Astronomy for Young Folks

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill FEBRUARY Across the meridian, due south, between eight and nine o'clock in the evening in the early part of February, lies Orion, The Warrior, generally considered to be the finest constellation in the heavens. Orion is directly overhead at the equator, and so is seen to advantage from all parts of the world except the extreme northern and southern polar regions. A group of three faint stars outlines the head of Orion. His right shoulder is marked by the deep-red, first-magnitude star Betelgeuze (meaning armpit), and his left shoulder by the bright white star Bellatrix, The Amazon. Orion stands facing Taurus, The Bull, and brandishes in his right hand a club, outlined by a number of faint stars extending from Betelgeuze toward the northeast. The top of the club lies near the tips of the horns of Taurus