Avmi. 1, ISSfi.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



189 



THE NIGHT SKIES IN AUSTRALIA, CAPE 

 COLONY, &c. 



^T last, I think I have hit upon the form in 

 which the maps of the skies in the southern 

 hemisjihere will prove most useful. Yet 

 must the map in the present number be 

 regarded as only tentative. 



It will interest the student of the 

 heavens to note that the map which illus- 

 trates the skies of latitvide 38° south, and is available 

 for all places in the soiithern hemisphere between lati- 



represent.s the horizon. For use in the northern hemisphere 

 the line E O W represents the horizon from east at E 

 through south at 0, and to west at W ; while the point 

 marked N is over-head, and the semi-circumference, E N W, 

 represents the prime vertical.* 



It seems curious to consider that that semicircle of the 

 star sphere which forms our horizon from east through 

 south to west at any hour is, on the same day and at the 

 same hour of local time, a semicircle of the star sphere pas.sing 

 from east through the point overhead to west at a station 

 90° removed from us in southerly latitude. It would be 

 a rather pretty pi-oblem in the astronomy of the late 



The Skt ix Australasia: and (Upper Half) the Southern Sky in- Esgland, at Seven o'clock, April 6. 



tudes .30° and 45°, shoivs also the whole of the southern 

 half of the skj', at the same hours, in latitude .52° north, or 

 centrally for England. For the former use, that is for use 

 in the southern hemisphere, the middle of the map marked 

 is the point over-head, and the circumference of the map 



Parallax and of the still-flourishing Hampden, to show how 

 stars which appear along a horizontal semicircle in England 



» The points E and W are also overhead, the straight line 

 SOS representing the horizon, for places on the equator six 

 ho\u^ or three months later or earlier than the map dates. 



