THE STARRY HEAVENS 



305 



and one-half hours after sunset, but it is 

 steadily drawing nearer the sun and will 

 pass to the west of that body and become 

 a morning star on February 24. 



Saturn rules the evening skies, and will 

 at once be detected shining out ibrightly 

 hierh in the heavens, almost on the border 

 line between Taurus and Gemini. The 

 planet is in excellent position for obser- 

 vation ; the rings are widely opened out, 

 and, in fact, of all objects now in the 

 sky, this is the one of most general in- 

 terest. 



Uranus passes to the west of the sun 

 and becomes a morning star on February 

 1 ; it will remain lost in the sun's rays 

 throughout the month. Neptune is in 

 the western part of Cancer, in the posi- 

 tion shown in Figure 1. 



An interesting occultation will occur 

 on February 27 at about 2 A. M., when 

 the moon will be seen to pass over the 

 remarkable cluster of stars at R, Figure 

 1. This cluster, known as the "Beehive," 

 is composed of about 150 scattered stars 

 from the sixth to the tenth magnitudes, 

 and these will be rapidly hidden, one 

 after another, as the disc of the moon 

 moves in front of them. Unfortunately, 

 however, the moon on this date will be 

 within two days of full, and therefore so 

 bright that the disappearance of the stars 

 can only be satisfactorily viewed in the 

 larger telescopes. 



Color, Speed and Age of Stars. 



The blue stars are considered to be 

 in early life, the yellow stars in middle 

 life, and the red stars in old age. The 

 Mount Flamilton and Santiago spec- 

 trographic observations of stellar mo- 

 tions have shown that stars effectively 

 young are traveling slowly, middle-aged 

 stars more rapidly, and old stars more 

 rapidly still ; that is, that the velocities 

 of the stars increase with their effec- 

 tive ages. The average space velocity 

 of the young stars is about eight miles 

 per second, and of the old stars about 

 twenty-two miles per second. Our 

 Sun, which is middle-aged and travel- 

 ing twelve miles per second, is one of 

 the slow-moving stars of its class. — 

 The Lick Observatory. 



The Eclipse of the Sun. 



On February 13 there will occur the 

 first of the only two eclipses of the year 

 both of which will be wholly invisible to 

 us. The black disc of the moon will first 

 be seen to - touch the edge of the sun 

 from the point A, Figure 4, on February 



1 3, at 8 hours '42 minutes P. M. (East- 

 ern standard time) ; the last trace of the 

 eclipse will be seen from B on February 



14, at 2 hours 25 minutes A. M. Obser- 

 vers within the limits of M N R S will 

 see the moon move partly on to the sun ; 

 those within the narrow strip V W will 

 see the moon's disc entirely within the 

 disc of the sun ; but even from here the 

 sun will not be entirely hidden, and from 

 no region of the earth outside of the area 

 M N R S will any trace of the eclipse be 

 visible. 



Both for bodily and mental health 

 court the present. Embrace health 

 wherever you find her. — Thoreau. 



Astronomical Notes. 



E. E. Barnard, the astronomer, has 

 been studying comets by means of 

 stereoscopic pictures. By taking prints 

 from negatives made at the same time, 

 but at distant places on the earth, as, 

 for example, at the Yerkes Observatory 

 and at Paris, and combining these, he 

 has been able to view the comet as a 

 solid body in three dimensions and to 

 make out points which do not appear in 

 the ordinary flat view in two dimen- 

 sions. 



Among other points brought out by 

 this device, Morehouse's comet of 1908 

 appeared at one time to have its tail 

 attached to its head by a slender 

 straight beam. What really happened, 

 however, was seen, in the stereoscopic 

 picture, to be that the tail suddenly 

 ceased to form and began to drift off 

 into space. Then a new and small tail 

 formed, pointing in quite a different di- 

 rection, and only in appearance joining 

 with the old tail. Moreover, what 

 looked like a thickening of certain parts 

 of the tail proved, when seen in three 

 dimensions, to be a buckling: which 

 first formed a spiral, then a ring and, 

 finallv, an open cvlinder with its end 

 pointing nearlv toward the earth. 



Recent studies at the Lick and Mills 

 Observatories show that, in general, the 

 nebulae are travelline through space at 

 much hiVher speeds than are the stars. 

 This fact is not easv to reconcile with 

 the common ooinion that the nebulae 

 are evolving into stars. It suggests 



