Page:Star Lore Of All Ages, 1911.pdf/117

Rh Ptolemy, El Fergani (10th century), and Riccioli have called Capella red.

If the earth were midway between Capella and the sun, we should receive 250 times as much light from Capella as from our little solar star. According to Newcomb, Capella is 120 times as bright as the sun, and the sun at the distance of Capella would appear as a 5.5 magnitude star. The star culminates at 9 on Jan. 19th.

"Beta Aurigas is supposed to be a very close binary. The two practically equal stars that compose the pair are estimated to be only seven and one half millions of miles apart, and revolving in a period of about four days with a relative velocity of fully 150 miles a second according to Prof. Pickering. It is receding from the earth at the rate of about seventeen miles a second."

Gamma Aurigas, called by the Arabs "Al-Nath," is common to the constellations Taurus and Auriga, and marks the tip of the Bull's right horn.

The remaining stars in the constellation call for no special comment, but Auriga is rich in star clusters, M. 37 being especially noteworthy. Smith calls this "a magnificent object, the whole field being strewed, as it were, with sparkling gold dust; and the group is resolvable into about 500 stars. Even in small instruments this cluster is extremely beautiful, one of the finest of its class."