The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-09-01

September brings 10 our uellsnteu
 gaze more than one stellar object or
 great beauty. The sky seems particu-
 larly rich in first magnitude stars. In
 the West white Spica sets just before
 the time of our map, but we are still
 able to see the reddish Arcturus in
 Bootes and the still redder Antares
 in the group Scorpio away down in
 the Southwest. Almost above our
 heads and just having passed the mer-
 idian is the blue-white Vega in the
 lyre Almost on the meridian and
 more than half way up to the zenith
 Is another bluish-white star and al-
 most as bright, A1tair the pride of the
 Eagle In addition to these we well
 come two newcomers. Rising above
 the horizon in the Southwest is For
 malhaut of the Southern Fish and far north Capella, a star resembling
 Arcturus both in color and brightness.
 Many other stars, only little less
 bright, stud the darkened heavens
 and recommend themselves to our att
 tention for study and reflection. The
 Galaxy, or Milky Way spreads in a
 great semi-circle from the Southwest
 to the Northeast, passing through the
 zenith.
 Tho New Cancellations
 Perseus has risen in the Northeast l-Perseus the slayer of the snake haired Medusa and nberator of the chained maid Androemda, the daugh-
 ter of Cassiopedia, the queen, and Cepheus, the king. Cetus is the slain monster and Pegasus the horse which
 bore the champion. All these constel- lations, then. form a group related through their names, and all are so characteristically shaped that recog-
 milton of them is not difficult.
 The second in brightness of the
 stars of Perseus is A1gol, the variable
 Demon Star. It marks the head of
 Medusa. Its curious rapid changes in brightness made 1t an unexplain-
 able mystery for ages. Only late in the eighteenth century was the phe- nomenon adequately explained. The variation in brightness of this star Is so rapid that it can be observed with
 the naked eye by comparison with the neighboring stars. At its most bril- liant stage it's magnitude is the sec ond, but in the short space of nine hours it changes down to almost the
 fourth or, more exactly to the magni- tude 1-2 (three and one-half) and back again to the second, which >is almost five times as bright. This pro- cedure occurs quite frequently so that it period is only two days and twenty
 one hours. The explanation suggested first
 about 130 years ago was only recently proven to be correct. We now know | that the star Algol which we see when
 at it's brightest has dark compan- ion, which, of course, cannot be seen
 with even the most powerful tele- scope. This dark body rotates about the bright one, or rather, both rotate
 abou their common center of gravity.
 Periodically the dark one gets in be- tween us and the bright one, per- forming kind of eclipse. The eclipse
 is not quite total, or the star would
 vanish entirely; this is because the Earth is not in the same plane with the plane of rotation of these two bodies. If it were, the bright com ponent of the star would be entirely
 plotted from our sight. It was the spectroscope which enabled the as- tronomer to prove the correctness of this remarkable hypothesis, and, one
 might almost say, "see" the phenome- non.
 Pisces, the Two Fishes, is also we'll above the horizon. This group con- tains no specially bright stars, but is chiefly of interest now because in the
 territory of this constellation is found the point called the Vernal
 Equinox. This is one of the two points of crossing of the celestial equator and the ecliptic and is that one of the two which the Sun crosses on its
 way to the higher position in the sky | which makes our northern summer. Vernal means spring and spring be- gins when the sun occupies this point | in the heavens on or about March 21. This point used to be in the constel- lation Aries, the next one on the zo- diac, but the procession of the Equin- oxes has produced this change since
 the first astronomers studied the solar motions.
 Another ''fish" constellation has
 risen to our view-the Southern Fish
 marked by the bright star FomaI- haut mentioned above. This reddish | luminary is known to be 21 light years
 away from the Earth and has by some been considered the central sun of the
 universe, which, however, is probably not correct.
 Positions of the Planets
 Jupiter, whose absence from our
 evening sky map we have been re-
 gretting for many months, once more
 returns, and though very low in the eastern sky in the early days of Sep- 1 tember, soon climbs to a more prom inent position and. in the absence of hn hriO hi air1x- fos the sky, only to lose its royal position | when the latter rises soon after mid night. Venus is now a morning star and glows as brilliantly in the early
 morning hours as it did when an even- l ing star earlier in the year. Very 1 close to Venus, three degrees further