GLORY OF THE STARS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19032, 1 June 1925, Page 13

GLORY OF THE STARS.

TKE HEAVEINS IN 'JUNE. PLANETS AND CONSTELLATIONS. By tho Unn. Director, Wansftßui Observatory, Tho sun 3* in the constellation Taurus till tho 18th, when he enters Gemini. His declination is northerly till tho morning of the 22nd, when he is at his greatest northern altitude, and least' with us in the Southern Hemisphere. This is our shortest day, after which there will appear a lengthening in tho courso of a Jew weeks. _ Sun spots were fairly plentiful, especially during tho middlo of .May, when "there were no fewer than live distinct areas of disturbance at one time on tho visible disc. Tho moon, moving night by night eastward among the stars, passes in turn the planets and some of tho brighter Htars, and serves as a convenient pointer to them, Sho will bo nearest Saturn on. tho evening of the 4th; Jupiter on the evening of tho 9th, Mercury on the evening of tho 21st, Venus on tho 23rd, Mars on the morning of tho 24th. Mercury is a morning star during the early part of the month, passing across tho sky in front of the sun till tho 20th, •whei. he is in superior conjunction, after which ho will become an evening star. Ho will bo in lunar on tho evening of the 21st. V-emiii is'an evening star, setting shortly after (ho sun during the month. Sho is in lunar conjunction on* tho morning of tho 23rd, and Will bo on ono side of our satellite, west and east respectively, on the evenings of the 22nd and 23rd. Venus will be in perihelion on tho 23rd. The Major Planets. Mars is an evening star, but too close to thr sun's placo in tho heavens for observation at this time. He is in conjunction with the moon on tho morning of the 24th, Jupiter is an evening star in tho constellation Sagittarius, rising on tho Ist at, about, 7.30 p.m. and visible, as the •most .briliiant star-like object throughout the night. He will be in lunar conjunction on tho evening of tho 9th. The most interesting of his satellite phenomena mav be looked for on tho evenings of the 2nd. 6th," 7th, Bth, 10th, 13th, 34th, 18th, 20th. 22iul 25th, 26th, 29th, when eclipses, transits, and occultations of his brighter niOotis may be seen in any good telescope. < ' Saturn is an evening star, in Libra, and visiblo throughout tho night. His ring system is now well opcrned to tho observer, and this planet is now one of the most, attractive objects in tho heavens, as seen in any good astronomical telescope. Saturn will be in Innar conjunction on the evening of tho 4th, when he may bo seen below tho moon, and distant from it about five diameters of our satellite. Places of Constellations, Th« Constellations, as given below, may bo seen in their respective positions at 0 p.m. of the Ist, 8 p.m. of tho 15th, and 7 p.m. of the 30th of tho month. North and nearest tho horizon is Bootes, the Herdsman, with its brilliant star Arcfcurus. Slightly east of Bootes we sco the Northern Crown and Hercules, while toward the west wo see Virgo and its bright star Spica, with Coma Berenices under Virgo. Over Hercules is Ophiuchus,. tho serpentbearer, in whose hands are the writhing snakes, and above him, again, is Libra. Aquila is just rising over the eastern quadrant with Copernicus rather more toward tho south, and over these Sagittarius and tho Scorpion, whoso great red ' star Antares (tho giant of all the great, suns so far measured), lies between two Others in a curve which forms the body of the Scorpion. , The Southern Cross now rides high, over the South Polar point, the Pointers, -Alpha and' Beta of the Centaur, being to tlit* cast. . The Southern Triangle, Pavo r-n'd tho Toucan follow, tho Cross, moving upward and toward the west. Eridamis, and its brilliant Achernar, is now a little cast of tho Southern Meridian; Argo and tho great star Canopus may be seen well over in the south-west, while the Clouds •of Magellan are on either side of the same meridian. Hydra, tho Water-snake, is over the western horizon, and reaches .past the zenith with the small constellations, of Corvus and Crater beneath. Leo and the bright star Regulus are nearing the horizon in the north-west, where the last stars of Gemini may bo seen near the horizon. The Clouds of Magellan. Short references to these bodies, or groups of bodies, wore made in last montl 's " notes;" we propose to deal still further with some of the interesting objects found within them in this issue. Perhaps the most" remarkable object within the clouds is that known as the " looped " nebula, or as.it is known astronomically, 30 Doradns. It is an immense mass of material, having the form of loops, or whorb, being luminous' in places and dark in others, which has the effect of producing a series of shapes most singular, even weird. From measures made recontjy at Harvard . of tho larger cloud, it has been found to have a distance of about -112,000 light years, which is in harmony with the distance found for a number oi the globular clusters in the cloud some same ago. If the " looped " nebula is within the " cloud," and there is every reason to .suppose it is, its dimensions aro truly enormous. Brought to within the distance, say, of the great nebuia. of Orion, it would not bo confined to the space which this body appears to fill, in the field of a good telescope; it would be hundreds of times larger, filling the whole region taken up by that parallelogram formed bv the stars Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Kappa of that constellation. On this assumption the distance acros»the greater cloud would bo about 4300 parsecs, or. a light journey of 14,000 years, which is about 20 times as far as is'the Orion nebula from our earth. . The great distance of these "'clouds " is being day by day by somewhere near 15. millions of miles for tho larger and rather loss fox" tho smaller cloud. Tho enormous dimensions of these masses, comparable with our own Galactic system, coupled with their great in space, is very striking to the reflectivo mind. Vast as is the orbit of Neptune, the outermost planet, nearly 5600 millions of miles from sido to side, the greater cloud would cover this distance in rather less than 12 months. In an astronomical telescope such as wo have at the Wanganui Observatory tho extraordinary richness of these objects becomes at once apparent. Stars in closelycompacted clusters; large masses of stars in loosely-compacted order, with innumerable objects of nebulous character, from largo and well-defined masses to tho most minute, crowd these two objects. Separate Universes.

Sir John Herschel says: "Even the most crowded parts of the stratum of Virgo, in the wing of that constellation, or in Coma Berenices (both very rich portions of the heavens) offer nothing approaching to it (the larger cloud)." "It is evident from this, and from tho intermixture of stars and unresolved nebulosity which probably might bo resolved with a higher optical power, that the nubecula© (or Magellanic clouds) are to bo regarded us systems sui generis, and which have no analogues in our (tho northern) hemisnhero." The smaller cloud which is only übout one-fourth tho size of tho larger, covers a.n area of about 10 square degrees It is quite separate from tho larger cloud and from the Milky Way, yet resembles greatly a pieco of the latter. It is situated in a region remarkably free from stars, which doubly enhances the richness of its masses of stars in "groups knots and straggling branches," as well as its great numbers of nebulae and starclusters. Ono of tho more pressing needs of astronomers is a .largo photographic reflecting telescope in thoSouthern Hemisphere by which sach objects as tho above might bo adequately daalt with—a great, reflector of sft. or 6ft. diameter would reap an even richer harvest in the Southern skies than has rewarded the benefactors of astronomy who hav© presented those great instruments in America which have yevcaled so much in recant years.