The stars Theta (θ) and Sigma (σ) are both naked-eye doubles for sharp eyes. Try if you can see both of the pairs.
The Hyades represent the head of the imaginary bull, Aldebaran standing for the eye, while rows of stars running up toward Zeta (ζ) and Beta (β) figure the “golden horns.” The Pleiades, the “Atlantid Nymphs,” hang on the shoulder. They form a much more compact group than the Hyades, and possess no large star, their chief brilliant, Alcyone—Eta(η)—being only of the third magnitude. But the effect of their combination is very striking and beautiful. In looking at them one can never refrain from quoting Tennyson’s famous lines in which they are described as glittering “like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid.” The adjective silvery exactly describes them. If you happen to glance at the sky at a point many degrees away from the place where they shine, your eye will inevitably be drawn to them. They have greater attractive power than a single large star, and the effect of their intermingled rays is truly fascinating. With an opera-glass they look like the glimmering candles on a Christmas-tree. Their mythological history and the many strange traditions pertaining to them I have described elsewhere, and shall not repeat here; but it should be said that there is not in all the sky any object comparable with the Pleiades in influence over the human imagination. The fancy of Maedler that Alcyone was the central sun of the universe, and the inference, so popular at one time, that it might be the very seat of the Almighty, have vanished in the limbo of baseless traditions; but the mystic charm of the Pleiades has been increased by the photographic discovery that they are involved in a wonderful mass of tangled nebulæ. Their distance is unknown, but evidently very great, some having put it at 250 light-years, corresponding to about 1,450,000,000,000,000 miles! If this is correct, Alcyone may be really one of the most gigantic suns in the universe. They appear to be travelling together like a flock of birds.
It is always an interesting question how many stars in the cluster can be seen with the naked eye. Many persons can detect only six, but better, or more trained, eyes see seven, or even nine. The telescope and photography reveal thousands thickly sprinkled over the space of sky that they occupy, or immediately around them. How many of these are actually connected with the group is unknown. One of the most persistent legends of antiquity is that of the “Lost Pleiad.” Says Miss Clerke, in her System of the Stars:
“That they 'were seven who now are six’ is asserted by almost all the nations of the earth from Japan to Nigritia, and variants of the classical story of the 'Lost Pleiad’ are still repeated by sable legend-mongers in Victoria, by headhunters in Borneo, by fetish worshippers amid the mangrove swamps of the Gold Coast. An impression thus widely diffused must either have spread from a common source or originated in an obvious fact; and it is at least possible that the veiled face of the seventh Atlantid may typify a real loss of light in a prehistorically conspicuous star.”
The name Pleiades is derived from the Greek πλεἵν, to sail, because their heliacal rising occurred at the time when navigation opened in the seas of Greece, and their heliacal setting at the time of its close.
“... Rude winter comes
Just when the Pleiades begin to set.”
But their religious significance seems always to have exceeded their practical importance as a sign of the seasons, and from the temples on the Acropolis of Athens to the sanctuaries of Mexico, Yucatan, and Peru they were regarded with reverence and awe. Modern popular fancies have been less reverential, and Alcyone and her attendants have been degraded to the figure of a “hen and her chickens.” Our red-skinned predecessors on this continent were more poetical, for they saw in the Pleiades a group of lost children, and in old China they were starry sisters busy with their needlework.
High overhead, above Orion and Taurus, gleams Capella, the chief star of the constellation Auriga, the “Charioteer.” This is also a white star, but no correct eye would confuse it with Rigel or Vega. It has none of the sapphire tint that is mingled in their rays, but is rather of the whiteness of cream. It is a very great star, not only in its apparent brilliance, but in actual luminosity. With a parallax of 0″.09, Newcomb calculated its luminosity at one hundred and twenty times that of the sun. It is a spectroscopic binary, the invisible companion revolving round it in a period of one hundred and four days. In spectroscopic character it closely resembles the sun, being in the same stage of development. Vogel’s observations indicate that it is flying away from us at a speed of more than a million and a quarter miles per day; but, in contradiction to this, some have thought that it is increasing in brightness. A little elongated triangle of stars below and somewhat to the west of Capella serves to render its recognition certain to the beginner in star-gazing. In the evenings of early November, when one is in the northeast and the other in the northwest, it is interesting to compare Capella with Vega, both in brightness and in color. In late January evenings Capella is near the zenith for the middle latitudes of the United States, and at such times is a superb object. The Milky Way pouring through Auriga increases the beauty of the spectacle.
The second star of Auriga, Beta (β), or Menkalina, the “Shoulder,” is also a spectroscopic binary with a period of only four days. It was the first binary of this class to be discovered. In 1889 Pickering found that its spectral lines were doubled every two days, from which he inferred the duplicate character of the star and calculated the period of revolution of its components.
Farther east we see Gemini, the “Twins.” It is a very beautiful constellation, independently of the brightness of its leaders, Castor and Pollux, or Alpha (α) and Beta (β). The feet of the imaginary twins are dipped in the Milky Way nearly above the uplifted club of the giant Orion, and close to the summer solstice. The successive belts of stars crossing the figures of the Twins present an attractive appearance. Castor, although the literal leader of the constellation, is not now as bright as its neighbor, Pollux. A change of brightness must have taken place. Castor is a celebrated binary with a period of about one thousand years. The distance between the two stars composing it is about 5″.5, and, both being bright, they can be separated with small telescopes.