Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-02-06

The heavens In the early evenings
of February are the most beautiful
of the year. Many think they are
more beautiful in Winter because of
the cold weather, but this has moth
ing to do with 1t. When the same
stars are in view in the late nights
of October they are just as beautiful
The reason for the beauty lies in the
feet that there are really more bright
stars to be seen. The constellation
Orion, the finest of consultations. is
now in it's best position in the early
evening. II is surrounded by other
consultations with very bright stars,
including CAMS Major, which contains
sirius. the brightest of all stars, al
A, figure /.
Srion Named Among the Ancients.
II figure . we show the giant war
rior Orien who gives the constellation
its name That the name is very
ancient is sufficiently attested by the
fact that Orion is mentioned in the
book of Job and in the Odyssey OF
Homer. Naturally, there IS much
obscurity in the matter of the origin
of the name and we need not discuss
It, The figure has not come down
to us from "a drawing, but the draw
ing has been made to fit the descrip-
ton of the arrangement of the stars
given TO us by the ancient astronomer
ptolemy. AS in the case of most con-
stellations, any figure might be drawn
around the stars of the constellation
which would fit it just as well.
The brightest star of the constel-
1ation is Rigel, at B. figure i. This
star is the seventh star in the
heavens in order of brightness. The
best determination of it's distance
rl41 4 20 ha ierhf
and if that is so it is $4,000 times
as bright as the sun. It Is one of
the most brilliant stars known. The
name comes from the Arabic words
meaning left leg" Frequently stars
are given names indicating their posi-
tion in the anatomy of the mythology
cal figure.
The second star of the constellation
in order of brightness is Beteigeuse,
at c, figure /. This name means the
armpit of the central one" also from
Arabic. Betelguese, of course, has
always been a very bright and well
known star, but it is an interesting
star for several other reasons 1t is
the brightest star known to vary in
brightness. BY this | mean that when
faintest it g brightest than any other
variable stat. II several variable stars
have been X. Swn to exceed Betel-
geuse at their ..1aximum of bright
ness. Betelgeuse varies irregularly
through about half a magnitude for
some unknown reason. The star has
a reddish tinge. This fact and the
character of it's spectrum led astron-
omers to suspect that 1t was very
large and of low temperature. It's
diameter and temperature were COM
puted When it seemed that it might
be possible to determine the diameters
of the largest stars by means of an
instrument called an "interferometer"
connected with a telescope, Betel-
geuse, because of its supposed large
diameter, was the first star to be in
vestigated. Its angular diameter was
found to be less than twentieth of
a second. Mira alone has been found
to have a large angular diameter.
This angle is so exceedingly small
that even when a large telescope is
used the star appears simply as a
point of light. The best determine
ton of the distance shows Betelgeuse
to be 1872 light years away. This
means that the diameter of the star
is 257 900 900 miles, which is 297 times
the diameter of the sun. There are
good reasons for claiming that Betel-
geuse is the largest star known. Us
ing some determinations of distance,
however, Antares and Mira prove
larger. Betelgeuse is a star of rela- |
lively low temperature enormously |
expanded. 1t is near the beginning