The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-07-01

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 Those who are adventurous enough
 to arise before sunrise may witness a rather fine spectacle if they will do so
 on the morning of July IS. Just be-
 fore the dawn-if, of course, the | weather be clear-they will be rewar- ded by a view of three planets in the lsky-Jupfter, Venus and Mercury. Later in the year opportunity will be had to see each of these planets again at a better hour, but Mercury is much better seen a morning star than as an evening star.
 | Another interesting though not spe- cfaIIy rare phenomenon will occur this | month and again unfortunately at the early hour of 3.30. This will be an occulation of the planet Uranua by the moon, July 26. Uranus will be equal in brightness to a star of the sixth magnitude and an opera glass should be used except in the c1earest latnosphere.
 1 In the matter of interesting stars
 and cancellations the July heavens are second to none and offer plenty of beautiful objects to the seeker.
 Almost in the zenith at about nine
 
 l month is the constellation of Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown. This | in Greek mythology is the crown | Bacchus gave the beautiful Ariadne
 after she had been deserted by her husband, Theseus, King of Athens, on the Island of Naxos-
 1 The brightest of the Corona stars is called Gen1na- It has been found by astronomers to be receding from the earth at a rate of twenty miles Ta Bear Driver Bootes. with the very bright star Arcturus, rich in the l mythoIogicaI and scientific interest. Arcturus is one of the most rapidly | moving stars in the heavens, and is ! now quite al degree out from the po- I sition it had in the time of the cient Greek astronomers. It is of several hundred times as bright our sun. It is interesting to note | that the astrologers used to believe that fame and wealth were destined to come to one born under ArctursAs. To the east of the Corona is the large but medium bright group of Hercules and little farther east is l the brightest star of the northern l heavens, Vega. of the consteIlaton Lyra, the Harp of Orpheus. Of all 1 the stars visible in our attitudes the star of Sfriua of the southern heavens alone surpasses Vega in magnitude and beauty.
 The next brightest star in this group is of variable intensity, and | just to the east of this star is the fa- nous Ring Nebula in Lyra. invisible to the naked eye but good object for small telescopes Still farther to
 the east the eye meets the Milky into two streams. The very bright star Altair, which can be easily found by means of the accompanying star man, is chiefly interesting be- cause it is one of the nearest of the bright stars and is also rapidly ap- preaching the earth.
 Summer Heat.
 Have you ever seriously. asked yourself this question: Why is sum mer hotter than winter? The answer that may come to one's mind first is that perhaps the earth is nearer to 1 the sun al one time of the year than another and that when it so ap- breaches the sun the daily tempera- ture goes up. Actually the reverse is true, for on July 9th of this year the earth will be at the point of the orbit 1 called aphelion, the point at which it is far away from the sun as it can get in it's annual orbit While it is true that the earth as a whole re- ceives a little more heat at periheI- ion (that point in the earth's orbit of nearest approach to the sun) that occurs in January. and in any case l the difference in heat anI light en- ergy received from the sun at apheI- ion has no marked influence on the seasons of the northern and southern | henaispheres.
 The correct explanation is to be l found in the position of the sun in the sky If the suns apparent path | (aparent because, of course, it is the earth that does the moving) were not such as to bring the sun higher up in the sky at one time of the year l than another, the average daily tenn all parts of the year in any one loca- ton. Dus, however, to the fact that l the eart21's axis of rotation, or polar
 axis, is at an angle with the plane of | the earth's orbit, on the plane of the suns apparent orbit. the sun does 1 change it's greatest daily, or meridian
 or noon altitude considerably by about 47 degrees. That is, the noon | height of the sun above the horizon 1 on the northern midsummer day on
 June 21 is roughly three times | great as it is on the northern mid | winter day of December 21 for the latitude of New York.
 | .Now then, the effect of this increas- 1 ed altitude is two-fo1d: First the | day is longer in summer than in win 1 ter-in summer the period of day l light lasts longer than that of dark 1 ness, and therefore the suns rays l play longer on the earth and warm it l up Second, the sun being higher up, | the rays fall more directly and the ! is SDread 0Orer so