Page:The Music of the Spheres.djvu/104

 oddly colored star also has a companion which makes Regulus a triple star.

The second star above Regulus is also interesting. This star is a beautiful double described in such refreshing terms as "golden-orange" and "bronze-green." It may be seen in a medium sized telescope. Later we will become acquainted with a wonderful red star which also has a green companion. Such combinations are most amazing to gaze upon.

The second brightest star adorning Leo is Denebola, which flashes on the end of his tail. Denebola is 10 times as bright as our sun and is 25 light years away. Since Regulus, on the heart of the Lion, is 99 light years distant and Denebola, on the tail of the Lion, is only 25 light years, science has certainly played havoc with the poor Nemean lion. Proctor tells us that Coma Berenices (Berenice's Hair) was originally the tuft of the tail of the lion when the constellation was pictured in the maps as being more extended. This was quite an appropriate place for the sparkles and gleams of these fine, tiny stars. It is likely that it would have still been the tuft on the Lion's tail if a clever Alexandrian astronomer had not found it necessary to use his wits quickly and call it Berenice's Hair to please the vanity of an Egyptian Queen.

The apparent center for the November meteors, or "shooting stars," which appear about the 15th of the month, are within the curve of the Sickle of Leo near the star Gamma.

The apparent paths of shooting stars when projected backward meet at a point called the radiant point. It looks from the diagram as if these meteors all came from one fixed place in the sky but the effect would also be the same if we saw, for instance, seventeen trains racing along seventeen tracks laid parallel across a desert from a point on the distant horizon. They would all seem to start from this point and widen out as they approached the observer, the effect in