276 THROUGH LIBRARY WINDOWS 



magnitude star for fifteen days, then fades out 

 and is invisible for months. Algol, the slowly 

 winking eye, the Demon of the old astrologists, 

 has a short period of two days in which to make 

 its change from brightest to faintest condition ; 

 its action is weird and the causes of it is a mat- 

 ter of speculation. 



In our winter heavens Orion and his attend- 

 ing constellations are by far the brightest and 

 grandest grouping. He is a giant fighting 

 mighty Taurus. The combat is ever on and 

 neither flinches nor is vanquished. Orion con- 

 tains seven brilliant stars, two of them are of 

 the first magnitude, Betelguise and Rigel. His 

 belt is the "California of the sky" because of 

 its marvellous nebula, nothing equals it in weird 

 grandeur and whoever has caught sight of it 

 through the telescope can never forget it. In 

 5,000 years Orion, Taurus and Canis Major 

 will be merged into one immense group and will 

 be by all odds the grandest galaxy in the heav- 

 ens and demanding a new name. A record of 

 5,000 years seems long in human history, but 

 it is only a short hour in celestial time when we 

 consider our earth has stood already one hun- 

 dred million years ! 



There is no subject of astronomy grander 

 for vision or discussion than a Nebula. Nebula?. 



