THE TWENTY BRIGHTEST STARS |
If you have seen everything I have described so far, you have reason to be happy. For now you know sixteen of the most famous constellations and fifteen of the twenty brightest stars. There are only twenty stars of the first magnitude. "Magnitude" ought to mean size, but it doesn't. It means brightness—or rather the apparent brightness—of the stars when seen by us. The word magnitude was used in the old days before telescopes, when people thought the brighter a star is the bigger it must be. Now we know that the nearer a star is to us the brighter it is, and the farther away the fainter. Some of the bright stars are comparatively near us, some are very far. Deneb and Canopus are so far away that it takes over three hundred years for their light to reach us. What whoppers they must be—many times as big as our sun. Here is a full list of the twenty stars of the first magnitude arranged in the order of their brightness. You will find this table very useful. | Stars | Pronounced | Constellation | Interesting facts | | Sirius | sir´i-us | Big Dog | Brightest star. Nearest star visible in Northern hemisphere | | Canopus* | ca-no´pus | Ship Argo | Perhaps the largest body in universe | | Alpha Centauri* | al´fa sen-taw´re | Centaur | Nearest star. Light four years away | | Vega | ve´ga | Lyre | Brightest star in the Northern sky. Bluish | | Capella | ca-pell´a | Charioteer | Rivals Vega, but opposite the pole. Yellowish | | Arcturus | ark-tu´rus | Herdsman | Swiftest of the bright stars. 200 miles a second | | Rigel | re´jel | Orion | Brightest star in Orion. White star in left foot | | Procyon | pro´si-on | Little Dog | Before the dog. Rises a little before Sirius | | Achernar* | a-ker´nar | River Po | Means the end of the river | | Beta Centauri* | ba´ta sen-taw´re | Centaur | This and its mate point to the Southern Cross | | Altair | al-tare´ | Eagle | Helps you find Vega and Northern Cross | | Betelgeuse | bet-el-guz´ | Orion | Means "armpit." The red star in the right shoulder | | Alpha Crucis* | al´fa cru´sis | Southern Cross | At the base of the most famous Southern constellation | | Aldebaran | al-deb´a-ran | Bull | The red eye in the V | | Pollux | pol´lux | Twins | Brighter than Castor | | Spica | spi´ca | Virgin | Means ear of wheat | | Antares | an-ta´rez | Scorpion | Red star. Name means "looks like Mars" | | Fomalhaut | fo´mal-o | Southern Fish | The lonely star in the Southern sky | | Deneb | den´eb | Swan | Top of Northern Cross, or tail of Swan | | Regulus | reg´u-lus | Lion | The end of the handle of the Sickle | The five stars marked * belong to the Southern hemisphere, and we can never see them unless we travel far south. Last winter I went to Florida and saw Canopus, but to see the Southern Cross you should cross the Tropic of Cancer.
|
  |
