37 

 AN EVENING WITH THE STARS. 



BY J. D. SOLLITT. 



The science of Astronomy has in all ages been highly calculated 

 to produce a powerful influence on the human mind ; and if whilst it 

 was in its hifancy, it should cause the ancients to say, " Quis est tarn 

 vecors, qui, cum suspexerit in coelum, non sentiat Deum esse ?" no 

 wonder that the pursuit of it to a certain extent should be highly 

 delightful to every thinking mind, when we take into consideration 

 the expanded views which modem discoveries have given to this science. 



The last two or three months have, from the eftect of the extraor- 

 dinarily fine weather, together with the favourable situation of several 

 of the planets, been most highly interesting to the practical astronomer. 

 And for the sake of illustration we will take the evening of the 16th 

 of September, than on which a finer or more beautiful sky was never 

 seen. Looking out soon after sunset, we perceived the planet Mars in 

 the south-west, Saturn near the meridian, and Jupiter in the south-east. 

 As the evening advanced, the distant Herschel made his appearance 

 in the east, and then the moon rose majestic as queen of the night in 

 the north-east. Let us now suppose the telescope to be turned to 

 each of them in succession ; first Mars, with a power of about 200 

 times, exhibited a beautiful round disk, larger than the full moon, on 

 which we observed his surface shaded with continent and ocean, 

 together with his polar regions wrapped in eternal snow — at once 

 proving the connexion between the constitution of this j^lanet and our 

 earth. Passing from Mars to Jupiter, we observed him with his four 

 attendant moons and surface, diversified with his belts, arising from 

 the clouds in his atmosphere being thrown into this form by the rapid 

 motion on his axis ; to see those appearances, a much smaller telescope 

 and a lower power will suffice than what is required for shewing the 

 various appearances on the surface of Mars, but his four attendants, 

 rapid rotation on his axis, and want of obliquity to the plane of his 

 orbit, at once point out a wide difference in the constitution of this 

 planet and our earth, and shew that the all-wise Creator at once 

 delights in beauty and variety, and is capable of fulfilling the intents 

 of creation by a diversity of means. From Jupiter we turned to 

 Satmn, and with a similar power to that used for Mars, we perceived 



