Pleasures of the telescope Part 5

The eastern expanse of Sagittarius is a poor region compared with the western end of the constellation, where the wide stream of the Milky Way like a great river enriches its surroundings. The variables T and R are of little interest to us, for they never become bright enough to be seen without the aid of a telescope. In 54 we find, however, an interesting double, which with larger telescopes than any of ours appears as a triple. The two stars that we see are of magnitudes six and seven and a half, distance 45", p. 42, colors yellow and blue. The third star, perhaps of thirteenth magnitude, is distant 36", p. 245.

Retaining map No. 13 as our guide, we examine the western part of the constellation Capricornus. Its leader alpha is a naked-eye double, the two stars being a little more than 6' apart. Their magnitudes are three and four, and both have a yellowish hue. The western star is alpha^1, and is the fainter of the two. The other is designated as alpha^2. Both are double. The components of alpha^1 are of magnitudes four and eight and a half, distance 44", p. 220. With the Was.h.i.+ngton twenty-six-inch telescope a third star of magnitude fourteen has been found at a distance of 40", p. 182. In alpha^2 the magnitudes of the components are three and ten and a half, distance 7.4", p. 150. The smaller star has a companion of the twelfth or thirteenth magnitude, distance 1.2", p. 240. This, of course, is hopelessly beyond our reach. Yet another star of magnitude nine, distance 154", p. 156, we may see easily.

Dropping down to beta, we find it to be a most beautiful and easy double, possessing finely contrasted colors, gold and blue. The larger star is of magnitude three, and the smaller, the blue one, of magnitude six, distance 205", p. 267. Between them there is a very faint star which larger telescopes than ours divide into two, each of magnitude eleven and a half; separated 3", p. 325.

Still farther south and nearly in a line drawn from alpha through beta we find a remarkable group of double stars, sigma, pi, rho, and omicron.

The last three form a beautiful little triangle. We begin with sigma, the faintest of the four. The magnitudes of its components are six and nine, distance 54", p. 177. In pi the magnitudes are five and nine, distance 3.4", p. 145; in rho, magnitudes five and eight, distance 3.8", p. 177 (a third star of magnitude seven and a half is seen at a distance of 4', p. 150); in omicron, magnitudes six and seven, distance 22", p. 240.

The star cl.u.s.ter 4608 is small, yet, on a moonless night, worth a glance with the five-inch.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP NO. 14.]

We now pa.s.s northward to the region covered by map No. 14, including the remainder of Ophiuchus and Serpens. Beginning with the head of Serpens, in the upper right-hand corner of the map, we find that beta, of magnitude three and a half, has a ninth-magnitude companion, distance 30", p. 265. The larger star is light blue and the smaller one yellowish. The little star nu is double, magnitudes five and nine, distance 50", p. 31, colors contrasted but uncertain. In delta we find a closer double, magnitudes three and four, distance 3.5", p. 190. It is a beautiful object for the three-inch. The leader of the constellation, alpha, of magnitude two and a half, has a faint companion of only the twelfth magnitude, distance 60", p. 350. The small star is bluish. The variable R has a period about a week short of one year, and at maximum exceeds the sixth magnitude, although sinking at minimum to less than the eleventh. Its color is ruddy.

Pa.s.sing eastward, we turn again into Ophiuchus, and find immediately the very interesting double, lambda, whose components are of magnitudes four and six, distance 1", p. 55. This is a long-period binary, and notwithstanding the closeness of its stars, our four-inch should separate them when the seeing is fine. We shall do better, however, to try with the five-inch. Sigma 2166 consists of two stars of magnitudes six and seven and a half, distance 27", p. 280. Sigma 2173 is a double of quite a different order. The magnitudes of its components are both six, the distance in 1899 0.98", p. 331. It is evidently a binary in rapid motion, as the distance changed from about a quarter of a second in 1881 to more than a second in 1894. The star tau is a fine triple, magnitudes five, six, and nine, distances 1.8", p. 254, and 100", p.

127. The close pair is a binary system with a long period of revolution, estimated at about two hundred years. We discover another group of remarkable doubles in 67, 70, and 73. In the first-named star the magnitudes are four and eight, distance 55", p. 144, colors finely contrasted, pale yellow and red.

Much more interesting, however, is 70, a binary whose components have completed a revolution since their discovery by Sir William Herschel, the period being ninety-five years. The magnitudes are four and six, or, according to Hall, five and six, distance in 1894 2.3"; in 1900, 1.45", according to Maw. Hall says the apparent distance when the stars are closest is about 1.7", and when they are widest 6.7". This star is one of those whose parallax has been calculated with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Its distance from us is about 1,260,000 times the distance of the sun, the average distance apart of the two stars is about 2,800,000,000 miles (equal to the distance of Neptune from the sun), and their combined ma.s.s is three times that of the sun. Hall has seen in the system of 70 Ophiuchi three stars of the thirteenth magnitude or less, at distances of about 60", 90", and 165" respectively.

The star 73 is also a close double, and beyond our reach. Its magnitudes are six and seven, distance 0.7", p. 245. It is, no doubt, a binary.

Three star cl.u.s.ters in Ophiuchus remain to be examined. The first of these, No. 4256, is partially resolved into stars by the five-inch. No.

4315 is globular, and has a striking environment of bystanding stars. It is about one quarter as broad as the full moon, and our largest aperture reveals the faint coruscation of its crowded components. No. 4410 is a coa.r.s.er and more scattered star swarm--a fine sight!

Farther toward the east we encounter a part of Serpens again, which contains just one object worth glancing at, the double theta, whose stars are of magnitudes four and four and a half, distance 21", p. 104.

Color, both yellow, the smaller star having the deeper hue.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP NO. 15.]

Let us next, with the guidance of map No. 15, enter the rich star fields of Hercules, and of the head and first coils of Draco. According to Argelander, Hercules contains more stars visible to the naked eye than any other constellation, and he makes the number of them one hundred and fifty-five, nearly two thirds of which are only of the sixth magnitude.

But Heis, who saw more naked-eye stars than Argelander, makes Ursa Major precisely equal to Hercules in the number of stars, his enumeration showing two hundred and twenty-seven in each constellation, while, according to him, Draco follows very closely after, with two hundred and twenty stars. Yet, on account of the minuteness of the majority of their stars, neither of these constellations makes by any means as brilliant a display as does Orion, to which Argelander a.s.signs only one hundred and fifteen naked-eye stars, and Heis one hundred and thirty-six.

We begin in Hercules with the star kappa, a pretty little double of magnitudes five and a half and seven, distance 31", p. 10, colors yellow and red. Not far away we find, in gamma, a larger star with a fainter companion, the magnitudes in this case being three and a half and nine, distance 38", p. 242, colors white and faint blue or lilac.

One of the most beautiful of double stars is alpha Herculis. The magnitudes are three and six, distance 4.7", p. 118, colors orange and green, very distinct. Variability has been ascribed to each of the stars in turn. It is not known that they const.i.tute a binary system, because no certain evidence of motion has been obtained. Another very beautiful and easily separated double is delta, magnitudes three and eight, distance 19", p. 175, colors pale green and purple.

Sweeping northwestward to zeta, we encounter a celebrated binary, to separate which at present requires the higher powers of a six-inch gla.s.s. The magnitudes are three and six and a half, distance in 1899, 0.6", p. 264; in 1900, 0.8", p. 239. The period of revolution is thirty-five years, and two complete revolutions have been observed. The apparent distance changes from 0.6" to 1.6". They were at their extreme distance in 1884.

Two pleasing little doubles are Sigma 2101, magnitudes six and nine, distance 4", p. 57, and Sigma 2104, magnitudes six and eight, distance 6", p. 20. At the northern end of the constellation is 42, a double that requires the light-grasping power of our largest gla.s.s. Its magnitudes are six and twelve, distance 20", p. 94. In rho we discover another distinctly colored double, both stars being greenish or bluish, with a difference of tone. The magnitudes are four and five and a half, distance 3.7", p. 309. But the double 95 is yet more remarkable for the colors of its stars. Their magnitudes are five and five and a half, distance 6", p. 262, colors, according to Webb, "light apple-green and cherry-red." But other observers have noted different hues, one calling them both golden yellow. I think Webb's description is more nearly correct. Sigma 2215 is a very close double, requiring larger telescopes than those we are working with. Its magnitudes are six and a half and eight, distance 0.7", p. 300. It is probably a binary. Sigma 2289 is also close, but our five-inch will separate it: magnitudes six and seven, distance 1.2", p. 230.

Turning to , we have to deal with a triple, one of whose stars is at present beyond the reach of our instruments. The magnitudes of the two that we see are four and ten, distance 31", p. 243. The tenth-magnitude star is a binary of short period (probably less than fifty years), the distance of whose components was 2" in 1859, 1" in 1880, 0.34" in 1889, and 0.54" in 1891, when the position angle was 25, and rapidly increasing. The distance is still much less than 1".

For a glance at a planetary nebula we may turn with the five-inch to No.

4234. It is very small and faint, only 8" in diameter, and equal in brightness to an eighth-magnitude star. Only close gazing shows that it is not sharply defined like a star, and that it possesses a bluish tint.

Its spectrum is gaseous.

The chief attraction of Hercules we have left for the last, the famous star cl.u.s.ter between eta and zeta, No. 4230, more commonly known as M 13. On a still evening in the early summer, when the moon is absent and the quiet that the earth enjoys seems an influence descending from the brooding stars, the spectacle of this sun cl.u.s.ter in Hercules, viewed with a telescope of not less than five-inches aperture, captivates the mind of the most uncontemplative observer. With the Lick telescope I have watched it resolve into separate stars to its very center--a scene of marvelous beauty and impressiveness. But smaller instruments reveal only the in-running star streams and the sprinkling of stellar points over the main aggregation, which cause it to sparkle like a cloud of diamond dust transfused with sunbeams. The appearance of flocking together that those uncountable thousands of stars present calls up at once a picture of our lone sun separated from its nearest stellar neighbor by a distance probably a hundred times as great as the entire diameter of the spherical s.p.a.ce within which that mult.i.tude is congregated. It is true that unless we a.s.sume what would seem an unreasonable remoteness for the Hercules cl.u.s.ter, its component stars must be much smaller bodies than the sun; yet even that fact does not diminish the wonder of their swarming. Here the imagination must bear science on its wings, else science can make no progress whatever. It is an easy step from Hercules to Draco. In the conspicuous diamond-shaped figure that serves as a guide-board to the head of the latter, the southernmost star belongs not to Draco but to Hercules. The brightest star in this figure is gamma, of magnitude two and a half, with an eleventh-magnitude companion, distant 125", p. 116. Two stars of magnitude five compose nu, their distance apart being 62", p. 312. A more interesting double is , magnitudes five and five, distance 2.4", p.

158. Both stars are white, and they present a pretty appearance when the air is steady. They form a binary system of unknown period. Sigma 2078 (also called 17 Draconis) is a triple, magnitudes six, six and a half, and six, distances 3.8", p. 116, and 90", p. 195. Sigma 1984 is an easy double, magnitudes six and a half and eight and a half, distance 6.4", p. 276. The star eta is a very difficult double for even our largest aperture, on account of the faintness of one of its components.

The magnitudes are two and a half and ten, distance 4.7", p. 140. Its near neighbor, Sigma 2054, may be a binary. Its magnitudes are six and seven, distance 1", p. 0. In Sigma 2323 we have another triple, magnitudes five, eight and a half, and seven, distances 3.6", p. 360, and 90", p. 22, colors white, blue, and reddish. A fine double is epsilon, magnitudes five and eight, distance 3", p. 5.

The nebula No. 4373 is of a planetary character, and interesting as occupying the pole of the ecliptic. A few years ago Dr. Holden, with the Lick telescope, discovered that it is unique in its form. It consists of a double spiral, drawn out nearly in the line of sight, like the thread of a screw whose axis lies approximately endwise with respect to the observer. There is a central star, and another fainter star is involved in the outer spiral. The form of this object suggests strange ideas as to its origin. But the details mentioned are far beyond the reach of our instruments. We shall only see it as a hazy speck. No. 4415 is another nebula worth glancing at. It is Tuttle's so-called variable nebula.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP NO. 16.]

There are three constellations represented on map No. 16 to which we shall pay brief visits. First Aquila demands attention. Its doubles may be summarized as follows: 11, magnitudes five and nine, distance 17.4", p. 252; pi, magnitudes six and seven, distance 1.6", p. 122; 23, magnitudes six and ten, distance 3.4", p. 12--requires the five-inch and good seeing; 57, magnitudes five and six, distance 36", p. 170; Sigma 2654, magnitudes six and eight, distance 12", p. 234; Sigma 2644, magnitudes six and seven, distance 3.6", p. 208.

The star eta is an interesting variable between magnitudes three and a half and 4.7; period, seven days, four hours, fourteen minutes. The small red variable R changes from magnitude six to magnitude seven and a half and back again in a period of three hundred and fifty-one days.

Star cl.u.s.ter No. 4440 is a striking object, its stars ranging from the ninth down to the twelfth magnitude.

Just north of Aquila is the little constellation Sagitta, containing several interesting doubles and many fine star fields, which may be discovered by sweeping over it with a low-power eyepiece. The star zeta is double, magnitudes five and nine, distance 8.6", p. 312. The larger star is itself double, but far too close to be split, except with very large telescopes. In theta we find three components of magnitudes seven, nine, and eight respectively, distances 11.4", p. 327, and 70", p.

227. A wide double is epsilon, magnitudes six and eight, distance 92", p. 81. Nebula No. 4572 is planetary.

Turning to Delphinus, we find a very beautiful double in gamma, magnitudes four and five, distance 11", p. 273, colors golden and emerald. The leader alpha, which is not as bright as its neighbor beta, and which is believed to be irregularly variable, is of magnitude four, and has a companion of nine and a half magnitude at the distance 35", p.

278. At a similar distance, 35", p. 335, beta has an eleventh-magnitude companion, and the main star is also double, but excessively close, and much beyond our reach. It is believed to be a swiftly moving binary, whose stars are never separated widely enough to be distinguished with common telescopes.

CHAPTER VI

FROM LYRA TO ERIDa.n.u.s

"This Orpheus struck when with his wondrous song He charmed the woods and drew the rocks along."--MANILIUS.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP NO. 17.]

We resume our celestial explorations with the little constellation Lyra, whose chief star, Vega (alpha), has a very good claim to be regarded as the most beautiful in the sky. The position of this remarkable star is indicated in map No. 17. Every eye not insensitive to delicate shades of color perceives at once that Vega is not white, but blue-white. When the telescope is turned upon the star the color brightens splendidly.

Indeed, some gla.s.ses decidedly exaggerate the blueness of Vega, but the effect is so beautiful that one can easily forgive the optical imperfection which produces it. With our four-inch we look for the well-known companion of Vega, a tenth-magnitude star, also of a blue color deeper than the hue of its great neighbor. The distance is 50", p.

158. Under the most favorable circ.u.mstances it might be glimpsed with the three-inch, but, upon the whole, I should regard it as too severe a test for so small an aperture.

Vega is one of those stars which evidently are not only enormously larger than the sun (one estimate makes the ratio in this case nine hundred to one), but whose physical condition, as far as the spectroscope reveals it, is very different from that of our ruling orb.

Like Sirius, Vega displays the lines of hydrogen most conspicuously, and it is probably a much hotter as well as a much more voluminous body than the sun.

Close by, toward the east, two fourth-magnitude stars form a little triangle with Vega. Both are interesting objects for the telescope, and the northern one, epsilon, has few rivals in this respect. Let us first look at it with an opera gla.s.s. The slight magnifying power of such an instrument divides the star into two twinkling points. They are about two and a quarter minutes of arc apart, and exceptionally sharp-sighted persons are able to see them divided with the naked eye. Now take the three-inch telescope and look at them, with a moderate power. Each of the two stars revealed by the opera gla.s.s appears double, and a fifth star of the ninth magnitude is seen on one side of an imaginary line joining the two pairs. The northern-most pair is named epsilon_1, the magnitudes being fifth and sixth, distance 3", p. 15. The other pair is epsilon_2, magnitudes fifth and sixth, distance 2.3", p. 133. Each pair is apparently a binary; but the period of revolution is unknown. Some have guessed a thousand years for one pair, and two thousand for the other. Another guess gives epsilon_1 a period of one thousand years, and epsilon_2 a period of eight hundred years. Hall, in his double-star observations, simply says of each, "A slow motion."

Purely by guesswork a period has also been a.s.signed to the two pairs in a supposed revolution around their common center, the time named being about a million years. It is not known, however, that such a motion exists. Manifestly it could not be ascertained within the brief period during which scientific observations of these stars have been made. The importance of the element of time in the study of stellar motions is frequently overlooked, though not, of course, by those who are engaged in such work. The sun, for instance, and many of the stars are known to be moving in what appear to be straight lines in s.p.a.ce, but observations extending over thousands of years would probably show that these motions are in curved paths, and perhaps in closed orbits.

If now in turn we take our four-inch gla.s.s, we shall see something else in this strange family group of epsilon Lyrae. Between epsilon_1 and epsilon_2, and placed one on each side of the joining line, appear two exceedingly faint specks of light, which Sir John Herschel made famous under the name of the _debillissima_. They are of the twelfth or thirteenth magnitude, and possibly variable to a slight degree. If you can not see them at first, turn your eye toward one side of the field of view, and thus, by bringing their images upon a more sensitive part of the retina, you may glimpse them. The sight is not much, yet it will repay you, as every glance into the depths of the universe does.

The other fourth-magnitude star near Vega is zeta, a wide double, magnitudes fourth and sixth, distance 44", p. 150. Below we find beta, another very interesting star, since it is both a multiple and an eccentric variable. It has four companions, three of which we can easily see with our three-inch; the fourth calls for the five-inch; the magnitudes are respectively four, seven or under, eight, eight and a half, and eleven; distances 45", p. 150; 65", p. 320; 85", p. 20; and 46", p. 248. The primary, beta, varies from about magnitude three and a half to magnitude four and a half, the period being twelve days, twenty-one hours, forty-six minutes, and fifty-eight seconds. Two unequal maxima and minima occur within this period. In the spectrum of this star some of the hydrogen lines and the D_3 line (the latter representing helium, a const.i.tuent of the sun and of some of the stars, which, until its recent discovery in a few rare minerals was not known to exist on the earth) are bright, but they vary in visibility.

Moreover, dark lines due to hydrogen also appear in its spectrum simultaneously with the bright lines of that element. Then, too, the bright lines are sometimes seen double. Professor Pickering's explanation is that beta Lyrae probably consists of two stars, which, like the two composing beta Aurigae, are too close to be separated with any telescope now existing, and that the body which gives the bright lines is revolving in a circle in a period of about twelve days and twenty-two hours around the body which gives the dark lines. He has also suggested that the appearances could be accounted for by supposing a body like our sun to be rotating in twelve days and twenty-two hours, and having attached to it an enormous protuberance extending over more than one hundred and eighty degrees of longitude, so that when one end of it was approaching us with the rotation of the star the other end would be receding, and a splitting of the spectral lines at certain periods would be the consequence. "The variation in light," he adds, "may be caused by the visibility of a larger or smaller portion of this protuberance."

Unfortunate star, doomed to carry its parasitical burden of hydrogen and helium, like Sindbad in the clasp of the Old Man of the Sea! Surely, the human imagination is never so wonderful as when it bears an astronomer on its wings. Yet it must be admitted that the facts in this case are well calculated to summon the genius of hypothesis. And the puzzle is hardly simplified by Belopolsky's observation that the body in beta Lyrae giving dark hydrogen lines shows those lines also split at certain times. It has been calculated, from a study of the phenomena noted above, that the bright-line star in beta Lyrae is situated at a distance of about fifteen million miles from the center of gravity of the curiously complicated system of which it forms a part.

We have not yet exhausted the wonders of Lyra. On a line from beta to gamma, and about one third of the distance from the former to the latter, is the celebrated Ring Nebula, indicated on the map by the number 4447. We need all the light we can get to see this object well, and so, although the three-inch will show it, we shall use the five-inch. Beginning with a power of one hundred diameters, which exhibits it as a minute elliptical ring, rather misty, very soft and delicate, and yet distinct, we increase the magnification first to two hundred and finally to three hundred, in order to distinguish a little better some of the details of its shape. Upon the whole, however, we find that the lowest power that clearly brings out the ring gives the most satisfactory view. The circ.u.mference of the ring is greater than that of the planet Jupiter. Its ellipticity is conspicuous, the length of the longer axis being 78" and that of the shorter 60". Closely following the nebula as it moves through the field of view, our five-inch telescope reveals a faint star of the eleventh or twelfth magnitude, which is suspected of variability. The largest instruments, like the Was.h.i.+ngton and the Lick gla.s.ses, have shown perhaps a dozen other stars apparently connected with the nebula. A beautiful sparkling effect which the nebula presents was once thought to be an indication that it was really composed of a circle of stars, but the spectroscope shows that its const.i.tution is gaseous. Just in the middle of the open ring is a feeble star, a mere spark in the most powerful telescope. But when the Ring Nebula is photographed--and this is seen beautifully in the photographs made with the Crossley reflector on Mount Hamilton by the late Prof. J. E. Keeler--this excessively faint star imprints its image boldly as a large bright blur, encircled by the nebulous ring, which itself appears to consist of a series of intertwisted spirals.

Not far away we find a difficult double star, 17, whose components are of magnitudes six and ten or eleven, distance 3.7", p. 325.