CHAPTER SEVEN 



OTHER STARS AND CONSTELLATIONS 



The sad and solemn night 

 Hath yet her multitude of cheerful fires; 



The glorious hosts of light 

 Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires ; 

 All through her silent watches, gliding slow, 

 Her constellations come, and climb the heavens, and go. 



BRYANT 



THE constellations described in the previous chapters 

 lie partly or wholly north of the parallel of 30 degrees 

 north. Nearer to the equator there are some constella- 

 tions that are brighter than any of these. Being farther 

 south, they are below the horizon a larger part of the 

 time. Each is visible in the evening for about half of 

 the year. By looking for them at different seasons 

 you can find all the stars and constellations mentioned 

 in this chapter. 



The Pleiades. To learn the constellations located 

 at a distance from the pole, it may be easiest to start 

 with the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters a cluster of stars 

 erroneously called by some persons the Little Dipper. 

 It is known to many who have never given much atten- 

 tion to the heavens. An ordinary eye can see only six 

 of the sisters. An exceptionally good eye can make out 

 nine under 'good conditions, and even more at times. 

 With opera glasses you can easily see several others, 

 and with a 3-inch telescope about one hundred. 

 Photographs of this cluster, taken with a photographic 

 telescope, show some three thousand stars. The Pleiades 

 are more distant than the brighter stars. Two of those 

 you see are fourth-magnitude stars. Alcyone, the only 



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