The Heavens in June. 



BY PROFESSOR ERIC DOOLITTLE, OF THE 

 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



Tune is our month of the shortest 

 nights. At the time of the shortest 

 day, twilight does not fully disappear 

 until about twenty minutes before ten 

 o'clock in the evening, while before 

 half past two o'clock in the morning 

 the first signs of dawn are seen in the 

 east. The astronomer has thus less 

 than five hours of complete darkness in 



than the magnificent groups to be seen 

 during the colder months of the year. 

 We have, indeed, one most brilliant 

 and interesting group — that of the 

 Scorpion, which is now creeping up- 

 ward into our evening heavens from 

 the southeast — but the very widely ex- 

 tended groups of Ophiuchus, Virgo 

 and Hydra, which fill the remaining 

 part of the southern sky, are composed 

 almost wholly of faint, inconspicuous 

 stars. 



MORTM 



iOuTH 



Figure 1. The Constellations at 9 P. M. June 1. (If facing south, hold the map upright. If facing 

 west, hold West below. If facing east, hold East below If facing north, hold the map inverted.) 



his observatory during the entire night, 

 a striking contrast to the long hours af- 

 forded by the nights of midwinter. 



The constellations, too of our sum- 

 mer evenings are (as our readers 

 doubtless well know) far less brilliant 



During this month, too, the planet 

 Saturn, of all the planets, alone re- 

 mains conspicuous in the evening hea- 

 vens, and this is rapidly sinking in the 

 west. Yet perhaps the most interest- 

 ing spectacle of the entire month is 



