Astronomy with an Opera-glass / A Popular Introduction to the Study of the Starry Heavens with the Simplest of Optical Instruments

by Garrett Putman Serviss

And now let us look at the Hyades, an assemblage of stars not less beautiful than their more celebrated sisters the Pleiades. The leader of the Hyades is Aldebaran, or Alpha Tauri, and his followers are worthy of their leader. The inexperienced observer is certain to be surprised by the display of stars which an opera-glass brings to view in the Hyades. Our illustration will give some notion of their appearance with a large field-glass. The "brackish poet," of whose rhymes Admiral Smyth was so fond, thus describes the Hyades:

"In lustrous dignity aloft see Alpha Tauri shine,
The splendid zone he decorates attests the Power divine:
For mark around what glitt'ring orbs attract the wandering eye,
You'll soon confess no other star has such attendants nigh."

The redness of the light of Aldebaran is a very interesting phenomenon. Careful observation detects a decided difference between its color and that of Betelgeuse, or Alpha Orionis, which is also a red star. It differs, too, from the brilliant red star of summer, Antares. Aldebaran has a trace of rose-color in its light, while Betelgeuse is of a very deep orange, and Antares may be described as fire-red. These shades of color can easily be detected by the naked eye after a little practice. First compare Aldebaran and Betelgeuse, and glance from each to the brilliant white, or bluish-white, star Rigel in Orion's foot. Upon turning the eye back from Rigel to Aldebaran the peculiar color of the latter is readily perceived. Spectroscopic analysis has revealed the presence in Aldebaran of hydrogen, sodium, magnesium, calcium, iron, bismuth, tellurium, antimony, and mercury. And so modern discoveries, while they have pushed back the stars to distances of which the ancients could not conceive, have, at the same time, and equally, widened the recognized boundaries of the physical universe and abolished forever the ancient distinction between the heavens and the earth. It is a plain road from the earth to the stars, though mortal feet can not tread it.

The Hyades.

Keeping in mind that in our little picture of the Hyades the top is north, the right hand west, and the left hand east, the reader will be able to identify the principal stars in the group. Aldebaran is readily recognized, because it is the largest of all. The bright star near the upper edge of the picture is Epsilon Tauri, and its sister star, forming the point of the V, is Gamma Tauri. The three brightest stars between Epsilon and Gamma, forming a little group, are the Deltas, while the pair of stars surrounded by many smaller ones, half-way between Aldebaran and Gamma, are the Thetas. These stars present a very pretty appearance, viewed with a good glass, the effect being heightened by a contrast of color in the two Thetas. The little pair southeast of Aldebaran, called the Sigmas, is also a beautiful object. The distance apart of these stars is about seven minutes of arc, while the distance between the two Thetas is about five and a half minutes of arc. These measures may be useful to the reader in estimating the distances between other stars that he may observe. It will also be found an interesting test of the eye-sight to endeavor to see these stars as doubles without the aid of a glass. Persons having keen eyes will be able to accomplish this.

North of the star Epsilon will be seen a little group in the ear of the Bull (see cut, "The Golden Horns of Taurus"), which presents a brilliant appearance with a small glass. The southernmost pair in the group are the Kappas, whose distance apart is very nearly the same as that of the Thetas, described above; but I think it improbable that anybody could separate them with the naked eye, as there is a full magnitude between them in brightness, and the smaller star is only of magnitude 6.5, while sixth-magnitude stars are generally reckoned as the smallest that can be seen by the naked eye. Above the Kappas, and in the same group in the ear, are the two Upsilons, forming a wider pair.

Next we come to the Pleiades:

"Though small their size and pale their light, wide is their fame."

In every age and in every country the Pleiades have been watched, admired, and wondered at, for they are visible from every inhabited land on the globe. To many they are popularly known as the Seven Stars, although few persons can see more than six stars in the group with the unaided eye. It is a singular fact that many of the earliest writers declare that only six Pleiades can be seen, although they all assert that they are seven in number. These seven were the fabled daughters of Atlas, or the Atlantides, whose names were Merope, Alcyone, Celæno, Electra, Taygeta, Asterope, and Maia. One of the stories connected with them is that Merope married a mortal, whereupon her star grew dim among her sisters. Another fable assures us that Electra, unable to endure the sight of the burning of Troy, hid her face in her hands, and so blotted her star from the sky. While we may smile at these stories, we can not entirely disregard them, for they are intermingled with some of the richest literary treasures of the world, and they come to us, like some old keepsake, perfumed with the memory of a past age. The mythological history of the Pleiades is intensely interesting, too, because it is world-wide. They have impressed their mark, in one way or another, upon the habits, customs, traditions, language, and history of probably every nation. This is true of savage tribes as well as of great empires. The Pleiades furnish one of the principal links that appear to connect the beginnings of human history with that wonderful prehistoric past, where, as through a gulf of mist, we seem to perceive faintly the glow of a golden age beyond. The connection of the Pleiades with traditions of the Flood is most remarkable. In almost every part of the world, and in various ages, the celebration of a feast or festival of the dead, dimly connected by traditions with some great calamity to the human race in the past, has been found to be directly related to the Pleiades. This festival or rite, which has been discovered in various forms among the ancient Hindoos, Egyptians, Persians, Peruvians, Mexicans, Druids, etc., occurs always in the month of November, and is regulated by the culmination of the Pleiades. The Egyptians directly connected this celebration with a deluge, and the Mexicans, at the time of the Spanish conquest, had a tradition that the world had once been destroyed at the time of the midnight culmination of the Pleiades. Among the savages inhabiting Australia and the Pacific island groups a similar rite has been discovered. It has also been suggested that the Japanese feast of lanterns is not improbably related to this world-wide observance of the Pleiades, as commemorating some calamitous event in the far past which involved the whole race of man in its effects.