The Montgomery advertiser. [volume] (Montgomery, Ala.) 1885-1982, 1904-06-12
Woodruff Co.,
100 Bibb Street.

CLOSE conjunction with her in the night
from the 18th to the 18th. when both plan
cts will be within about one-haif de-
gree from each other. Both will rise al
most simultaneously during the month
Jupiter is in Pisces and. rising between
and o'clock, will act as morning star
On June this planet will be in perihelion.
Saturn is IN Capricornus and will rise a
little after 10 o'clock In the evening 1t Is
the only one of the brighter planets that
will be visible before midnight. Uranus is
in Sagitarius and eliminates about mid
night. The distant planet Neptune is in
Gemini On the goth Neptune will be In
conjunction with Venus phenomenon that
can be observed by those who enjoy the
advantage OF a good telescope.
Up to the middle of the eighteenth CEN
fury much had been done in the develop
ment of the astronomical science Copper
nicus had established the true solar sys-
tenn. Kepler had given it mathematical
basis by his three immortal laws. Sir
Isaac Newton had established the univer-
sal law of gravitation, but still. all these
brilliant achievements were more or less
confined to the planetary system, and the
stars were regarded by practical astron-
omers- mainly a number of conveniently
fixed points by which the motions of the
various members of the solar system could
be determined and compared. Their rec
milestones on the great celestial highway
traversed by the planets, well on
the bi-ways of space occasionally pur-
sued by comets Not that curiosity as to
their nature, and even conjecture as to
their origin, were at any period absent
Both were from time to time powerfully
stimulated by the appearance of startling
novelties in a region described by phi
losophers as "incorruptible" or exempt
from change. The general aspect of the
skies was recorded from age to age and
with improved appliances the enumeration
was rendered more and more accurate and
complete: but the secrets of the stellar
sphere remained inviolate. In the real sense
Sir William Herschel must be considered
the founder of sidereal astronomy. The
first great fact that the world learned
concerning fixed stars was that they are
suns When astronomers gradually could
form tolerably true surmses as to the stu
pendous distances of these bodies the con-
clusion that they were self-luminous bodies
could no longer be subject to any doubt
for even the dullest mind can not but
see that borrowed light could not pos
sibly penetrate such immense distances.
From the fact, however, that all these
orbs shining on the celestial vault
are suns 1t by means follows that they
all have the same power of emitting light.
In fact, the brillance of star depends
upon two causes: Its intrinsic brightness
that is. the quantity of light it actually
emits-and the distance from us. We're
all the stars of equal intrinsic brightness
it would be an easy problem to determine
their relative distances. for we would only
have to measure the respective amounts OF
light we receive from them. The inequality
of the actual brightness of the stars gives
us no clue to their actual distances. It is
true that by certain methods that stand
the severest tests of mathematical analysis
we have made tolerably reliable estimates
of the distances of some stars and found
that some of the brightest ones nearer
to us than others less bright: still among
the nearer of the stars are some scarcely,
II at all, visible to the naked eye, while