The evening times. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1895-1902, 1901-04-29
THE WINTER STARS WANING
Glimpses of Brighter Ones to Be
Had During Next Month.


without too great regret, for we know
that in the autumn they viii reappear
triumphant in the eastern sky. The
Twins, Castor and Pollux, may be seen
well down in the west They cannot be
well mistaken, being Of fairly equal
brightness and separated by about ten
times the breadth of the full moon Some
what further south and nearer the hort
zon is Procyon, while the brilliant Capei-
Ia can be seen in the northeast.
With the approach of mild weather
thousands of faint-hearted star-gazers
who have neglected the gIories of the
winter sky begin to renew their vows to
gain a better acquaintance with the ce-
lestiai regions nightly spread before them
! These cannot do better than to begin
with an attentive and careful study of
the best known. most easily found and
most striking of the considerations
namely, Ursa Major, or the Great Bear.
The passion of the ancients for finding
resemblances of NEUROLOGICAL objects
among the stars led to some extraordi-
nary designations among the constella-
tons. and the Great Bear and Little Bear
are among the most grotesque- In order
TO make bears Of these groups of stars it
is necessary to provide them with tails
two or three times as long as their bodies.
The modern English and American des-
ignation of Big Dipper and Little Dipper
are much more descriptive and satisfac-
tory. It must be noted, however that
while the Bears include all the stars
of the constellation, the Dippers in each
case embrace seven stars and no more.
The ancient Romans saw in the stars of
| our Big Dipper a team Of oxen (triones),
and by combination Of the number sew
en- of the stars made the word ''septeHl-
triones" the specific name Of the aster-
| ism AID septemtviones, toward the sew
en- stars was their method of indicating
the direction, north The Greeks, calling
the figure a bear, arktos, similarly used
the same word meaning north From
this we derive the word arctic, applied to
seas, regions, the circle of the midnight
sun. and the kind Of spring weather that
Washington has lately experienced. 1t
seems hard to connect the arctic over
shoes of the street car motorman with
the shining stars Of the Big Dipper, but
the connection exists, even if we must go
to ancient Greece 10 find it
It has been suggested that arktos is a
| bIunder founded on similarity of sound
from the Sanskrit word rakh bright but
, there ought to be such thing as modera-
! ton even in the pursuit Of philology, as
N1iNtSS lLit u4AAOi LtilclC AE-NtICtoA
! who stated that Ireland received its
name on account Of the easily excited
/ ire of its inha bitauts.
/ If we must search so deeply for the
/ reason Of ''arktos' what must we do
| in the case Of the Ram, the Bull, the
/ Heavenly Twins and all the rest of
/ the sidereaI menagerie2 Among the old
/ Csermanic peoples the figure was called
/ the wagon or the pillow" and both
! designations yet survive Among the An
| gfo-Saxous it was called the ''ceOrIes
vain farmers wagon pronounced
| .ChurIs-D, from this came the easy cor
| rupJiOH Charles Vain and the still worse
King Charles VAN among some o.
/ the North American Indians the Big
/ DippeT Is known as the seven people,
/ while others declare the figure TO be 4
! bear 1t Is possible that these latter Dor
I rowed the idea from the white man at q
1 not far remote date, as the idea might be
! presumed to readily catch their fancy
! As most OF the brighter ana more con-
/ sDicuous stars throughout the sky nave
! proper names of their own, irrespective
( Of astronomical catalogue designations. 1t
| Is well for the interest Of the amateur
| observer that he learn and remember
| enough of these TO give him . general
| spcakinC acquaintance with the starry
/ hosts and he cannot do better than begin
| with the seven stars Of the BIG Upper
This hSt5r. at the beginning OF May IS III
| the north well toward the zenith at =
: O'Clock and is turned completely UPSIDE
1 down. There are tour stars IN the Do"i
| and three IN the handle OF the Upper.
! The star in the outer rim of the clipper IS
/ named DUbhe: the one just below II the
! bottom OF the dipper is Nerak- that which
marks the bottom OF the bowl nearer
| the handle is Phad, while the star joining
| the bowl TO the handle Is MegTez- ALoth
| IS the nearer Of the three stars forming
the handle MiZar TIE next, while Benet-
nasch - at the end. These names are all
/ from the Arabic, as are all the otner
v-E-rV
| few 7 he Arabs did not see in this figure
| a bear a team of oxen, wagon, or
! pillow but a bier and three mOuTnsrs
BeQel-.RSCh is chief OF the nOuTHerS- II
is not we'll generally speaking, to go look
ing for the derivation Of the Arabic names
[ of the stars. for they are for the most part
pueriIe and commonplace beyond belief
All the stars Of the Big Dipper are of
the second magnitude, except MeSrez-
| This star is Delta JTSae MaJoTtS- and from
this fact several writer's have stated that
| the star must have faded in bTilHancy
| since the time Of Bayer $3.50 because
there are three stars in the nguTe whose
! brightness is much greater though, they
have lower alphabetical place. l MS l. an
| amusing non seQuitUr because the order
in which they are named shows that BdyeT
| started with Alpha at Dubhe- and took
! them as they came TO Eta tBenetnaSCh),
and for once did not trouble himself about
relative brightness
| Mizar the star at the bend OF the
| handle of he Big Dipper. is one Of the
most interesting of stars. which, however,
is only saying that 1t IS one or the very
few stars OF which anything besides mag
| nitude and position Is known. This star
has long been known as q double star the
| two compOueut$ revolving about each
other IN a period Of immense duration,
probably 200G9 years In 1883 Prof.
! Pickering demonstrated by means of the
| spectrOScope that the larger Of the visible
CornUonentS was itself q double. with Il pc
Rod Of 1914 DAYS. AS It was shown that
the components of this pair though too
close to split with the telescope are Vet
about 1f3.6 go miles apart, a distance
ike to that Of Mars from The sun the COM
| bined mass must be forty tunes as great
as the sun. Near 10 this star IS q small
star call AIcOr. 7 his Is not one of the
Stars of the double thought SIT Robert
! Bah thinks il Is connected with the sys-
tenn On a very clear night AlcoT can be
| seen by the naked eye
| OF course il is known that the stars
| which seem to keep their positions
| through the ages are not at rest, but real
~ moving swiftly through space. and
! their apparently unChangiug position is
! the stars we have been considering Ben
| etnasch is moving downward and for
| ward. so as to bend double the handle Of
| of which il now forms the end Dubhe Is
[ moving outward. and SO spreading apart
| the top of the bowl 1t viii be more than
| 100000 years before the appearance of the
! dipper is badly spoiled a line drawn
| from Merak through Dubhe points out the
| north star. or pOIaTiS and the celestial
| pole. The same line projected backward
| passes through the constellation Leo. be
| tween the sickle and the triangle. A line
| from MegreZ through Merak will point
| out Castor and PoliuX. \ line from Dub.
! distance from Dubhe to BeuetnaSch, vii
| Spirg 81 la