Venus is at one time of the year a Morning Planet, and at another time of the year an Evening Planet. You always see Venus either not very long before sunrise or not very long after sunset. Venus is so near to the Sun that you cannot possibly find her in any part of the sky very far away from the Sun. So if, in the evening, you see a bright planet away towards the east, you may be sure you are _not_ looking at Venus. Since the Sun has lately set in the west Venus will not be anywhere towards the east. But if you see a very bright untwinkling planet in the west you may be pretty sure that you have found Venus. “Such a lovely star,” people often call her. Venus is no star, however. It is the same with Mercury as with Venus, only _more so_; because Mercury is still closer to the Sun. So Mercury rises a shorter time before the Sun than Venus, or sets a shorter time after the Sun. This makes Mercury not so easy to see as Venus; and Mercury is never so brilliant as Venus, at his best. Sometimes, when you have found Venus as a shining planet towards the west, you will see another bright and beautiful planet, only a little less radiant, in quite another part of the sky; and then you have most likely found Jupiter. If you look through a good opera-glass you may perhaps get a glimpse of Jupiter’s little moons. Mars is often not at all difficult to find, because of his red color. He too, like Venus and Jupiter, does not twinkle. He is not, however, nearly so bright as Jupiter. When you begin to learn the Star-Groups it is wisest to start with those near the north pole. Ask somebody first to point out to you the Great Bear, with his seven chief stars, all fairly bright: four in the body, and three in the tail. Two of the body-stars are called The Pointers, because they point almost straight at the POLE-STAR. The end star of the Little Bear’s tail is the Pole-Star; and it lies almost exactly over the north pole. As our Earth spins round and round, so that other stars in the sky seem to journey across from east to west, her north pole points always to the Pole-star, and the Pole-star remains always overhead at the north pole. But the body of the Little Bear seems to travel round and round his own fixed tail-tip. _Seems_ to do so: for this is part of the great seeming whirl of the whole sky at night, caused by our Earth’s real spinning movement. In shape the Little Bear is very like the Great Bear, being made of seven stars, four in the body and three in the tail. Only its stars are a great deal more dim than the seven chief stars of the Great Bear. Two stars of the Little Bear are called “The Guardians of the Pole.” So now you have to fix in your mind the little faint Pole-Star as a starting point in your study of the heavens. Round about the Pole-Star are four important constellations which you ought to learn early.