Astronomy for Young Folks

ept the extreme northern and southern polar regions. A group of three faint stars outlines the head of Orion. His right shoulder is marked by the deep-red, first-magnitude star Betelgeuze (meaning armpit), and his left shoulder by the bright white star Bellatrix, The Amazon. Orion stands facing Taurus, The Bull, and brandishes in his right hand a club, outlined by a number of faint stars extending from Betelgeuze toward the northeast. The top of the club lies near the tips of the horns of Taurus. In his left hands he holds up a lion's skin, which we can trace in another curving line of faint stars to the west and northwest of Bellatrix. The brilliant, blue-white, first-magnitude star Rigel lies in the left foot, and the second-magnitude star Saiph, a little to the east of Rigel, is in the right knee. Three evenly spaced stars lying in a straight line that is exactly three degrees in length form theBelt of Orion, and from the Belt hangs the Sword of Orion, outlined by three faint stars. The central star in the Sword appears somewhat blurred and is the multiple star Theta, in the midst of the great Orion nebula, the finest object of its kind in the heavens. Entangled in the meshes of this glowing nebula are a number of brilliant suns, appearing to us as faint stars because of their great distance. The star Theta, in the heart of the nebula, is seen with a powerful telescope to consist of six stars; that is, it is a sextuple star. Even with a small telescope, four...