THE STARRY HEAVENS IX SEPTEMBER 



149 



little to the west of the zenith ; the 

 Square of Pegasus shines conspicu- 

 ously in the east, while in the north- 

 west Bootes, with upstretched arms, 

 is driving the Great Bear before him. 

 If the reader will trace out these four 

 large constellations, he will have 

 learned a wide zone extending com- 

 pletely across the sky from the east 

 to the west; he will find it compara- 

 tively easy to afterward add the fainter 

 groups, one after another, until soon he 

 will have learned all of the groups 

 now in the heavens. 



Some of the fainter groups now 

 visible are of peculiar interest and 

 beauty. Perhaps the most striking one 

 is the delicate Northern Crown, a 

 chaplet of beautiful bluish stars which 

 lies between Bootes and Hercules, 

 whose brightest star, at C, Figure 1, is 

 known as the Pearl of the Crown. 

 This little group of stars is remark- 

 able for the large number of double 

 stars which it contains, and many of 

 these are true binaries, being com- 

 posed of two great suns which are 

 very close together and moving rap- 

 idly around one another. In the 

 northern part of the constellation 

 there are several wider pairs ; those, 

 for example, at A and B can be seen 

 as two stars even in a very small tele- 

 scope. 



Another faint little group is the Ar- 

 row, which having been shot at the 

 Eagle by the Archer, is now flying up 

 the center of the Milky Way between 

 the former constellation and the 

 Northern Cross. The Milky Way has 

 many very rich star fields in this re- 

 gion. To the east of Sagitta is the 

 strange little group of the Dolphin, or 

 Job's Coffin, of which the star at E is 

 a double sun, that at D varies in 

 brightness, and that at F is also a re- 

 markable double-sun system of a 

 greenish color, and about this strange 

 center a distant purple-colored sun is 

 slowly moving. If, which is very im- 

 probable, there are any habitable 

 worlds in this system, the irregular 

 succession and varying brightness and 

 color of their days must be very strik- 

 ing. 



The faint stars between the Dolphin 

 and Aquarius constitute the Little 

 Horse ; those between the Dolphin and 

 the star at H form the Wolf ; those be- 

 tween Andromeda and Cygnus are the 



Lizard, and there arc several other 

 faint and little known groups which 

 may be found marked on any good star 

 atlas; a knowledge of these is of in- 

 terest, but is by no means a necessity, 

 to an amateur observer of the heavens. 

 The three most striking objects for 

 observation with a small telescope now 

 in the heavens are the Great Nebula of 

 Andromeda, at N, Figure 1 ; the won- 

 derful cluster in Hercules, at S, and the 

 double cluster in Perseus at T. 



The Planets in September. 



Mercury is steadily withdrawing 

 from the sun's rays, but as it does not 

 reach its greatest elongation until Oc- 

 tober 15, it cannot be easily seen dur- 

 ing the present month. 



Venus remains the most brilliant ob- 

 ject now in the heavens, and, though 

 low in the southwest after sunset, it is 

 still conspicuous enough to attract the 

 attention of every observer. It reaches 

 its greatest distance east from the sun 

 on September 18 at 7 A. M. ; but, un- 

 fortunately, while it is running east- 

 ward, it is also moving rapidly south- 

 ward among the stars, and thus its 

 eastward motion is unable to carry it 

 high into the evening heavens. The 

 observer who watches this world with 

 a small telescope at intervals during 

 the next few weeks will see it narrow 

 very rapidly to a silvery crescent, while 

 at the same time it will increase in ap- 

 parent size and brilliancy. It will reach 

 its greatest brilliance on October 23, 

 but not until November 27 will it pass 

 to the west of the sun and become a 

 morning star. 



Venus during this month will move 

 across the constellation Virgo and al- 

 most across Libra. Mars will also 

 move eastward in Virgo, and by the 

 end of the month will have almost 

 reached the eastern borders of this 

 constellation. But this world is now 

 so distant and so lost in the sun's rays 

 that it cannot be viewed to advantage. 

 The sun will finally overtake it, and 

 it will become a morning star on De- 

 cember 24. 



Except for the beautiful Venus, the 

 most interesting world now in the 

 evening sky is undoubtedly the great 

 planet Jupiter, which will be seen only 

 a short distance east of the meridian in 

 the south. This beautiful planet will 

 well repay careful study with the tele- 

 scope. Its rose-colored bands, its sys_- 



