Читать книгу The Friendly Stars - Martha Evans Martin - Страница 6

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Among the hundreds of thousands of stars in the universe there are twenty which are so much brighter than the others as to make a class by themselves, and are known as stars of the first magnitude, or highest degree of brightness. These twenty stars are so scattered over the sky and so dominate each the section in which it is found, that if one comes to know them, there is no quarter of the heavens towards which he can turn his eye and not have a pleasant sense of familiarity with it.

Each one of these stars has a fixed place in the sky, and all, save three, have proper names of their own. The stars in general are not known by individual names; so it is a matter of congratulation that nearly all the bright ones are so known, and especially that this is true of all the brightest stars that can be seen in our latitude. The fixed place they have in common with all the other stars, which, when once their place is known, can always be found in the same spot. For the stars are steadfast. Spring, summer, autumn and winter each has its own bright stellar setting, and we can always count on its appearing with unchanging beauty and unfailing promptness. The moon comes and goes. She is the symbol of inconstancy. The planets wander from place to place—most of them easy enough to find, but continually changing in brightness and position. Only the stars are always the same.

The names of the twenty brightest stars, given in the order of their brightness, are as follows:

Sirius	pronounced Sir´-i-us
Canopus	" Ka-nō´-pus
Alpha Centauri	" Al-fa Sen-tâ´-rē
Vega	" Vē´-ga
Capella	" Ka-pel´-a
Arcturus	" Ärk-tū´-rus
Rigel	" Rē´-jel, or Rī´-jel
Procyon	" Prō´-si-on
Achernar	" A-ker´-när
Beta Centauri	" Bā-ta Sen-tâ´-rē
Altair	" Al-tāre´
Betelgeuse	" Bet-el-gerz´
Alpha Crucis	" Al-fa crū-´sis
Aldebaran	" Al-deb´-a-ran
Spica	" Spī´-ka
Pollux	" Pol´-uks
Antares	" An-tā´-rēz
Fomalhaut	" Fō´-mal-o
Deneb, or Arided	" Den´-eb, or A´-ri-ded
Regulus	" Reg´-u-lus

There are five stars among the twenty brightest which are so far south that they cannot be seen in our latitude. But they are important and beautiful, and it may be worth while to speak of them briefly before we pass on to the others of this bright company with whom we hope to have a friendly acquaintance. These five stars are Canopus, Alpha Centauri, Beta Centauri, Alpha Crucis, and Achernar. In some parts of Florida and Texas, Achernar can be seen low in the south for a short time in the evening, and Canopus, which is a little farther north, can be seen a somewhat longer time and higher up in the sky. All five of these stars can be seen in Cuba. It is to be regretted that they must remain hidden from us, for there are special reasons why some of them would interest us, aside from their great beauty.

Canopus, for instance, is far brighter than any star visible in the northern hemisphere save one, the brilliant star Sirius, and Canopus is so much farther away than Sirius that it must be many times larger and really give many times more heat and light. It is, in fact, one of the largest bodies in the universe; for with all its superior brilliancy, it is still so far away that we have no certain estimate of its distance. Sirius, though it outshines Canopus to our view, is comparatively near us, and its greater brightness may be on that account.

Incidentally, it may be interesting to know that Canopus is credited with having run away with one of the Pleiades. If he did the deed, he has succeeded in concealing the proof of it, for the lost Pleiad has never been seen elsewhere since she was reputed to have disappeared from her place among her six sisters.

Alpha Centauri is distinguished as being, so far as is now known, the one star of all, of whatever degree of brightness, that is nearest to us. It is not near enough for any inconvenient neighborliness, as we shall find later on; but a stretch of a few hundred millions of miles in shortening the distance to our nearest neighbor is worth taking into account and setting down to the credit of Alpha Centauri.

This star is called by certain French astronomers Proxima, on account of its nearness to us; but the name has not come into any general use, nor does it seem very desirable that it should. For all our feeling that so important a star ought to have an individual name, Proxima does not seem the right choice. It may well be that in the course of time other stars will be found to be nearer to us than Alpha Centauri, and the name would then have no appropriateness.

Beta Centauri is a brilliant star, not quite so bright as Alpha. The two stars lie very near together. The distance between them is about four degrees. This is a little more than the distance between Castor and Pollux and not quite so much as that between the two pointers in the Dipper. Alpha Crucis, almost as bright, lies not far away, and the three stars make a brilliant spectacle in the southern sky. Achernar, but little below Alpha Centauri in brightness, is the only very bright star in its section of the southern heavens.

The other fifteen of the brightest stars are all visible to us, and are the ones we shall seek to know first. After they are well identified it will be easy to point out others, less brilliant, but perhaps not less significant.

To find any of these stars only two things are necessary to be known as a basis from which to work: the constellation known as the Big Dipper, and the North Star (Polaris is its name).

The Big Dipper is a large constellation (part of a still larger one called the Great Bear) consisting of seven principal stars, all very bright, but none of them among the twenty brightest, grouped so as to resemble the outline of a dipper.