The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-11-01


 liantly in the south. little to the west of the meridian, is now the most beau tiful and conspicuous object in the evening sky. This planet is always q most satisfying object for examination in a small telescope. If the air is req sonably steady it's beautiful ose-col- ored bands and its four bright moons can always be seen, and if the ob- server has the patience to watch this world for only a few hours he can see clearly that it is turning around under his telescope. In fact, any marking which is seen emerging at the right hand edge of the planet will pass com pletely across the disc and disappear at the left-hand edge in less than five hours; and. meanwhile. the bright moons will be seen to be trapidly chang ing their positions, some transiting across the planets disc, some passing behind it and some passing into the planets shadow and becoming eclipsed. so that altogether the wonderful sys- ten. affords perhaps the best study in small telescope of any object in the entire heavens. Eclipses, etc. Of the moons will as seent 10 occur in unusual numbers on the evenings or November 2, g. 22 and 27-
 The beautiful planet Saturn will be seen almost the center OI tic COHst0aid Gemini a short distance up from the east point of the horizon. in the early evening and by midnight it will have risen high ir the heavens. The rings of this planet are now widely opened. and it forms a beautiful object in small telescope. The planet is now between the bright stars A and B of Figure 1. It is at present retrograding or moving westward over the sky, and will pass the star at A on December 27 This westward mo- tion of Saturn will continue until March Ill. when 1t will have reached the position lC. After this 1t will run rapidly east ward, not, however. finally passing the star at until June 2t The eastward motion of Saturn carries it entirely around the sphere in about 30 years. but | in the course of this motion it retro grades no less than % times, so that it's actual path among the stars is a very complicated one.
 l If the observer will go out of doors to- ward midnight about the middle of the month and face northeast he will see an 1 occasional shooting star dart outward from the constellation Leo, move very swiftly across the sky and disappear These are the November shooting stars Each one is little meteoric body which l Is moving with high velocity about the sun and which, colliding with the upper regions of our air. is rendered luminous l tion to which it is subjected. The earth happens to run Into this stream of par ticles, consequently they blow through our air with speed of about 40 miles a second and are hence very quickly con stunned. The stream of August meteors on the contrary overtaKe the earth. and therefore enter our air with a velocity o1 only about eight miles a second; these shooting stars are hence consumed bui slowly. and travel in long paths across I the sky. For these reasons also the light of the November meteors is of deer bluish color, while that of the August meteors Is yellowish or red The former meteoric swarm is following about the sun the exact path of comet knowr as Tempel's comet; 1t is indeed believed to be nothing less than the remains of tbtl comet, which has been drawn out along it's orbit for a great distance owing tt the tidal action of the sun. Each year in November our earth runs into thii swarm of meteoric particles and there re. suits what we observe as the Novem' ' Der shower of shooting stars
 mIo pooxsuTT11H.