TO KNOW THE STARRY HEAVENS 



TI 3 



up of two yellowish suns, and it is in- 

 teresting- to know that these two dis- 

 tant objects are steadily moving away 

 from one another. In the course of 

 twenty-five hundred years their dis- 

 tance apart will be as great as the ap- 

 parent distance across the disc of the 

 full moon. 



The star at B is also a wide double. 

 but a far more difficult one since the 

 companion is of a magnitude of but 

 6.5, and each of these suns is again 

 double- Thus four suns are seen in a 

 large telescope where the eye recognizes 

 but one. The duplicity of the brightest 

 star was first revealed by the motion 

 of our moon across it ; the two compon- 

 ents were successively covered up by 

 the steadily advancing east edge of the 

 moon, and when our satellite had ad- 

 vanced far enough eastward they re- 

 appeared at the western edge one at a 

 time. Altogether there are some half 

 dozen double stars of the sky which 

 have been discovered in this way. 



Tn the region of the heavens between 

 the star, Altair at C. the Dolphin and 

 the stars D and E, the observer will 

 find a large number of beautiful star 

 clusters, nor will he fail to examine the 

 remarkable Nebula of Andromeda, at 

 N, nor (if he possesses a glass of suf- 

 ficient size) the Ring Nebula of Lyra, 

 which is in a straight line between the 

 stars at F and G but nearer the former 

 star. 



A New Star. 



Much interest has been taken by 

 astronomers in the very recent an- 

 nouncement of the appearance of a 

 new star in the outer borders of one 

 of the very faint spiral nebulas. The 

 new object, which was discovered by 

 photography, is described as of the 

 fourteenth magnitude, so that it is 

 wholly invisible except in the largest 

 telescopes. Some conception of its ex- 

 treme faintness may be formed when 

 it is stated that if no less than two hun- 

 dred and fifty such stars had appeared 

 simultaneously at the same point their 

 combined light would have rendered 

 them just visible to the naked eye. Any 

 standard first magnitude star is about 

 one hundred and sixty thousand times 

 as bright as the new star. 



The sudden appearance of a new star 

 within the borders of a nebula is not 



altogether unprecedented. Thus in 

 1885, in about the middle of August, a 

 star was seen in the Nebula of Andro- 

 meda (which is also of a spiral struc- 

 ture) and this object was of the sixth 

 magnitude and so far brighter than the 

 object recently discovered. It was also 

 very near the center of the spiral, nebu- 

 lous cloud, being only sixteen seconds 

 to the southeast of the nucleus. 

 Whether there had been a sudden fall- 

 ing together of the nebulous material 

 in sufficient quantity to form a new 

 sun, or whether one of the cold and 

 dark suns of space plunged through the 

 nebulous cloud and was thus heated to 

 incandescence, or whether, indeed, its 

 appearance is to be explained in some 

 quite different way, we do not know. 



Like all of the new suns which have 

 suddenly blazed out in the heavens, 

 the new star in the Nebula of Andro- 

 meda, after attaining its maximum 

 brightness, rapidly began to fade away. 

 The last view of it was obtained with 

 the great telescope of our Naval Ob- 

 servatory on February 1, 1886, only 

 five and one-half months after its dis- 

 covery, by which time it was of only 

 the sixteenth magnitude. Its light 

 when carefully studied was found to 

 give a continuous spectrum very simi- 

 lar to that given by the nebula itself. 

 It is very remarkable that practically 

 all new stars, even the very bright 

 ones, have faded rapidly away into 

 what appear to be nebulous objects, 

 their sometimes complicated spectra 

 ultimately becoming the typical, con- 

 tinuous nebular spectrum. 



It is to be regretted that this most 

 recent of the new stars will probably 

 prove to be too faint for its light to be 

 studied with the spectroscope- 



The Planets in September. 



Mercury, which attained its greatest 

 eastern elongation on August 22, will 

 pass to the west of the sun and become 

 a morning star on September 18. It 

 will attain its greatest distance west 

 of the sun on October 4. Thus through- 

 out the month it will be too nearly lost 

 in the sun's rays for satsifactory ob- 

 servation, though during the last few 

 days of September it may be seen ris- 

 ing almost at the east point of the 

 horizon nearly an hour before sunrise. 



Venus is daily moving eastward from 



