Overview

Myriads of Blazing Suns

The Southern Cross

How to Tell the Time

An Infallible Direction Indicator

Outstanding Stars

Stars of the Centaur

Strange Aboriginal Folklore

A Glowing Mass of Stars

Super Suns of the Heavens

The False Cross

The Southern Triangle

Ara and The Scorpion

Other Stars

A glowing mass of stars

A good example of another class of aggregation of stars—the globular cluster—is close to the Lesser Magellanic Cloud. This appears to the naked eye as a rather hazy star of medium bright­ness, but, through the telescope, it re-solves itself into a condensed globule of some thousands of stars apparently so closely packed that in the centre they

merge into a single glowing mass. This is the famous "47 Toucani" whose counterpart, Omega Centauri, somewhat larger, though not quite so concentrated at the centre, can be seen near the Pointers. An imaginary line from Alpha to Beta of the Cross extended just twice the distance between those stars gives the position of Omega Centauri.

Both these globular clusters are calculated to be 22,000 light years distant, while the Magellanic Clouds are much farther away—probably over 100,000 light-years off. The appearance of the globular clusters in a large telescope has been likened to a heap of pink pearls and, under favorable conditions, they present a remarkable sight.

At 9 p.m. in mid-May, when the Cross appears high up at the top of our "clock," Achernar is not quite at the bottom—about one hour from it, in fact, or at 11 hours.

The centre of our dial (the true south point) is not exactly at the centre of the line joining the Cross and Achernar, but very close to the point midway between the closer of the Pointers to the Cross (Beta Centauri) and Achernar. At this time the Milky Way passes almost horizontally through the Pointers and Cross, curving to the east and west.