Page:The Music of the Spheres.djvu/129

 deed it will be close enough to serve as our North Star. Then, instead of wandering from the far northeast to the far northwest, it will seem to stand in the north like a pale-blue pivot, while all the other stars will circle round it. Vega will hold this position for 3000 years. The constellation of Lyra and that of Hercules are of particular interest because they mark that part of the universe to which our sun is traveling at the rate of 12½ miles a second. Some day (in half a million years or so), this gorgeous sun, a hundred times more brilliant than our sun, may glow upon us as a near neighbor. In 12,000 years, when our north pole points to Vega, the great Cross with its bright stars Deneb and Albireo, will never set but will journey night after night in a small circle close about the celestial pole, Orion will climb over the zenith and the Milky Way in all its splendor will whirl about the north.

The principal figure formed by the stars of the constellation of Lyra has been best described as an "equilateral triangle balanced on the corner of a rhomboid." This figure is easily traced although all of these stars, with the exception of the brilliant blue one, are of no more than the 3rd or 4th magnitude.

To the average eye, the little star east of Vega, at the top of the triangle, appears a trifle elongated, but a sharp eye divides the star into two stars set very closely together. With a 3-inch telescope each of these stars is found to be double. This fourfold star in Lyra is sometimes referred to as a "double-double."

The third star, Lyræ, at the base of the "rhomboid" on the same side of the figure as Vega, is a variable with three small stars near it, forming a very pretty object with low power.

Also at the base of the rhomboid, between β and γ, one-third of the way from β, a small telescope will disclose a nebula which has assumed the shape of a ring, or at least it looks like a ring at this distance. There are