Round the year with the stars: The chief beauties of the starry heavens as seen with the naked eyeServiss, Garrett Putman
Science
Round the year with the stars: The chief beauties of the starry heavens as seen with the naked eye
Serviss, Garrett Putman
Astronomy -- Popular works
South of the Square of Pegasus we see the western part of the
constellation of Pisces, whose small stars run in streams toward the
eastern horizon. Pisces furnishes one of the most remarkable examples
of this phenomenon, in which the stars are seen arrayed in long,
winding lines, like buttercups following a brook. Cetus is also seen
rising south of Pisces; but we shall deal with these constellations
later. Meanwhile we return to Alpheratz, at the northeast corner of
the Square of Pegasus. The name is derived from an Arabic phrase
meaning the “Horse’s Navel”; but the star is now generally associated
with Andromeda, and is, indeed, the Alpha of that constellation, and
shines on the maiden’s head. The star Delta (δ), in Andromeda, marks
her breast, and her extended arms and chained hands are shown by
rows and groups of small stars on the north and south. Beta (β), or
Mirach, is in her girdle, and the two small stars northwest of it lead
the eye to one of the most wonderful objects in the sky--the Great
Andromeda Nebula. You may detect it as a misty speck with the naked
eye; an opera-glass will show you plainly that it is a little luminous
cloud. In Chart X its position is indicated by a little circle near
the star Nu (ν). In a telescope it appears of a spindle shape, with
a bright axis, but the best views of it are afforded by photography.
On the photographic plate, exposed continuously for hours to its
rays, it gradually builds up its marvellous form--the great central
condensation, with the encircling spirals, emerging in all their
strange splendor. It resembles a whirlwind of snow, and the appearance
of swift motion and terrific force is startling. Its spectrum, instead
of being that characteristic of gases, indicates that it consists
principally of matter in a star-like state of condensation, and some
have imagined that it is an outside universe, composed of stars too
distant to be separately distinguished, and arrayed in mighty spirals,
which recall the form of the Milky Way. The latest investigations show
evidence, however, that it is partly nebular in constitution. These
things once known, the contemplative eye is drawn to that misty speck
as to a magnet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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