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Home Nature-Study Course. 



Lesson LV. 



how to find and name the brightest stars of summer. 



Vega (Vee'-ga). — To find Vega draw a line from the Pole Star to the star in the 

 Big Dipper which joins the bowl to the handle. Then draw a line at right angles 

 to this (see chart lines H, I) and extend the line I a little farther from the North 

 Star than is the end star of the Dipper handle; this line will reach a bright star, 

 bluish in color, which can always be identified by four smaller attendant stars 

 which lie near it and outline a parallelogram with slanting ends. Vega is the most 

 brilliant star that we see in the northern hemisphere. It is a very large sun giving 

 out ninety times as much light as our sun ; it is so far away that it requires twenty- 

 nine years for a ray of light to reach us from it. Vega's chief interest for us aside 

 from its beauty is that toward it our sun and all its planets, including our earth, 

 are moving at the rate of thirteen miles per second. Vega is the chief star in the 

 constellation called the Lyre. 



Deneb or Arided (Den'-eb; A'-ri-ded). — This star is at the head of the Northern 

 Cross which is a very shaky looking cross and appears upside down in the eastern 

 skies during the evenings of June. (See chart.) Deneb is white in color and is a 

 very large sun because it seems to us a bright star and yet is it so far away from us 

 that the distance has never been surely measured; but it has been estimated that 

 a ray of light would need at least three hundred and twenty-five years to reach 



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A chart of the brightest stars of Summer. Showing their position in early evenings 

 of June. To find the stars hold the chart above the head and face the norths 



