TO KNOW THE STARRY HEAVENS 



19 



dominate on the face of our evening 

 heavens. It is true that the bright win- 

 ter groups of Gemini and Leo still linger 

 with us, but these are far in the west, 

 and the former, indeed, has more than 

 half disappeared below the horizon. The 

 whole south and east are filled with the 

 great, faint groups of Ophiuchus, Ser- 

 pens and Hercules, while the wonderful 

 and complex summer branch of the 

 Milky Way encircles the whole eastern 

 area of the heavens from the south to 

 the north. 



The most interesting of the new arri- 

 vals is without doubt the beautiful Scor- 

 pio, which, with its deep reddish star at A 

 (Figure i) and its striking band of bright 

 stars at D forms the most beautiful of 

 all our summer constellations. In early 

 times the stars at B and C formed the 

 Claws of the Scorpio and were therefore 

 a part of the constellation, but these were 

 afterward removed to form the single 

 group Libra, thus greatly mutilating the 

 original nearly perfect figure. 



To the beautiful, glowing Antares, 

 lying so near the path of the sun and 

 shining so conspicuously in the summer 

 heavens, there are naturally innumerable 

 references among all earlier peoples. 

 Alany of the Greek temples were oriented 

 to it ; in Egypt it was the symbol of Isis, 

 while in China, as the "Fire Star," it was 

 for centuries invoked for protection 

 against fire. 



Antares is a beautiful double star in 

 a moderately large telescope. Its com- 

 panion is of a green color, which during 

 the last century has shown no trace of 

 any motion around the principal star. 

 There is no doubt, however, that the two 

 suns form a system, just as the earth and 

 moon do, for Antares is very slowly 

 drifting over the face of the heavens and 

 carryinig the companion with it ; the time 

 required for the companion to revolve 

 once about the larger star is, however, 

 doubtless tens of thousands of years, and 

 possibly much longer. 



There are many such majestically slow 

 moving systems now known, but the 

 science of exact astronomy is still so 

 young that we know but little of their true 

 natures. The astronomers of today can 

 only secure very exact measures of their 

 present positions, from which — perhaps 

 ten or twenty centuries hence — the true 

 sizes of these stupendous ortbits may be 



found. The slow drift of Antares, above 

 referred to, will change its position in 

 the heavens by an amount equal to the 

 apparent distance across the face of the 

 full moon in the course of 45,000 years. 



The stars of Scorpio at F are both 

 beautiful triple stars; that at H is a re- 

 markable quadruple system which closely 

 resembles the well-known Epsilon Lyrae, 

 while the star at C may be seen to be a 

 wide double, even in a small telescope. 



Figure 2. Photographic plate on which a 

 a new asteroid is discovered. The dots are 

 faint stars. The moving asteroid has pho- 

 tographed itself as a short trail within the 

 circle at A. 



L'nder good conditions of seeing the ob- 

 server may clearly detect that the star at 

 B is of a distinctly greenish tint, while 

 that at E is red. The former is a very 

 unusual color among the brighter stars. 



To the right of E, a little above and to 

 the left of the extreme tip of the tail of 

 the Water Snake, there is a rather com- 

 pact little group of faint stars, bordered 

 on the east by a faint row extending in a 

 north and south direction. This very in- 

 conspicuous little sky figure has been 

 named the Solitary Thrush. 



The observer will find no difificulty in 

 following along the summer branch of 

 the Milky Way and tracing out the brig^ht 

 Eagle, the odd. compact little groups of 

 the Dolphin and the Arrow, and the beau- 

 tiful Northern Cross, with its striking 

 double star at K. The stars below this 

 last and Sagitta form the little-known 

 constellation of Vulpecula, or the little 

 Fox, from which constellation a stream 

 of faint meteors dart outward in all direc- 

 tions during the last two weeks of the 

 present month. 



