The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1916-07-30
THE HEAVENS IN AUGUST
BY PROFESSOR DOOLITTLE
OF the University of PeAnsylvania

the reader to go out very late in the
night, only an hour or two before dawn.
1t is in the morning sky that the three
brightest planets are now to be found; in
the evening heavens the bright Mars
alone remains with us and this is so far
away and SO very low in the west that it
is in very unfavorable position for obser
walton. BY September it will have pass
ed beyond the borders of our evening
map, but on this date the great Jupiter
will be just entering the map in the east,
and this beautiful world, with its retinue
of bright moons, will shine in our evening
skies throughout the entire winter. On
August 10th, the faint Uranus, which is
just visible to the naked eye, will come
into opposition with the sum- and so be
nearest the earth. This will be the most
favorable time of the year for observing
this very large but distant world.
THE AUGUST STARS
The slow progression of the seasons has
brought the Great Square of Pegasus and
the bright Andromeda into our evening
sky while the summer branch of the
Milky Way with it's train of bright
groups, extending from Sagittarius in the
south to Perseus in the north, has now
become raised almost to the zenith. With
this beautiful pathway to guide him, the
merest beginner in astronomy can readily
trace out many of the larger summer
groups, of which the most easily found
are Scorpio, the Archer the Eagle, the
Northern Cross, and Cassiopeia. Having
thus made beginning and, as it were,
found his bearings on the face of the
heavens, the delicate fainter groups, such
as the Maden's HAIR the Crown, the
A he tr;1r Eu,r tyt,n
the Dolphin or Jobs Coffin. and many
others can be gradually added, until the
whole summer heavens have become IA
miliar to him.
1t is in Andromeda, at N, figure 1, that
there is found the wonderful Great Me-
bula. while at the point of the conste-
lation Hercules there is the wonderful
cluster of $4,000 stars. Both of these
objects are just visible to the naked eye
on clear night and they can hence be
well studied with even a small telescope,
though it requires a large glass to reveal
much of their wonderful beauty. The in
tricate detail of the former, showing how
it consists of great winding spiral
apparently condensing into a solar sys-
tenn, can in fact only be detected through
a long exposure of the Photographic
plate.
Almost exactly in the zenith there
shines out the brilliant. blue Vega a Won
derful sun immensely larger and i'm
nensely hotter than our own sun, which
is so far away that the light with which
we view it has been q years and months
on it journey to US. Vega is receding
from us with a speed of nine miles a sec
ond: it is also drifting slowly in a trans
verse direction and changing it's posi-
ton among the stars, but this motion is
so slow that it will require 1000 years FOR
lts place to become changed by an
amount equal to the apparent distance
across the full moon. OF the two faint
stars A and b, figure l, which with Vega
form an equal-sided triangle. the former
is seen to be an interesting double in an
opera or field glass. while larger tele-
scope reveals it as remarkable quad
ripple system of suns. The latter is an un-
equal pair of a greenish color Almost on
a line with E and D, but nearer OF the