Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-08-03

First Or. goth. 49,
The spring and summer months
of this year are remarkable for the
opportunities they offer for the OBJ
~servation of the planets. August
| continues this fine record, with the
| four brigh. planets still in excellent
| position for observation. Venus sets
Just before map time, but earlier In
the evening is a fine evening star
over the western horizon. Saturn and
Jupiter, too, are over the western
horizon, somewhat higher, however,
than Venus; Mars is down in the
south, east of the star Antares. 1t Is
no longer so bright as it was in the
middle of June, for its distance has
now increased to about ~50,Ooo,ooo
miles. Both Jupiter and Venus ex-
coed it in brilliancy, but it is still
brighter than Saturn and all the
fixed stars now above the horizon.
The brilliant fixed star of the Au-
gust sky is almost overhead at map
time-Vega, the blue-white beauty
of the constellation of Lyra, the
Harp. Shining with a light which
resembles somewhat that of the old
| carbon arc street lamps, it is. next TO
Sirius, the Great Dog Star. the
brightest of the stellar world visible
to us in the northern ATTITUDES. Ana
we may well admire it, as the an
| clients did, who told their children
that it was part of the wonderful
| harm of Orpheus, who descended in
TO hades to regain his bride from
Pluto. To the Romans its morning
| setting marked the beginning of the
autumn.
A great deal of scientific interest
| also naturally attaches itself to Vega.
| Due to the phenomenon known TO
| the astronomer as the procession or
the euuinoxes (the slow motion OF
| the equinoxes along the ecliptic cir
cle), the north pole of the heavens
is gradually moving it's position
among the stars. Near the star
Alpha Ursae MINORS. or Polaris,
now, it will gradually away
and in some $4,000 years Vega Will
become the pole star again, as 1t
once was in the dim past ages.
Twenty Light Years Away
The distance from Vega to the
| earth has been determined with fair
accuracy to be about twenty light
| years. The light-year is a unit OF
| distance much used by astronomers
| in stating the enormous distances OF
space and equals the number OF
miles passed over by a beam of light
in one year. Light travels at the
rate of 1856 900 miles per second. and
the light year therefore equals 1885,
0O0x6Ox6Ox24x365A miles. Further
more, the apex of the suns way, the
point in the heavens toward which
the sun and it's attendant family are
speeding with a velocity of about
twelve miles per second, is situated
in the constellation of Hercules not
far from Vega. But we are not IN
danger of a collision with that star,
for it is also moving through space
with extreme rapidity, and it will
have considerably moved out of the
way by the time the earth reaches
that particular part of space. Our
friends who like to calculate can
| figure for themselves from the data
| given above how long it will be be-
fore we are near Vegas present
position.
The two next brightest stars in the
| group of Lyra are easily distinguish
| ed and form a triangle with their
| superior, which gives the group it's
| characteristic appearance. The more
westerly of this pair of third-mag-
nitude stars is Beta Lyrae, and is a
remarkably variable star, for it
| changes in brightness periodically
by a whole stellar magnitude. This
change takes place in about thirteen
days and is due to the fact tina Beta
| Lyrae is really a system of two stars
revolving about their common center
of gravity.
1t so happens that the plane of
this revolution passes very nearly
through the earth, and therefore
each star successfully eclipses the
other, diminishing thus the total
| brightness of the couple as we see it.
| All this movement is visible neither
to the naked eye nor in the strong
est telescope; it was discovered by
means of the s~pectroscope. At Its
brightest this star is about two and
one-half times as bright as when
passing through a minimum.
Famous Ring Nebula in Lyra
Slightly to the southeast of Beta is
| the other third-magnitude star
| Gamma Lyrae. If we draw an mag
mary line from Beta to Gamma we
would find at a spot about one-thlrd
of the way from Beta the famous
Ring Nebula in Lyra. 1t can be
seen in a small telescope and ap-
pears as a faint ring-like cloud with
a star in the center. 1t differs from
a terrestrial atmospheric cloud in
that it really emits its own light,
while the latter all shine by reflected
| sunlight. Naturally there are a great
many other differences. 1t is the
general opinion among astronomers
that the central star is really a con-
densation knot, or nucleus, of the
nebula and not merely a star which
happens perchance to be visible
along that line of sight and in real
ity a tremendous astronomic dis
lance away.
Clear of the horizon now is the
great constellation of Pegasus, the
Flying Horse. The three most brill
liant stars of Pegasus and the
brightest OF the stars belonging to