138 Clusters and Nebula?. 



CLUSTERS AND NEBULAS.— DOUBLE STARS.— 

 OCCULTATIONS. 



BY THE KEV. T. W. WEBB, M.A., P.R.A.S. 



When Sirius, now so magnificent an object in our southern 

 sky, is on the meridian, about 4° below him the eye will just 

 catch a feeble, cloudy patch ; this is — ■ 



15. 41 M (Canis Majoris). A beautiful, brilliant, and widely- 

 extended group of 8 mag. and smaller stars ; one of the brightest 

 near the centre I found to be of an orange or ruddy hue ; as 

 has also been noted by H (No. 411). A remark of this great 

 observer with respect to irregular clusters, that " it is no 

 uncommon thing to find a very red star much brighter than 

 the rest occupying a conspicuous situation in them/' seems to 

 be to a certain degree exemplified here. Some law is probably 

 concerned in this arrangement, but of a nature to us utterly 

 incomprehensible. 



Sirius is nearly in a line between two smaller attendants, 

 each at a distance of several degrees. The larger one lying p, 

 a little s, is /3 Canis Majoris, 2 mag. ; the other f, a little n, 

 is 7, 4 mag. A line from Sirius to the latter star, carried on 

 through the galaxy nearly twice as far again, and turned a 

 little downward, will encounter a suspicious-looking district, of 

 an indistinct, clustery aspect. This, the finder will turn into a 

 succession of objects arranged in an irregular, and, on the 

 whole, horizontal direction : a wide pair precedes ; then comes 

 a bright group visible to the naked eye ; a much feebler nebula 

 follows, a little s, with a star lying sp; then another pair less 

 wide than the first. Each of these will repay our attention. 

 We begin with the most conspicuous, the bright cluster. 

 This is— 



16. 38 lilVIII (Argus). A very splendid field of largo and 

 -in.'ill stars, as Smyth well describes it, which should be viewed 

 with a low magnifier : in the midst of it we shall at once recog- 

 nize a very neat pair, whose data, according to him, are 

 8", 303 8 -8, 7^ and 8, both bright bluish white. A little way p 

 lies a bright star, about i> mag., attended bya minute comes nf. 

 This is now (be lucida of the assemblage, although II., who 

 numbers the cluster 459, does not mention it, and gives pre- 

 cedency t<> the double star. About ' ' p lies a 5 mag. star, the 

 more southerly of the wide pair which leads t lie whole region in 

 the linder : it is worthy of notice from its line fiery Orange hue. 

 The other smaller one, n p, seems greenish, perhaps from con- 



trast. To gain an idea of the grandeur of the galaxy, we should 



BWeep round the outskirts of this cluster, especially in a n f 

 direction. "Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath 



