The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-12-05
The Starry Skies h December


The approach of the brilliant summer star Vega to the northwestern horizon, indicates the arrival of winter. This is confirmed by the appearance on our map for the first time of Sirius and Procyon in the southeast and east. Taurus, con taining the Pleiades, better known than the constellation itself, is well up in the eastern sky, leading the array of brilliant winter consultations. The north east is barren. The nebula in And rcmeda, which is the only nebula which can be seen with the naked eye, is To- cated at A, Figure 1. With the naked eye 1t is not a brilliant object, but it can be seen readily enough with a black sky. Opera glasses show it very easily. Its appearance is that of hay star without sharp boundary It has fre- quently been mistaken for a comet Just under the great square in Pegasus, at B. may be seen tn "crclet" in Pisces, series of rather faint stars arranged somewhere nearly in the form of a cir cle. The stars in Perseus may be con- sidered as forming an imperfect letter A (see Figure D. The eastern side of the A is the so-called segment of Persus. Just above the top of the A, at D, lies the double cluster in Perseus, distinctly visible to the naked eye and a splendid object in small telescopes.
 THE PLANETS IN DECEMBER
 Venus alone of the brighter planets Is visible in the early evening. This planet may be seen in the southwest in the early evening. It is not within the limits of our map until the end of the month. It is then just on the edge. The map is for o'clock, whereas it becomes dark much earlier, so that Venus may be seen earlier in the evening. It is so bright that it may be seen in very strong twilight very soon after sunset and before the stars come into view Uranus is in Aquarius, but is not visible to the naked eye. Jupiter and Saturn are not far apart in Leo and may be seen late at night. Neptune is not visible to the naked eye. The other planets are too near the sun to be seen. On December g Jupiter is at quadrature-th is, the line from the earth to Jupiter is perpend- cular to the line from the earth to the sun. On this day the fourth satellite of Jupiter makes a transit over the face of Jupiter. The satellite also casts it's shadow on Jupiter. The shadow crosses the planet first. In this case the shadow completes it's transit hours and g minutes before the satellite begins it's transit Since this is the outerinost of the four brighter satellites and the event occurs almost exactly at quadrature, this interval is about the longest possible for on" of Juniter's eatell;tos.
 THE EARTH AT PERIHELION
 The earth was at perihelion-that is, a the point of it's orbit closest to the sun on January 3. It will be at perihelion again just when the whistles arc blow ing to herald the New Year in Eastern standard time. It occurs earlier by the Central and Mountain times. Thus this year there are two times when the earth is at prihelion, which is unusual. Next year the earth will not pass periheion at all by the times usnd in this country
 THE PLEIADES
 The Pleides are better known than any it be those of the Big Dipper They a part of the constellation Taurus. They are located at E, Figure l. As they are a compact group not well represented on the small scale of Figure 1, a larger scale map is found in Figure 2. To the naked eye only the six stars joined by the lines are easily seen. None of these stars would receive any attention if it were separated from the others. But as a group they at once attract the attention. In ancient literature the group was al- ways regarded as consisting of seven stars. What has happened to the. seventh star, if one ever appeared, is uncertain. Fourteen stars have been seen with the naked eye by at least three persons un- der very favorable conditions. Eleven were charted by a student of Kepler. This was before the days of telescopes, so that there is no doubt that he saw them. A few of the other stars are shown on Figure 2. The star most easily seen after the six is the one to the right of