The northern visitor to the southern hemisphere familiar with the constellations of his own land is filled with a queer sensation of being in topsy-turvydom as he sees familiar Orion standing on his head and all of the zodiacal constellations passing in their daily motions to the north instead of to the south of his zenith while by day the sun passes across the northern part of the heavens and culminates north instead of south of his zenith. He misses the familiar Dippers of his own land and searches in vain for a pole-star in the unfamiliar circumpolar regions of the south.
[XV]
THE MILKY WAY OR GALAXY
"Broad and ample road whose dust is gold,
And pavement stars, as stars to thee appear
Seen in the galaxy, that milky way
Which nightly as a circling zone thou seest
Powder'd with stars."
—MILTON, Paradise Lost.
On clear, winter evenings one may see a portion of the zone of the Milky Way, which encircles the heavens, arching magnificently across the heavens as it passes from Cassiopeia and Cepheus in the northwest, through Perseus and Auriga and the eastern part of Taurus, across the feet of Gemini, between Canis Minor and Orion and through the eastern part of Canis Major to the southern horizon.
At this point it passes beyond our range of vision into the star-groups of Puppis, Vela and Carina, subdivisions of the huge southern constellation of Argo Navis. It reaches its greatest distance south of the celestial equator and also attains its greatest brilliancy in Crux, the far-famed Southern Cross. From here it turns northward once more, passing into Centaurus, Musca, Circinus Ara and Lupus constellations of the southern hemisphere and comes within our range of vision again in Sagittarius and Scorpio. Here the Milky Way divides into two branches, though some astronomers now believe that this apparent division into two branches is due to the presence of an enormous cloud of non-luminous matter lying along the course of the Milky Way at this point, similar in its nature to the dark "holes" and "caves" and streaks that appear in all portions of the Milky Way and most noticeably athwart its course in Argo and Centaurus.
One of these branches of the Milky Way passes from Sagittarius through Aquila to Cygnus and the other through Scorpio, Ophiuchus and Serpens to Cygnus, the two extending diagonally across the heavens in the late summer and early fall evenings from the northeast to the southwest. From Cygnus, the Milky Way passes into Cepheus and Cassiopeia and thus completes its circuit of the heavens.
It is not seen to advantage in spring or early summer evenings because it then rests nearly on the horizon. Its plane is inclined about 63° to the celestial equator and its poles lie in the constellations of Coma Berenicis and Cetus. These are the two points that lie farthest from the Milky Way.