Will you kindly show me, dear father, how I can find the south pole of
the heavens, as there is no bright star near it?
I will try and give you a rough chart. Look at the Southern Cross. Draw
an imaginary line from the top star through the one at the foot; and
four times that distance in the same line will bring you to the south
pole of the heavens.
Yes; and if I had that point over my head I should be where no one else
has been--at the south pole of the earth. Now I have my centre, I would
like to describe a circle at the distance of the Cross and know the
stars inside of it.
Begin, then. Look at the two bright ones pointing toward the Cross
beside it. They are the Pointers to the Cross. A lot of bright stars
together, on the other side of the Cross, are in the Ship, Argo. Follow
on the circumference that way, and you arrive at a large star, a little
north of our course, called Canopus. From the Cross to Canopus is
one-quarter of the circle round the pole, and it is filled up with the
Ship.
What a ship!
It goes northward, too, to Sirius, the Dog-star. Canopus is half-way
between Sirius and the south pole, and is in the line between the two.
That is a capital point, for I know them.
South of the Ship, between it and the pole, are the little Flying Fish.
The Table Mountain and Chameleon, with feeble stars, are between the
Fish, again, and the poles.
Now I have that quarter of the circle, well.
Keep on to the right, still away from the Cross and beyond Canopus,
nearly as far again, and you see a bright star in our circle, which is
called Achernar, at the bottom of the long River Po.
Not the Italian river, but the Celestial one.
That heavenly stream runs northward to Orion. Now, between Canopus and
Achernar we see but few stars, although we pass the constellations of
the Painter’s Easel, Rhomboidal Net, and Clock. Between Achernar and
the Pole are the tiny stars of the Little Hydra. But between the Little
Hydra and the Flying Fish, resting like on the Table Mountain, is the
beautiful Nubecular Major, the great Magellanic Cloud.
Now I know where I am again. The Rhomboidal Net is on one side of the
Cloud, and the Flying Fish on the other. The Table by the Pole is south
of it. But what is north of it, for Canopus is not quite in a line with
the Cloud and the Pole?
The Sword Fish is on the Cloud. But go again to Achernar, and draw a
line thence to the Pole.
Why, it goes right through the Little Magellanic Cloud.
That Cloud is between the Hydra and the Toucan. That bird’s head beyond
Achernar is in our circumference of the Cross. A little further on that
round line is the bright star in the Peacock’s head; though the Indian,
with his arrows, stands between the Peacock and the Toucan.
The very place for a hunter. But go on, please, for you are fast
completing the circle, by getting back to the Cross.
The end of the Peacock’s tail brings us three-fourths round; and above
it, from the Pole, is the Southern Crown.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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