I’ll be bound Lord Rosse solved the riddle.
He did not for some time. He was able at last to think he could see stars; then by more patient watching he resolved the Nebula into sandheaps of stars—millions upon millions.
What! millions upon millions where other telescopes could not distinguish one star. What shape is Orion’s Nebula?
It is rather patchy, with innumerable streamers of light, as if wind were blowing the gauze stuff about in all directions. You might fancy in it the jaws and head of a monster, with an elephant’s proboscis.
What a nice little nose that must be.
One part rises like a conical cloud in the midst of the black sky. In the part which had appeared mottled Rosse found a blaze of stars.
Can all the Nebulæ be observed by the naked eye?
No, my lad, very few.
But after all they are only lots of stars got crowded together like, because they are so far from us.
Yet there are Nebulæ not to be resolved into stars even by Rosse’s six feet mirror. Just turn round to the Southern Cross. You see the two bright Pointers to the Cross, a part of the Centaur. Look now to the other side of the Cross, where there is a collection of stars scattered about. That is the Argo or ship.