TO KNOW THE STARRY HEAVENS 
79 
star ever visible here, is now at its 
best in the South. Some of the stars 
farther south can be seen from the 
States in the extreme South. 
In all there are forty stars in the 
heavens which are brighter than the 
second magnitude. Ten of these are 
too far south to be seen in the United 
States, excepting extreme points. The 
October map contains but eleven of 
these, which are fewer than are con- 
tained on the map of any other month. 
Figure 2. Location of star clusters in region 
of October sky (Figure 1). 
These are Vega at D, Capella at E, 
Altair at F, Aldebaran at B, Fomalhaut 
at C, Deneb at G, Beta Tauri or Nath 
"ht H, Alpha Persei at I, and three 
stars of the Big Dipper. It may be no- 
ticed that most of these lie near the 
horizon and are thus not as bright as 
they would be if high in the sky. It is 
also true that there are no planets visi- 
ble. As the darkest hour precedes the 
dawn so the faintness of the October 
sky precedes the brightness of the sky 
in the months which follow, for the 
number of bright stars visible in De- 
cember and the months which follow 
is twice as great as now. The sky after 
midnight will have twice as many 
bright stars as does the map, which is 
for nine o’clock. 
% i$: ;jc 
The Planets. 
There are no bright planets which 
are conspicuous. Venus can be seen 
low in the west in the evening twilight. 
Jupiter can be seen in the east in the 
morning twilight. Mercury also will 
be visible in the east in the morning 
twilight for a few mornings about 
October 25. Uranus alone lies within 
the region of our map. Its position 
is marked in Aquarius. It cannot be 
seen with the naked eye. Mars is still 
visible low in the southwest. At the 
first of the month it is in a portion of 
Ophiuchus not shown on our map. At 
the end of the month it is at the posi- 
tion marked K. It may be well to ex- 
plain my statement that Mars is in the 
constellation Ophiuchus. The sun, 
moon and planets all move in paths 
which lie near the ecliptic, the position 
of which is marked on the map, Figure 
1. For this reason this part of the sky 
is particularly important. The zone 
which extends eight degrees on each 
side of the ecliptic is called the Zodiac. 
The Zodiac is subdivided into twelve 
equal parts called the signs of the 
Zodiac. These signs are named with 
the same names as twelve constella- 
tions along the ecliptic. When named 
the signs and constellations were near- 
ly coincident, but the precession of the 
equinoxes has now separated them. 
While the twelve signs fill the entire 
Zodiac, the twelve constellations do 
not, and although a planet must al- 
ways be in one of the twelve signs, it 
is not necessarily in a constellation of 
the Zodiac. Mars, for example, is now 
in Ophiuchus, which is not one of the 
twelve zodiacal constellations. Ophi- 
uchus is not shown in its entirety 
on our map. If one of the maps for 
preceding months or any map showing 
the whole constellation is examined it 
will be found that while the greater 
portion of this large constellation lies 
north of the ecliptic and outside the 
Zodiac, the southern portion extends 
south of the ecliptic in two places. 
Theta Ophiuchi, one of the brighter 
stars of the constellation, is south of 
the ecliptic. Scorpio, the constellation 
of the Zodiac south of Ophiuchus, is 
almost entirely south of the ecliptic. 
Eight other constellations encroach 
more or less upon the Zodiac. In par- 
ticular Orion and Cetus have portions 
close to the ecliptic. Neither, however, 
crosses as does Ophiuchus. The north- 
ern boundary of Cetus has been marked 
upon Figure 1. 
Eclipse of the Moon. 
In the early morning of October 27 
there occurs a total eclipse of the moon. 
The conditions of the eclipse are such 
