ASTROXOMY WITH AX OPERA-GLASS. 55 



mendous truth that on a starry night we look, in every direction, into 

 an almost endless vista ol" suns beyond suns and systems upon systems, 

 was too overwhelming for comprehension by the inventors of the con- 

 stellations. So they amused themselves, like imaginative children, as 

 they were, by tracing the outlines of men and beasts formed by those 

 pretty lights, the stars. They turned the starry heavens into a scroll 

 filled with pictured stories of mythology. Four of the constellations 

 with which we are going to deal in this article are particularly in- 

 teresting on this account. They preserve in the stars, more lasting 

 than parchment or stone, one of the oldest and most pleasing of all 

 the romantic stories that have amused and inspired the minds of men 

 — the story of Perseus and Andromeda — a better story than any that 

 modern novelists have invented. The- four constellations to which I 

 have referred bear the names of Andromeda, Perseus, Cassiopeia, and 

 Cepheus, and are sometimes called, collectively, the Royal Family. In 

 the autumn they occupy a conspicuous position in the sky, forming a 

 group that remains unrivaled until the rising of Orion with his impe- 

 rial cortege. The reader will find them in our cu'cular map, occupying 

 the northeastern quarter of the heavens. 



This map represents the visible heavens at about midnight on 

 September 1st, ten o'clock p. m. on October 1st, and eight o'clock p. m. 

 on November 1st. At this time the constellations that were near the 

 meridian in summer will be found sinking in the west, Hercules 

 being low in the northwest, with the brilliant Lyra and the head of 

 Draco suspended above it ; Aquila, " the eagle of the winds," soars 

 high in the southwest ; while the Cross of Cygnus is just west of the 

 zenith ; and Sagittarius, with its wealth of star-dust, is disappearing 

 under the horizon in the southwest. 



Far down in the south the observer catches the gleam of a bright 

 lone star of the first magnitude, though not one of the largest of that 

 class. It is Fomalhaut, in the mouth of the Southern Fish, Piscis 

 Australis. A slight reddish tint will be perceived in the light of this 

 beautiful star whose brilliancy is enhanced by the fact that it shines 

 without a rival in that region of the sky. Fomalhaut is one of the 

 important " nautical stars," and its position was long ago carefully 

 computed for the benefit of mariners. The constellation of Piscis 

 Australis, which will be found in our second map, does not possess 

 much to interest us except its brilliant leading star. In consulting 

 Map 2, the observer is supposed to be facing south, or slightly west 

 of south, and he must remember that the upper part of the map 

 reaches nearly to the zenith, while at the bottom it extends down to 

 the horizon. 



To the right, or west, of Fomalhaut, and higher up, is the constel- 

 lation of Capricorn us, very interesting on many accounts, though by 

 no means a striking constellation to the unassisted eye. The stars 

 Alpha (a), called Giedi, and Beta (yS), called Dabih, will be readily 



