through the sky. But this motion is not constant, and at times it
is reversed. In the cases of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn the reversal is
due to the fact that when they are in opposition to the sun the earth,
being nearer the sun than they are, outfoots them in eastward motion,
so that they appear for a time to move backward on their orbits. It
is like a fast train passing a slow one on a parallel track; to an
observer on the fast train the slow one seems to be either standing
still or moving backward. But Mercury and Venus, being nearer the sun
than the earth is, have at times a backward motion which is real.
Let us consider them only when they appear as “evening stars.” From
“superior conjunction” (_i. e._, the point occupied by the planet when
it is on the opposite side of the sun from the earth) to “greatest
eastern elongation” (greatest apparent distance from the sun in the
evening sky) both Mercury and Venus move eastward among the stars; from
“greatest eastern elongation” to “inferior conjunction” (_i. e._, the
point occupied by the planet when it is between the earth and the sun)
they move westward among the stars, or, in other words, approach the
sun.

The motions of Mercury and Venus are comparatively swift, particularly
that of the former. Few persons have ever seen Mercury, because of
its nearness to the sun. When well seen it is brighter than any
first-magnitude star. As an “evening star” it appears in the west
immediately after sunset about once every four months (more precisely
once every 116 days). It remains within view about twenty days, but
can be easily distinguished only for a week or so when it is nearest
eastern elongation. Every almanac gives the dates of its appearances.

Venus, being farther from the sun, travels less rapidly. It reappears
in the evening sky once in every 584 days, gradually withdrawing
from the sun, and growing brighter until it reaches greatest eastern
elongation, which may be as much as forty-seven degrees from the
sun, after which it approaches the sun, still becoming brighter for
several weeks, until at last it is lost in the glare of the sunlight.
During its excursions in the evening sky (and the same is true of its
morning apparitions), Venus becomes the most brilliant object in the
starry heavens, so brilliant, in fact, that many persons can hardly be
persuaded that it is not an artificial light, or some extraordinary
phenomenon in space. In the telescope it shows (as does Mercury,
also) phases like those of the moon, and when it is seen in the form
of a narrow crescent it becomes one of the most charming objects
imaginable. For more details about Mercury, Venus, and the other
planets, the reader may consult _Astronomy with the Naked Eye_.

Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are more likely to cause confusion to the
beginner by getting “mixed up” with the stars of the constellations
he is studying, because they travel all round the sky, and may appear
in turn in each of the zodiacal constellations at any hour of the
night. The zodiacal constellations are twelve in number--Aries, Taurus,
Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricornus,
Aquarius, and Pisces--and they lie in succession along the course of
the ecliptic.

Mars is not remarkably brilliant except when it is in opposition to the
sun, which happens once every 780 days; but some of the oppositions
are much more important than the average, because they occur when Mars
is relatively near the earth. This planet is always distinguishable by
its ruddy color. In case it is mistaken for a star, the error can be
corrected by watching it for a few successive nights, when its motion
will become clearly apparent. On the average it moves eastward about
half a degree per day.

Jupiter, always very conspicuous when in view, outshines even Sirius,
though lacking the scintillation characteristic of that great star.
Its light has a slightly yellowish tint, and is remarkably steady.
Since it requires nearly twelve years to make a revolution round the
sky, Jupiter’s motion is not immediately apparent. It remains for a
long time in any constellation in which it may be found, travelling
eastward, on the average, about 5′ of arc, or one-sixth of the apparent
diameter of the moon, per day. In a month it moves about two and a half
degrees.

Saturn is yet more deliberate in its movements. Requiring almost thirty
years for a revolution, it may remain more than two years in the same
constellation, and its real motion will only become evident upon
careful observation continued for several weeks.

The best way to recognize the planets with certainty is to look up
their positions with the aid of the _American Ephemeris and Nautical
Almanac_, published annually by the Government at Washington. There
the right ascensions and declinations of all the planets are given for
any time of the year. Having these, you may find on the large-scale
charts the approximate place of the planet sought, and, if you choose,
indicate its position with a pencil-mark.

The study of the planets, even without telescopic aid, has a charm
hardly less potent than that of the stars. Mercury is fascinating
because of the difficulty of seeing him in the light of twilight or
dawn. The ancients were greatly puzzled by his dodges, and some of them
thought that he was a double personality, and gave him two names, one
for his morning and the other for his evening apparitions. With the
Egyptians he was respectively Set and Horus, and with the Greeks Apollo
and Hermes. The same was true of Venus, who was Phosphorus in the
morning and Hesperus in the evening.

Venus, after she passes the half-moon phase, becomes so bright that she
simply overpowers all stars in her neighborhood. Her splendor seems
almost supernatural, and she has frequently been seen at high noon, a
point of intense light burning in the blue sky.

Jupiter’s entrance into any constellation immediately alters its
familiar aspect, and he becomes its unquestioned leader, and remains
such until his slow eastward motion carries him on to reign in another
quarter of the firmament. He is never more impressive than when, in
consequence of the annual revolution of the heavens, he rises late some
night and takes the lingering star-gazer by surprise. Then all the
stellar hosts that for hours have held the watcher spellbound cease
their incantation in the presence of this great counter-charmer, to
whose power they, too, seem to bow. Although Venus at her brightest
outshines Jupiter, she lacks a certain majesty which he alone
possesses. His light is calm, steady, insistent, commanding. He does
not look like a star, but rather a _superstar_. If he beams at all, it
is not the hurried scintillation of the twinkling multitude around him.
Rising through a moisture-laden and wind-swept sky, where the stars are
like pulsating atoms, shaken apart and scattered in tinsel showers of
rainbow sparks, he glows unflickering, recognizing the aerial tumult
only by a deepening of color which makes him the more imposing. As
he mounts the heights of the sky he gleams ever brighter and ever
steadier, and, casting off the tarnish of the horizon, his supereminent
light glows with a splendor that is amazing. If you have an eye that
can detect one or two of Jupiter’s moons hiding close in his rays, you
may boast of your powers of vision, for that feat has been accomplished
by very few human beings. Humboldt heard of a German “master tailor”
who could do it. There are a few other cases on record. Most persons
cannot see them even with the aid of a strong opera-glass. There is a
superstition that they can be seen with a looking-glass, but it is only
ghostly reflections that are thus perceived--perhaps as real as any
other ghosts.

Saturn, although as bright as a first-magnitude star, is somewhat
disappointing as a naked-eye object, owing to the relative dulness
of its light. Like Jupiter, it shines with great steadiness, and a
practised eye could not mistake it for a fixed star. But its appearance
without a telescope gives no hint of the unearthly beauty with which
it astonishes the beholder when its rings are rendered visible. Not to
have seen those rings at least once in a lifetime, as they appear in a
powerful telescope, is to have missed one of the supreme spectacles of
creation.

Mars is never very brilliant except during favorable oppositions, when,
approaching within less than 40,000,000 miles of the earth, it hangs in
the midnight sky, gleaming red like a portent of disaster. The aspect
of Mars at such times is truly alarming. It is surprising to see what a
quantity of stained sunlight a world only about four thousand miles in
diameter is able to reflect across so vast a gap of space. The reason
why the ancients connected Mars with the god of war is plain enough
when he puts on his color.

Close conjunctions of the bright planets are exceedingly interesting
phenomena. Mars and Jupiter seen together when the former is near one
of its favorable oppositions make a scene of strange beauty. After long
intervals of time several of these great planets sometimes assemble
in the same quarter, and such conjunctions are always memorable
occurrences. The stars are forgotten in the presence of this new
constellation, and yet the tiniest of the sparks that seems to hide its
light in the depths beyond would master these great planets and make
gravitational slaves of them, as the sun does.

The planets are so conspicuous to our eyes, because of their relative
nearness, that it is not easy for the beginner in such studies to
realize how insignificant they actually are. But suppose that one
could fly like a spirit away from the earth and the neighborhood of
the sun, out into the deeps of interstellar space. As he moved away
the planets would seem to be swallowed up, one after the other, in the
solar rays. First Mercury would disappear, as if it had fallen into the
sun. It would be just like two neighboring lights which appear to draw
together and blend into one as the observer travels away from them, the
greater swallowing the less. Then brilliant Venus would go, plunging
into the great solar furnace, to be seen no more. Next the earth would
follow in the perspective holocaust. Mars would seem to draw nearer
until he, too, disappeared; Jupiter would follow; then Saturn; then
Uranus, and finally Neptune. When the last planet was gone the sun
would be seen shining alone, unattended, as if he had never had any
planets. Thus it may be with the stars; most of them may have systems
of planets circling round them, but at our distance these planets are
concealed in the rays of their primaries.

One would not need to go so far away as the stars in order to see
the sun apparently swallow his planets, as Saturn was fabled to have
swallowed his children. But as one approached the stellar region, the
sun itself would become a mere star. Fainter and fainter it appears,
glimmering and twinkling, deprived of its dominance, stripped of its
splendor, a pitiful spark now instead of an all-ruling and blinding
maker of daylight, until at last the far voyager from the earth,
gazing with his soul in his eyes, straining his vision to the utmost
to hold that glinting point clear of its fellows, _for it is his sun_,
suddenly, as a momentary film blurs his sight, loses it, and henceforth
seek as he may among the countless hosts that spangle the firmament,
he will never again find the day-star under whose cheery beams he
was born! Hidden in the Milky Way, one would have no more chance of
recognizing the sun than of finding a particular grain of sand on the
sea-shore. Man physical is as insignificant as the rock he dwells on
and as the eye-searing orb that lights him at his daily work; but man
spiritual is as great as the universe--and greater!



APPENDIX

URANOGRAPHY OR HEAVENLY DESCRIPTION OF THE CHURCHMEN


Many readers may be interested in seeing a list of the names given to
the constellations when, as mentioned in the Introduction, the starry
sky was “Christianized.” In the seventeenth century Julius Schillerius
put forth his _Cœlum Stellatum Christianum_, and Jacobus Bartschius a
celestial globe, in which all of the well-known constellations received
new and strictly orthodox names. Unfortunately the sponsors for these
names did not always agree in their choice, and a certain Harsdorfius
(who may have been the poet Philip Harsdoerfer, born at Nuremberg in
1607) added to the confusion by further varying the selection. Wilhelm
Schickard also introduced variations. In the following list the first
of the “Christian” names given is that chosen by Schillerius, while
their variants are due to either Harsdorfius, Schickard, or Bartschius:

  ARIES--St. Peter--Abraham’s Ram.
  TAURUS--St. Andrew--The Burnt Sacrifice.
  GEMINI--St. James the Elder--Jacob and Esau.
  CANCER--St. John the Evangelist.
  LEO--St. Thomas--The Lion of Judah. (Observe that the variants are
   generally more imaginative.)
  VIRGO--St. James the Younger--The Virgin Mary.
  LIBRA--St. Philip--Belshazzar’s Balances.
  SCORPIO--St. Bartholomew.
  SAGITTARIUS--St. Matthew--Ishmael.
  CAPRICORNUS--St. Simon.
  AQUARIUS--St. Jude--Naaman.
  PISCES--St. Mathias--The Gospel Fishes.
  URSA MINOR--St. Michael--One of Elisha’s Bears--The Wagon of Joseph.
  URSA MAJOR--St. Peter’s Fishing-boat--Elisha’s other Bear--The Chariot
   of Elias.
  DRACO--The Innocents--The Dragon Infernal. (Quite a difference of
   opinion.)
  BOÖTES--St. Sylvester--Nimrod.
  COMA BERENICES--The Scourge of Christ--Absalom’s Hair--Samson’s Hair.
  CORONA BOREALIS--The Crown of Thorns--Queen Esther’s Crown.
  HERCULES--The Three Wise Men of the East--Samson.
  LYRA--The Saviour’s Manger--David’s Harp.
  CYGNUS--The Cross of Calvary.
  CASSIOPEIA--St. Mary Magdalen--Bathsheba.
  CEPHEUS--St. Stephen--Solomon. (Solomon seems a better choice.)
  PERSEUS WITH MEDUSA’S HEAD--David with the Head of Goliath--St. Paul.
  ANDROMEDA--The Holy Sepulchre--Abigail. (The last reverses Andromeda’s
   romance with a vengeance.)
  AURIGA--Jacob--St. Jerome.
  OPHIUCHUS ET SERPENS--St. Benedict--St. Paul and the Viper. (The
   latter very pat.)
  SAGITTA--The Lance of Calvary--Jonathan’s Arrow.
  AQUILA--St. Katharine--The Standard of Rome.
  DELPHINUS--The Canaanitish Woman’s Pitcher--Leviathan.
  EQUULEUS--The Mystic Rose.
  PEGASUS--St. Gabriel--Jeremiah’s King of Babylon.
  TRIANGULUM--St. Peter’s Mitre--Emblem of the Trinity.
  CETUS--Sts. Joachim and Anna--Jonah’s Whale.
  ERIDANUS--The Red Sea with Moses Crossing It--The Brook of Cedron.
  ORION--St. Joseph--Joshua. (The last a good choice.)
  LEPUS--Gideon’s Fleece.
  CANIS MAJOR--Tobias’s Dog--St. David.
  CANIS MINOR--The Paschal Lamb.
  ARGO NAVIS--Noah’s Ark. (Inevitable!)
  HYDRA--The River Jordan.
  CRATER (together with Corvus)--The Ark of the Covenant.
  CORVUS (according to Schickard)--Elias’s Crow.
  CENTAURUS--Abraham and Isaac.
  LUPUS--Jacob.
  ARA--The Altar of Incense.
  CORONA AUSTRALIS--David’s Crown--Solomon’s Crown.
  PISCIS AUSTRINUS--The Widow’s Meal Barrel--St. Peter’s Fish with Money
   in Its Mouth.
  GRUS    }--Aaron.
  PHŒNIX  }
  INDUS }--Job.
  PAVO  }
  APUS          }
  CHAMELEON     }--Eve.
  PISCIS VOLANS }
  TRIANGULUM AUSTRALE--The Cross of Christ. (At that time the Southern
   Cross seems not to have been known.)
  DORADO }
  TOUCAN }--St. Raphael.
  HYDRUS }

The southern constellations, Grus, Phœnix, Indus, Pavo, Apus,
Chameleon, Piscis Volans, Triangulum Australe, Dorado, Toucan, and
Hydrus, were all named by Bayer at the beginning of the seventeenth
century, so that the revisers were not upsetting any antique legends in
giving them more sacred names.


LETTERS OF THE GREEK ALPHABET EMPLOYED IN URANOGRAPHY

  α--Alpha
  β--Beta
  γ--Gamma
  δ--Delta
  ε--Epsilon
  ζ--Zeta
  η--Eta
  θ--Theta
  ι--Iota
  κ--Kappa
  λ--Lambda
  μ--Mu
  ν--Nu
  ξ--Xi
  ο--Omicron
  π--Pi
  ρ--Rho
  σ--Sigma
  τ--Tau
  υ--Upsilon
  φ--Phi
  χ--Chi
  ψ--Psi
  ω--Omega

[Illustration: CHART V--THE FIRST SIX HOURS FROM THE VERNAL EQUINOX]

[Illustration: CHART VI--FROM VI H. TO XII H. FROM THE VERNAL EQUINOX]

[Illustration: CHART VII--FROM XII H. TO XVIII H. FROM THE VERNAL
EQUINOX]

[Illustration: CHART VIII--FROM XVIII H. TO XXIV H. FROM THE VERNAL
EQUINOX]

[Illustration: CHART IX--POLAR CONSTELLATIONS FROM VI H. TO XVIII H.]

[Illustration: CHART X--POLAR CONSTELLATIONS FROM XVIII H. TO VI H.]



PRONUNCIATION OF STAR AND CONSTELLATION NAMES

  Achernar (ä-ké̃r-när)
  Albireo (ăl-bí̄-rē-ō)
  Alcyone (ăl-sí̄-ŏ-nē)
  Aldebaran (ăl-dé̆b-ȧr-ăn)
  Algenib (ăl-ḡén-ib)
  Algenubi (ắl-ḡen-ú̄-bǐ)
  Algieba (ăl-jé̄-bȧ)
  Algol (ăl-gol)
  Algorab (ắl-go-rá̈b)
  Alioth (ắl-ĭ-ŏth)
  Alkalurops (ắl-kā-lú̄-rŏps)
  Alnilam (ắl-nĭ-lá̈m)
  Alnitah (ăl-nĭ-tá̈h)
  Almaack (ắl-mā-ắck)
  Alphacca (ăl-fắk-kȧ)
  Alphard (ăl-fá̈rd)
  Alpheratz (ăl-fé̄-rătz)
  Alrischa (ăl-rĭ-sh́ȧ)
  Alrucaba (ăl-rũ-cá̈-bȧ)
  Altair (ăl-tá̄r or ăl-ẗá̈-ǐr)
  Aludra (á̈-lũ-dr̈á̈)
  Andromeda (ăn-dŕŏm-ē-dȧ)
  Antares (ǎn-tá̄-rēz)
  Antinous (ăn-tí̆n-ŏ̄-ŭs)
  Aquarius (ȧ-kẃā-rĭ-ŭs)
  Aquila (ắk-wĭ-lȧ)
  Arcturus (ärk-t́ũ-rŭs)
  Argo Navis (ār-gō ńā-vǐs)
  Aries (á̄-rēz or á̄-rǐ-ēs)
  Auriga (äw-rí̄-ḡȧ)

  Baten Kaitos (bá̈-tĕn kí̄tŏs)
  Bellatrix (bĕl-lá̄-trĭx)
  Benetnasch (bē-né̆t-născh)
  Betelgeuse (bé̆t-ĕl-ḡooz or bé̆t-ĕl-gēz)
  Boötes (bb̄-ó̄-tēz)

  Camelopardalis (căm-ĕĺ-ō-pă´r-dā-lĭs)
  Canes Venatici (cá̄-nēz vĕn-á̆t-ĭ̆-sī)
  Canis Major (cá̄-nĭs má̄jor)
  Canis Minor (cá̄-nĭs míṅor)
  Canopus (cȧn-ó̄-pus)
  Capella (cā-pé̆l-lȧ)
  Caph (kāff)
  Capricornus (cá̆p-rī-kór-nus)
  Cassiopeia (cá̆s-sĭ-ō-pé̄-yȧ)
  Centaurus (cĕn-táw-rus)
  Cepheus (śē-fē-us or śē-fũs)
  Cetus (śē-tŭs)
  Coma Berenices (có̄mā bēr-ĕ-ní̄-sēs)
  Corona Borealis (có̄-ró̄-nȧ bō-rē-á̄-lis)
  Corvus (côŕ-vus)
  Crater (crá̄-ter)
  Cygnus (sĭǵ̄-nus)

  Delphinus (del-fí̄-nus)
  Deneb (dĕń-eb)
  Denebola (dē-né̆b-ō-lȧ)
  Draco (dŕā-co)
  Dubhe (dũb́-hĕ)

  Eltanin (ĕĺ-tȧ-nĭn)
  Equuleus (ē-kwóo-lē-ŭs)
  Eridanus (ē-rĭd́-ā-nus)

  Fomalhaut (fó̄-măl-hôt)
  Fornax (fôŕ-naks)

  Gemini (jé̆m-ĭ-nī)
  Giedi (jé̄-dĭ)
  Gienah (jé̄-nah)
  Gomelza (gō-mé̆l-zȧ)

  Hamal (há̆m-al)
  Hercules (hé̑r-kũ-lēz)
  Hyades (hí̄-ȧ-dēz)
  Hydra (hí̄-drȧ)

  Lacerta (lȧ-sė̄r-ta)
  Leo (lé̄-ō)
  Lepus (lé̄-pus)
  Libra (lí̄-brȧ)
  Lyra (lí̄-rȧ)

  Maia (má̄-yȧ)
  Marfak (má̇r-făk)
  Markab (má̇r-kăb)
  Megrez (mé̄-grĕz)
  Menkab (mĕn-ká̄b)
  Menkalina (mé̆n-kȧ-lĭ-ná̄h)
  Merope (mé̃r-ō-pē)
  Mesarthim (mē-sār-th́ĭm)
  Mintaka (mĭń-tȧ-kȧ)
  Mira (mí̄-rȧ)
  Mirach (mí̄-rak)
  Mizar (mí̄-zȧr)
  Monoceros (mō-nŏś-ĕr-ŏs)
  Murzim (mú̆r-zĭm)

  Ophiuchus (ó̄-fĭ-ú̄-kus)
  Orion (ō-rí̄-ŏn)

  Pegasus (pĕǵ-ā-sŭs)
  Perseus (pé̃r-sē-ŭs or pé̃r-sũs)
  Pisces (pĭś-sēz)
  Piscis Austrinus (pi̇̆s-sĭs aus-tŕī-nus)
  Pleiades (pĺē-ǎd-ēz or plí̄-ǎd-ēz)
  Polaris (pō-lȧŕ-ĭs)
  Pollux (pó̌l-lux)
  Porrima (pó̆r-rĭ-mȧ)
  Præsepe (prē-sé̄-pē)
  Procyon (prō-sí̄-ǒn)

  Ras Algethi (rȧs ǎĺ-gĕ-th́ǐ)
  Rastaban (rȧs-tà-bāń)
  Regulus (ré̆ḡ-ũ-lǔs)
  Rigel (rí̄-ḡĕl or rí̄-jĕl)

  Sagitta (sȧ-jí̌t-tȧ)
  Sagittarius (sȧ-jǐt-tá̄-rǐ-ǔs)
  Scheat (she-ǎt́)
  Schedar (shěd́-där)
  Scorpio (skór-pǐ-ō)
  Scutum Sobieskii (sḱũ-tǔm sō-bǐ-ěś-kǐ-ī)
  Serpens (sé̃r-pens)
  Sirius (sǐŕ-ǐ-ǔs)
  Spica (spí̄-kȧ)

  Taurus (tāú-rǔs)
  Thuban (thu-bäń)
  Triangulum (trī-ǎń-ġũ-lǔm)

  Ursa Major (ûŕ-sȧ má̄-jor)
  Ursa Minor (ûŕ-sȧ mí̄-nor)

  Vega (vé̄-ḡȧ)
  Vindemiatrix (vǐn-dé̄-mǐ-á̄-trǐx)
  Virgo (vėŕ-go)
  Vulpecula (vǔl-pěḱ-ũ-lȧ)

  Wesen (wá̄-zĕn)

  Zavijava (zȧ-vǐ-já̈-vāh)
  Zubenelgenubi (zũ-bé̆n-ěl-jen-ú̄-bǐ)
  Zubeneschemali (zũ-bé̌n-ěs-she-ḿȧ-lǐ)



INDEX


  “A,” the letter, 108.

  Achernar, 107.

  Adhara, 100.

  Afternoon of the year, 72.

  Albireo, 64.

  Al Chiba, 33.

  Alcor, 41.

  Alcyone, 110.

  Aldebaran, 107 _et seq._

  Alderamin, 91.

  Aleph, 108.

  Alfirk, 92.

  Algedi, 78.

  Algenib, 86.

  Algieba, 36.

  Algol, 86.

  Algorab, 33.

  Al Hiba, 33.

  Alioth, 41.

  Allen, R. H., quoted, 41, 57, 64, 70, 78, 101, 102.

  Almaack, 82.

  Alnilam, 102.

  Alnitah, 102.

  Alpha Andromedæ, 12, 81.
    Aquarii, 77.
    Aquilæ, 65.
    Arietis, 83.
    Aurigæ, 111.
    Boötes, 67.
    Canis Majoris, 94.
    Canis Minoris, 113.
    Capricorni, 78.
    Cassiopeiæ, 88.
    Centauri, 65.
    Cephei, 91.
    Ceti, 114.
    Corvi, 33.
    Cygni, 63.
    Draconis, 45, 48.
    Geminorum, 113.
    Herculis, 59.
    Hydræ, 35.
    Leonis, 35.
    Libræ, 70.
    Lyræ, 48, 61.
    Orionis, 104.
    Pegasi, 81.
    Piscis Austrinus, 75.
    Piscium, 115.
    Scorpii, 54.
    Serpentis, 57.
    Tauri, 107.
    Ursæ Majoris, 40.
    Ursæ Minoris, 46.
    Virginis, 29.

  Alphard, 34.

  Alpheratz, 12, 81.

  Al Rischa, 115.

  Altair, 65.

  Aludra, 100.

  American Ephemeris, 122.

  Andromedæ, 12, 81.

  Antares, 54.

  Antinous, 66.

  Aonian Dragon, 34.

  Aquarius, 77 _et seq._

  Aquila, 65.

  Aratus, quoted, 30.

  Arctophilax, 68.

  Arcturus, 43, 67 _et seq._

  Argonautic Expedition, 34.

  Aries, 83, 84.

  Auriga, 111.

  Autumnal Equinox, 71.


  Barnard, E. E., quoted, 59.

  Beehive, the, 38.

  Bell, Dr. Louis, quoted, 90.

  Bellatrix, 105.

  Belt of Orion, 102, 105.

  Beta Andromedæ, 81.
    Aquarii, 78.
    Arietis, 84.
    Aurigæ, 112.
    Canis Majoris, 100.
    Canis Minoris, 113.
    Capricorni, 78.
    Cassiopeiæ, 88.
    Cephei, 92.
    Ceti, 115.
    Corvi, 33.
    Cygni, 64.
    Geminorum, 113.
    Leonis, 37.
    Libræ, 70.
    Lyræ, 63.
    Orionis, 104.
    Pegasi, 81.
    Scorpii, 55.
    Tauri, 109.
    Ursæ Majoris, 40.
    Ursæ Minoris, 46.
    Virginis, 32.

  Betelgeuse, 104.

  Boötes, 43, 69.


  Cancer, 38.

  Canes Venatici, 42, 69.

  Canis Major, 100.

  Canis Minor, 113.

  Capella, 43, 111.

  Caph, 88.

  Capricornus, 78.

  Carman, Bliss, quoted, 22.

  Cassiopeia, 47, 88.

  Castor, 113.

  Cepheus, 91.

  Cetus, 114.

  Chair, Cassiopeia’s, 87.

  Cheops, pyramid of, 45.

  Christianization of sky, 12.

  Clerke, Agnes M., quoted, 111.

  Coma Berenices, 38.

  Constellations, their uses, 12, 13.

  Cor Caroli, 42.

  Cor Hydræ, 34.

  Corona Borealis, 66.

  Corvus, 32.

  Crater, 33.

  Crete, discoveries in, 62.

  Cupid’s Arrow, 80.

  Cygnus, 63.

  61 Cygni, 64.


  Dabih, 78.

  Dana, R. H., quoted, 77.

  Delphinus, 79.

  Delta Andromedæ, 81.
    Canis Majoris, 100.
    Cassiopeiæ, 47, 88.
    Corvi, 33.
    Orionis, 102.
    Sagittarii, 56.
    Serpentis, 57.
    Ursæ Majoris, 40.
    Virginis, 32.

  Demon star, 86.

  Deneb, 63.

  Deneb Kaitos, 115.

  Denebola, 37 _et seq._

  Dipper in Sagittarius, 56.

  Dippers, the, 29.

  Discipline in the sky, 9.

  Donati’s comet, 69.

  Draco, 44 _et seq._

  Dream of the universe, 91.

  Dubhe, 41.

  Durchmusterungs, 12.


  Eltanin, 46.

  Emerson, R. W., quoted, 22, 53, 61.

  Epsilon Canis Majoris, 100.
    Boötes, 69.
    Lyræ, 63.
    Orionis, 102.
    Pegasi, 81.
    Serpentis, 57.
    Ursæ Majoris, 40.
    Virginis, 32.

  Equator, 13.

  Equinoctial colure, 88.

  Equinoctial storms, 71.

  Equinoxes, 13.

  Eridanus, 106.

  Esculapius, 57.

  Eta Cassiopeiæ, 89.
    Canis Majoris, 100.

  Eta Tauri, 107.

  Expectancy of astronomers, 27.


  Feet of Ursa Major, 42.

  Field of the nebulæ, 32.

  Flammarion, quoted, 108.

  Fomalhaut, 75.

  Furud, 100.


  Galileo, 38.

  Gamma Andromedæ, 82.
    Aquarii, 78.
    Arietis, 84.
    Capricorni, 79.
    Ceti, 114.
    Corvi, 33.
    Draconis, 46.
    Leonis, 36.
    Lyræ, 63.
    Orionis, 105.
    Pegasi, 80.
    Virginis, 32.

  Gardens of the sky, 72.

  Garnet star, 92.

  Gateway of souls, 39.

  Gemini, 113.

  Gemma, 66.

  Gienah, 33.

  “God’s Eye,” 108.

  Gomeisa, 114.

  Great Bear, 40.

  Great Dipper, 40.

  Great Square of Pegasus, 80.

  Great Year, Plato’s, 62.

  Greenwich of the sky, 14.


  Halley’s comet, 65.

  Hamal, 83.

  Hathor, temple of, 46.

  Hercules, 59.

  Hesperus, 123.

  Hexagon of Orion, 28.

  Hole in the sky, 59.

  Horus, 122.

  Hyades, 108.

  Hydra, 34.


  Influence of the stars, 10, 18, 22, 27, 29, 35, 39, 44, 53, 68, 75,
   93, 102, 110, 116.

  Isis, 97.


  Jason, 34.

  Job’s Coffin, 79.

  Job’s Star, 68.

  Jupiter, 121, 123.


  Kappa Cassiopeiæ, 90.
    Orionis, 105.

  Karnak, 46.

  Kochab, 49.


  Laconian Key, 87.

  Lambda Ophiuchi, 57.
    Orionis, 105.

  Language for celestial marvels, 61.

  Learning the stars, ease of, 17;
    best season for, 93.

  Leo, 35.

  Lepus, 107.

  Lewis, G. C., quoted, 25, 97.

  Libra, 70.

  Lockyer, Norman, quoted, 97.

  Longfellow, H. W., quoted, 71.

  Lucky stars, 77, 78.

  Lyra, 61.


  Magellan Clouds, R. H. Dana on, 77.

  Marfik, 58.

  Markab, 81.

  Mars, 121, 124.

  Mazzaroth, 98.

  Medusa, head of, 86.

  Megrez, 41.

  Menkalina, 112.

  Menkar, 114.

  Merak, 41.

  Mercury, 122.

  Meridian, 13.

  Mesarthim, 84.

  Milky Way, 17, 18, 27, 56, 64, 72.

  Mintaka, 102.

  Mira, 114.

  Mirach, 81.

  Mirrors, sky views by, 19.

  Mitchel, Gen. O. M., 55.

  Mizar, 41, 47.

  Morning of the year, 21.

  Moses and the Brazen Serpent, 57.

  Mukdim-al Kitaf, 31.

  Murzim, 100.

  Mut, temple of, 46.

  Mystery in the sky, 58.

  8 M., 56.


  Names of stars and travellers, 76.

  Nautical Almanac, 122.

  Nebulæ, in Andromeda, 82.
    in Canes Venatici, 69.
    in Lyra, 63.
    in Ophiuchus, 58.
    in Orion, 103.
    in Sagittarius, 56.
    in Virgo, 32.

  New star of 1901, 90.

  Northern Cross, 63.

  Northern Crown, 66.

  North star, 46, 116.

  November meteors, 37.

  Nu Scorpii, 55.


  Omicron Ceti, 114.

  Ophiuchus, 57.

  Orion, 101 _et seq._

  Orion group of constellations, 40.


  Pearl, the, 66.

  Pegasus, 80.

  Perseus, 85.

  Phæd, 41.

  Phæton, 84.

  Phosphorus, 123.

  Pi Orionis, 105.

  Pisces, 85, 115.

  Piscis Austrinus, 75.

  Planets, the, 118;
    apparent swallowing by sun, 125.

  Plato, quoted, 39.

  Pleiades, 109 _et seq._

  Pointers, the, 42.

  Polaris, 46, 116.

  Pole-stars, succession of, 48.

  Pollux, 113.

  Porrima, 32.

  Præsepe, 38.

  Precession of equinoxes, 47, 84.

  Procyon, 113 _et seq._

  Pulcherrima, 69.


  Ras Algethi, 59 _et seq._

  Ras Alhague, 57.

  Reflection, sky seen by, 19;
    supposed visibility of Jupiter’s moons by, 124.

  Regulus, 35 _et seq._

  Revelation of the stars, 10.

  Revolution of the pole, 48.

  Revolutions of the heavens, 16.

  Rho Ophiuchi, 58.

  Richter, Jean Paul, quoted, 91.

  Rigel, 104.

  Right Ascension, 13.

  Rising stars, attraction of, 29.

  Royal family of sky, 75.

  Royal stars, 35.

  Ruchbah, 88.


  Sadachbia, 78.

  Sadalmelik, 77.

  Sadalsuud, 78.

  Sagitta, 79.

  Sagittarius, 56.

  St. Paul and the viper, 57.

  Saiph, 105.

  Saturn, 122, 124.

  Scheat, 81.

  Schedar, 88.

  Scorpio, 55.

  Serpens, 57.

  Set, 122.

  Shakespeare, quoted, 49, 80.

  Sheratan, 84.

  Shield of Orion, 105.

  Sickle, the, 37.

  Sigma Tauri, 109.

  Sirius, 94 _et seq._

  Smyth, Admiral, quoted, 32.

  Sobieski’s Shield, 57, 65.

  Solstices, 13.

  Sophocles, quoted, 67.

  Southern Cross, R. H. Dana on, 77.

  Southern Fish, 75.

  Spica, 29 _et seq._

  Star colors, 44, 83, 89, 90.

  Star magnitudes, 98.

  Streaming of stars, 81, 106.

  Struve invents star color, 106.

  Summer Solstice, 50.

  Sword-hand of Perseus, 86.

  Sword of Orion, 103.


  Tent, the, 33.

  Theta Orionis, 103.

  Theta Tauri, 109.

  Three Guides, the, 88.

  Thuban, 45, 48.

  Toorus, 107.

  Tropic of Capricorn, 79;
    of Cancer, 40.

  Tycho’s star, 90.


  Ursa Major, 40.

  Ursa Minor, 46.

  Uru-anna, 101.


  Vega, 43, 61 _et seq._

  Venus, 120, 123.

  Vernal Equinox, 21.

  Vindemiatrix, 31.

  Virgin, origin of name, 30.

  Virgo, 29 _et seq._

  Vulpecula et Anser, 80.


  “W,” the letter, 87.

  Wesen, 100.

  Whirlpool nebula, 69.

  Whitney, Prof., quoted, 78.

  Winter heavens, glories of, 93.

  Winter Solstice, 93.


  “XM” class of stars, 31, 64, 104.

  Xavier de Maistre, quoted, 89.


  Year, various beginnings of, 25 _et seq._


  Zeta Ursæ Majoris, 40.
    Aquarii, 78.
    Canis Majoris, 100.
    Herculis, 60.
    Orionis, 102, 106.

  Zodiac, 84.

  Zubeneschemali, 70.

  Zubenelgenubi, 70.


THE END



Transcriber’s Notes

A few minor errors in punctuation have been fixed.

In the section on pronunciation of star and constellation names,
combining diacritics may display following the letter they modify in
certain fonts.

Page 79: “minimum visibile” changed to “minimum visible”



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