Page:The Music of the Spheres.djvu/118



Ariadne's Crown rests about 20 degrees east of Arcturus and may be easily seen in the east just after sunset during the early spring, about the 8th of April, but it is at its best during the early evenings of July when it is almost overhead.

Alphecca, "the bright one," also called "The Pearl," marks the radiant point of a shower of meteors called the Coronids. This shower occurs while the constellation is traveling between the east and the zenith, being visible from April 12th to June 20th.

The Crown remains in view from April until late October, then disappears between the west and northwest. It lies concealed throughout the winter, then rises in the direct northeast in the early spring, its jewels sparkling as if they had been encased in a winter's casket of snow.

This beautiful little constellation is designated on the maps as Corona Borealis. The "Northern Crown" and "Ariadne's Crown" are only popular names.



An astronomical work of Eudoxus, dated about 370, but based upon observations made probably by the Chaldeans fifteen centuries before, was versified in a poem of 732 verses called "Phenomena" by Aratus, the court poet of Macedonia, who wrote about a century after Eudoxus' time. Aratus mentions this constella-