ioo IN STARRY REALMS. 



very often no terrestrial observatory can be the right place 

 for seeing either of the objects named, and this for various 

 reasons. In the first place, it may be that the season of 

 the year is wrong. There is, for instance, no use in going 

 to look for the great nebula in Orion in summer, nor is 

 there any possibility of seeing Saturn when, as happens 

 every year, he is situated near the sun on the surface of 

 the heavens. 



Then, too, it must be remembered that some objects 

 never rise at all in our latitudes. You need never expect 

 to see the Magellanic clouds by going to any observatory 

 in England. Nor can the astronomers in Australia ever 

 observe the companion to the pole star through the great 

 reflector at Melbourne. Even when the body you want to 

 see is " up/' it may be in a very unfavourable condition 

 for making observations. If it be the moon that you wish 

 to see, and even if it be up, and high up, it may be quite 

 unsuited for telescopic scrutiny from the simple fact that it 

 is " full " ; a condition in which the varieties of light and 

 shade which give to the moon-pictures their beauty and 

 their instructiveness are altogether wanting. 



The planets, too, will often be accessible to the tele- 

 scope, but still be very unfavourably placed for disclosing 

 their real beauty as compared with the seasons when they 

 can be observed to advantage. The ring of Saturn may 

 be presented under an aspect in which it is too much 

 foreshortened, or the opposition of Mars may be one in 

 which his distance from the earth is too great to admit 

 of a truly effective telescopic picture being produced. 

 It will thus be obvious that to observe any of the celestial 

 bodies effectively not only must good instruments ba 



