Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/217

Rh the two planets will rapidly part company, Saturn sinking toward the horizon day by day until it is no longer seen, while Venus, moving eastwardly, rises higher every evening. About the middle of July, Venus, having reached her greatest eastern elongation, will turn upon



her track and move westwardly, setting a little earlier every night. At the middle of August she will attain her greatest brilliancy, and will be a superb phenomenon. Being then in that part of her orbit which passes between the earth and the sun, her illuminated disk will be in the form of a crescent. A good field-glass, under favorable circumstances, will show this crescent form of Venus, and a most beautiful sight it is. The crescent will grow larger and narrower in proportion as Venus approaches nearer to the line joining the earth and the sun, and, as she approaches that line, of course she will draw closer to the horizon, until about the end of August, she disappears from the evening sky, to reappear in the east as a morning-star in the autumn.

Jupiter will remain in the neighborhood of Spica in Virgo throughout the summer. The surface features of this majestic planet are far beyond the reach of an opera- or field-glass, but some of the