Part 2 — ORION, HIS DOGS, AND THE BULL

The most gorgeous constellation in the whole sky is Orion. I really pity any one who does not know it, because it has more bright stars in it than any other group. Besides, it doesn't take much imagination to see this mighty hunter fighting the great Bull. I dare say half the people in the United States know Orion and can tell him as quick as they see him by the famous "belt of Orion."

This belt is made of three stars, each of which is just one degree from the next. That is why the English people call these three stars "the ell and yard." Another name for them is "the three kings." You can see the "sword of Orion" hanging down from his belt.

As soon as you see these things you will see the four bright stars that outline the figure of the great hunter, but only two of them are of the first magnitude. The red one has a hard name—Betelgeuse (pronounced bet-el-guz´). That is a Frenchified word from the Arabic, meaning "armpit," because this star marks the right shoulder of Orion. The other first-magnitude star is the big white one in the left foot. Its name is Rigel (pronounced re´-jel) from an Arabian word meaning "the foot."

You can see the giant now, I am sure. Over his left arm hangs a lion's skin which he holds out to shield him from the bull's horns. See the shield—about four rather faint stars in a pretty good curve? Now look for his club which he holds up with his right hand so as to smite the bull. See the arm and the club—about seven stars in a rather poor curve—beyond the red star Betelgeuse? Now you have him, and isn't he a wonder!

It is even easier to see the Bull which is trying to gore Orion. Look where Orion is threatening to strike, and you will see a V. How many stars in that V? Five. And which is the brightest? That red one at the top of the left branch of the V? Yes. That V is the face of the Bull and that red star is the baleful eye of the angry Bull which is lowering his head and trying to toss Orion. The name of that red eye is Aldebaran (pronounced al-deb´-ar-an).

I wish Aldebaran meant "red eye," but it doesn't. It is an old Arabian word meaning the "hindmost," or the "follower," because every evening it comes into view about an hour after you can see the famous group of stars called the Pleiades, which are in the shoulder of the Bull.

I do not care to trace the outline of this enormous bull, but his horns are a great deal longer than you think at first. If you will extend the two arms of that V a long way you will see two stars which may be called the tips of his horns. One of these stars really belongs in another constellation—our old friend the Charioteer, the one including Capella. Wow! what a pair of horns!

But now we come to the daintiest of all constellations—the Seven Sisters, or Pleiades (pronounced plee´-a-deez).

I can see only six of them, and there is a famous old tale about the "lost Pleiad." But I needn't describe them. Every child finds them by instinct. Some compare them to a swarm of bees; some to a rosette of diamonds; some to dewdrops. But I would not compare them to a dipper as some do, because the real Little Dipper is very different. The light that seems to drip from the Pleiades is quivering, misty, romantic, magical. No wonder many children love the Pleiades best of all the constellations. No wonder the poets have praised them for thousands of years. The oldest piece of poetry about them that I know of was written about 1,500 years before Christ. You can find it in the book of Job. But the most poetic description of the Pleiades that I have ever read is in Tennyson's poem "Locksley Hall," in which he says they "glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid."

There are a great many old tales about the lost Pleiad. One is that she veiled her face because the ancient city of Troy was burned. Another story says she ceased to be a goddess when she married a man and became mortal. Some people think she was struck by lightning. Others believe the big star, Canopus, came by and ran away with her. Still others declare she was a new star that appeared suddenly once upon a time, and after a while faded away.

For myself, I do not believe any of these stories. One reason why I don't is that a seventh star is really there, and many people can really see it. Indeed, there are some people so sharp-eyed that on clear nights they can see anywhere from eight to eleven. And, what is more, they can draw a map or chart showing just where each star seems to them to be.

But the most wonderful stories about the Pleiades are the true stories. One is that there are really more than 3,000 stars among the Pleiades. Some of them can be seen only with the biggest telescopes. Others are revealed only by the spectroscope. And some can be found only by means of photography.

But the most amazing thing about the Pleiades is the distances between them. They look so close together that you would probably say "the moon seems bigger than all of them put together." Sometimes the moon comes near the Pleiades, and you expect that the moon will blot them all out. But the astronomers say the full moon sails through the Pleiades and covers only one of them at a time, as a rule. They even say it is possible for the moon to pass through the Pleiades without touching one of them! I should like to see that. If anything like it is going to occur, the magazine I spoke of in the first chapter will tell me about it. And you'd better believe I will stay up to see that, if it takes all night!

There are two more constellations in the southern part of the sky that ought to be interesting, because they are the two hunting dogs that help Orion fight the Bull. But I can't trace these animals, and I don't believe it is worth while. The brightest stars in them everybody can see and admire—Sirius, the Bigger Dog, and Procyon, the Smaller Dog.

Every one ought to know Sirius, because he is the brightest star of all. (Of course, he is not so bright as Venus and Jupiter, but they are planets.) To find him, draw a line from the eye of the Bull through the belt of Orion and extend it toward the southeast about twenty degrees. They call him the Dog star because he follows the heels of Orion. And people still call the hottest days of summer "dog days" because 400 years before Christ the Romans noticed that the Dog star rose just before the sun at that time. The Romans thought he chased the sun across the sky all day and therefore was responsible for the great heat. But that was a foolish explanation. And so is the old notion that dogs are likely to go mad during the dog days "because the dog star is in the ascendant." So is the idea that Sirius is an unlucky star.

There are no lucky or unlucky stars. These are all superstitions, and we ought to be ashamed to believe any superstition. Yet for thousands of years before we had public schools and learned to know better, people believed that every one was born under a lucky star or an unlucky one, and they believe that farmers ought to plant or not plant, according to the size of the moon. Now we know that is all bosh. Those old superstitions have done more harm than good. One of the most harmful was the belief in witches. Let us resolve never to be afraid of these old tales, but laugh at them.

Why should anybody be afraid of anything so lovely as Sirius? I used to think Sirius twinkled more than any other star. But that was bad reasoning on my part. I might have noticed that every star twinkles more near the horizon than toward the zenith. I might have noticed that stars twinkle more on clear, frosty nights than when there is a little uniform haze. And putting those two facts together I might have reasoned that the stars never really twinkle at all; they only seem to. I might have concluded that the twinkling is all due to the atmosphere—that blanket of air which wraps the earth around. The nearer the earth, the thicker the air, and the more it interferes with the light that comes to us from the stars.

They say that Sirius never looks exactly alike on two successive nights. "It has a hundred moods," says Mr. Serviss, "according to the state of the atmosphere. By turns it flames, it sparkles, it glows, it blazes, it flares, it flashes, it contracts to a point, and sometimes when the air is still, it burns with a steady white light." (Quotation somewhat altered and condensed.)

It is a pity that so fine a star as Procyon should be called the "Smaller Dog," because it suffers unjustly by comparison with Sirius. If it were in some other part of the sky we might appreciate it more, because it is brighter than most of the fifteen first-magnitude stars we can see. My brother William has grown to love it, but perhaps that is because he always "sympathizes with the under dog." He was the youngest brother and knows. And curiously enough he was nicknamed "the dog"—just why, I don't know.

To find Procyon, drawn a line from Sirius northeast about twenty degrees. And to make sure, draw one east from Betelgeuse about the same distance. These three stars make a triangle of which the sides are almost equal.

The name Procyon means "before the dog" referring to the fact that you can see him fifteen or twenty minutes earlier every night than you can see Sirius.

The only kind word about Procyon I have heard in recent years was in connection with that miserable business of Dr. Cook and the North Pole. A Captain Somebody-or-other was making observations for Dr. Cook, and he wanted to know what time it was. He had no watch and didn't want to disturb any one. So he looked out of the window and saw by the star Procyon that it was eleven o'clock.

That sounds mysterious, but it is easy if you have a planisphere like ours. Last winter when we were all enjoying Orion, the Bull, and the two Dogs, I used to whirl the planisphere around to see where they would be at six o'clock at night, at eight, at ten, at midnight, and even at six o'clock in the morning. And so, if I waked up in the night I could tell what time it was without even turning my head. Sometimes I looked out of my window, saw Orion nearly overhead and knew it must be midnight. And sometimes I woke up just before daybreak and saw the great Bull backing down out of sight in the west, the mighty Hunter still brandishing his club, and his faithful Dogs following at his heels.