ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS. 193 



ing and starry looking, and the curious radiated structure of 7 M. 

 comes out. 



In looking at such objects we can not too often recall to our minds 

 the significance of what we see that these glimmering specks are the 

 lights in the windows of the universe which carry to us, across incon- 

 ceivable tracts of space, the assurance that we and our little system 

 are not alone in the heavens ; that all around us, and even on the 

 very confines of immensity, Nature is busy, as she is here, and the laws 

 of light, heat, gravitation (and why not of life ?) are in full activity. 



The clusters we have just been looking at lie on the borders of 

 Scorpio and Sagittarius. Let us cross over into the latter constella- 

 tion, which commemorates the centaur Chiron. We are now in anoth- 

 er, and even a richer, region of wonders. The Milky-Way, streaming 

 down out of the northeast, pours, in a luminous flood through Sagit- 

 tarius, inundating that whole region of the heavens with seeming 

 deeps and shallows, and finally bursting the barriers of the horizon 

 disappears, only to glow with redoubled splendor in the southern hem- 

 isphere. The stars Zeta (), Tau (t), Sigma (o-), Phi (</>), Lambda (A.), 

 and Mu (/a) indicate the outlines of a figure sometimes called the 

 Milk-Dipper, which is very evident when the eye has once recognized 

 it. On either side of the upturned handle of this dipper-like figure 

 lie some of the most interesting objects in the sky. Let us take the 

 star //. for a starting-point. Sweep downward and to the right a little 

 way, and you will be startled by a most singular phenomenon that has 

 suddenly made its appearance in the field of view of your glass. You 

 may, perhaps, be tempted to congratulate yourself on having got 

 ahead of all the astronomers, and discovered a comet. It is reallv a 

 combination of a star-cluster with a nebula, and is known as 8 M. 

 Sir John Herschel has described the " nebulous folds and masses " and 

 dark oval gaps which he saw in this nebula with his large telescope 

 at the Cape of Good Hope. But no telescope is needed to make it 

 appear a wonderful object ; an opera-glass suffices for that, and a 

 field-glass reveals still more of its marvelous structure. 



On the opposite side of the star fi that is to say, above and a little 

 to the left is an entirely different but almost equally attractive spec- 

 tacle, the swarm of stars called 24 M. Here, again, the field-glass 

 easily shows its superiority over the opera-glass, for magnifying power 

 is needed to bring out the innumerable little twinklers of which the 

 cluster is composed. But, whether you use an opera-glass or a field- 

 glass, do not fail to gaze long and steadily at this island of stars, for 

 much of its beauty becomes evident only after the eye has accustomed 

 itself to disentangle the glimmering rays with which the whole field 

 of view is filled. Try the method of averted vision, and hundreds of 

 the finest conceivable points of light will seem to spring into view out 

 of the depths of the sky. The necessity of a perfectly clear night, 

 and the absence of moonlight, can not be too much insisted upon for 



