The Geography of the Heavens: And Class-book of Astronomy: Accompanied by a Celestial Atlas |
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Common terms and phrases
3d magnitude 4th magnitude angle aphelion appear Arcturus Aries astronomers Auriga axis Beta blue bright star called celestial Cepheus circle cluster comet constellation Cor Caroli degree Delta Denebola diameter distant companion diurnal motion DOUBLE STAR Earth east ecliptic equator equinoctial equinox feet figure fixed stars Gamma head heavens hemisphere Herschel horizon Jupiter latitude light longitude luminous Map VIII mean distance Mercury meridian miles minutes Moon Moon's motion naked eye nearly NEBULA node north pole northern Number of stars o'clock OBJECTS.-Alpha observed Orion parallax pass perihelion period planet Planisphere Pleiades polar position principal star Refracting telescopes refraction remarkable represented revolution revolve right ascension rising satellites Saturn seen shadow sidereal Sirius situated small stars solar solstice Sun's supposed surface tail Taurus TELESCOPIC OBJECTS tides tion triangle TRIPLE STAR Ursa Ursa Major Venus vernal equinox visible Zeta Zodiac
Popular passages
Page 152 - And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day, and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
Page 143 - To God's eternal house direct the way ; A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold, And pavement stars, as stars to thee appear, Seen in the galaxy, that milky way, Which nightly as a circling zone thou seest Powdered with stars.
Page 114 - Look, how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold. There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st But in his motion like an angel sings. Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim; Such harmony is in immortal souls; But whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
Page 87 - Although the grim Lycaon was her sire ! But now her son had fifteen summers told, Fierce at the chase, and in the forest bold; When, as he beat the woods in quest of prey, He chanced to rouse his mother where she lay.
Page 148 - Thousands of thousands of suns, multiplied without end, and ranged all around us, at immense distances from each other, attended by ten thousand times ten...
Page 142 - O what a confluence of ethereal fires, From urns unnumber'd, down the steep of heaven, Streams to a point, and centres in my sight! Nor tarries there; I feel it at my heart. My heart, at once, it humbles, and exalts ; Lays it in dust, and calls it to the skies.
Page 90 - Not long before, but in a luckless hour, Some legates, sent from the Molossian state, Were on a peaceful errand come to treat: Of these he murders one, he boils the flesh; And lays the mangled morsels in a dish: Some part he roasts; then serves it up, so drest, And bids me welcome to this humane feast.
Page 138 - In such instances, the larger star is usually of a ruddy or orange hue, while the smaller one appears blue or green, probably in virtue of that general law of optics, which provides that, when the retina is under the influence of excitement by any bright, colored light ; feebler lights, which seen alone would produce no sensation but of whiteness, shall for the time appear colored with the tint complementary to that of the brighter.
Page 10 - The AXIS of the earth is an imaginary line passing through its centre from north to south. The...
Page 24 - As to those stars which suddenly shine forth with a very vivid light, and then immediately disappear, it is extremely probable that great conflagrations, produced by extraordinary causes, take place on their surface. This conjecture is confirmed by their change of colour, which is analogous to that presented to us on the earth by those bodies which are set on fire and then gradually extinguished.