Having in my “Story of the Stars” told of far distant suns, many of them probably with planets revolving around them, I have in the present volume, which is a companion to the former one, to treat of the Sun in particular—our Sun as we may call him—and the body of attendants which own his sway by revolving round him. The attendants are the planets, commonly so called, together with a certain number of comets. I shall deal with all these objects rather from a descriptive and practical than from a speculative or essay point of view, and with special reference to the convenience and opportunities of persons possessing, or having access to, what may be called popular telescopes—telescopes say of from two to four inches of aperture, and costing any sum between £10 and £50. There is much pleasure and profit to be got out of telescopes of this type, always presuming that they are used by persons possessed of patience and perseverance. It is a very great mistake, though an extremely common one, to suppose that unless a man can command a big telescope he can do no useful work, and derive no pleasure from his work. To all such croakers I always point as a moral the achievements of Hermann Goldschmidt, who from an attic window at Fontenay-aux-Roses near Paris, with a telescope of only 2½ inches aperture, discovered no fewer than 14 minor planets.

As this volume is intended for general reading, rather than for educational or technical purposes, I have kept statistical details and numerical expressions within very narrow limits, mere figures being always more or less unattractive.

John Richard Green, in the Preface to his book on The Making of England, writes as follows:—“I may add, in explanation of the reappearance of a few passages ... which my readers may have seen before, that where I had little or nothing to add or to change, I have preferred to insert a passage from previous work, with the requisite connections and references, to the affectation of rewriting such a passage for the mere sake of giving it an air of novelty.” I will venture to adopt this thought as my own, and to apply it to the repetition, here and there, of ideas and phrases which are already to be found in my Handbook of Astronomy.