The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-11-29


 tory Staff.
 The eastern half of the evening sky is resplendent with brilliant first magnitude stars; We welcome back to our g o'clock map that part of the celestial sphere which contains Orion ! and it's near neighbors, with no less than eight first-ma snitude stars. Nearest the meridian and highest ! above the horizon are Capella of the constellation of Auriga and Adlebar- an of Taurus, the former a beautiful clear white, the latter of rather yellow tinge
 Orion itself is a group which is so unique in appearance that it is very easily recognized and fixed in the memory, as it contains the famous Belt of Orion. This is composed of trhee stars of only the second magni- tude, but lying almost exactly along g. straight line, with the center one exactly halfway between the outer two; there is no other such arrange ment in the heavens. About map time the Belt will be found very nearly perpendicular to the horizon in the east, but as the stars rise the line ! becomes more horizontal. This, how ever, will not be found to interfere with the ease of locarrng the group. Northward of the Belt is the red dish first-nagnitude star, Betelgeux Cor Betelgueze) and the second-mag- nitude BellatriX; to the south is white Rigel. Orion is the Great Hunter; Betelgueze marks his right shoulder, Rigel his left foot, and a fainter line of stars running off from the Belt l in the general direction of Rige1 rep resents the jeweled scabbard of his i sword
 On good clear nights one of the stars of the scabbard will be observ- ed to be somewhat hay in appear ance, quite different from the other stars. This is by no means an opti- cal illusion, for the haziness is due to the fact that this is really no star at all, but the famous NebuIa or Or ion, one of the very finest sights in the heavens for anyone who has ac- cess to even 8 small telescope. With this aid it will be seen as "a luminous cloud of irregular shape, occupyin g a considerable portion of the sky. In it are a number of real stars, which probably are parts of the nebular structure, condensed masses or nue. lei. Long-eXposure photographs, which bring out parts of the nebula too faint even for observation of the l telescope, are extremely beautiful. The naked eye sees only the brightest portion of the nebula, for the entire l thing occupies an area of sky equal I to about four full moons. Due to it's enormous distance from Us the ac- 1 tual size, not the apparent size, is 1 so tremendous that numbers would convey no meaning to our brain; but { if the sun and it's entire system of i planets were placed within the vol
 ume occupied by this glowing mass l of gas it would be relatively smaller i than a pinhead in the largest room 1 the reader ever entered.
 i The Belt may be used as a guide i post fer the recognition of several i stars. Extending it's line to the west l it points toward Aldebaran, not far i from which will also be found the 1 nakeG-uye cluster of the PIeiades, i and extending it eastward it points i out to us the giant star 5irus, the 1 Great Dog, than which there is no
 i brighter star in the entire heavens. i Northward from Sirus is Procyon,
 the Lesser Dog, also 8 first-mag gni-
 1 tude star, and northeastward from