i 9 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



PLEASURES OF THE TELESCOPE. 



By GARRETT P. SERVTSS. 

 V. IN SUMMER STAR-LANDS. 



IN the soft air of a summer night, when fireflies are flashing 

 their lanterns over the fields, the stars do not sparkle and 

 blaze like those that pierce the frosty skies of winter. The light of 

 Sirius, Aldebaran, Rigel, and other midwinter brilliants possesses 

 a certain gemlike hardness and cutting quality, while Antares 

 and Vega, the great summer stars, and Arcturus, when he hangs 

 westering in a July night, exhibit a milder radiance, according 

 with the character of the season. This difference is, of course, 

 atmospheric in origin, although it may be partly subjective, de- 

 pending upon the mental influences of the mutations of Nature. 



The constellation Scorpio is nearly as striking in outline as 

 Orion, and its brightest star, the red Antares (a in map No. 12) r 

 carries concealed in its rays a green jewel which, to the eye of 

 the enthusiast in telescopic recreation, appears more beautiful and 

 inviting each time that he penetrates to its hiding place. 



We shall begin our night's work with this object, and the four- 

 inch glass will serve our purpose, although the untrained observer 

 would be more certain of success with the five-inch. A friend of 

 mine has seen the companion of Antares with a three-inch, but I 

 have never tried the star with so small an aperture. When the 

 air is steady and the companion can be well viewed, there is no 

 finer sight among the double stars. The contrast of colors is 

 beautifully distinct fire-red and bright green. The little green 

 star has been seen emerging from behind the moon, after an 

 occultation, ahead of its ruddy companion. The magnitudes are 

 one and seven and a half or eight ; distance :>", p. 270. Antares 

 is probably a binary, although its binary character has not yet 

 been established. 



A slight turn of the telescope tube brings lis to the star o-, a 

 wide double, the smaller component of which is blue or plum- 

 colored ; magnitudes four and nine, distance 20", p. 272. From o- 

 we pass to /?, a very beautiful object, of which the three-inch 

 gives us a splendid view. Its two components are of magnitudes 

 two and six ; distance 13", p. 30 ; colors, white and bluish. It is 

 interesting to know that the larger star is itself double, although 

 none of the telescopes we are using can split it. Burnham dis- 

 covered that it has a tenth-magnitude companion ; distance less 

 than 1", p. 87. 



And now for a triple, which will probably require the use of 

 our largest glass. Up near the end of the northern prolongation 



