Look, boy, steadily and closely between the Belt, and that top bright
star Rigel, where on the Atlas is pictured the sword-handle of the
great hunter.
I don’t feel very sure, but I fancy I can distinguish something that
ought to be it.
Many folks, my boy, can see what they are told to expect. Well, that
white irregular patch of light has had telescopes looking at it a good
while, without anything being seen beyond a dreamy-looking cloudy
matter.
I’ll be bound Lord Rosse solved the riddle.
He did not for some time. He was able at last to think he could see
stars; then by more patient watching he resolved the Nebula into
sandheaps of stars--millions upon millions.
What! millions upon millions where other telescopes could not
distinguish one star. What shape is Orion’s Nebula?
It is rather patchy, with innumerable streamers of light, as if wind
were blowing the gauze stuff about in all directions. You might fancy
in it the jaws and head of a monster, with an elephant’s proboscis.
What a nice little nose that must be.
One part rises like a conical cloud in the midst of the black sky. In
the part which had appeared mottled Rosse found a blaze of stars.
Can all the Nebulæ be observed by the naked eye?
No, my lad, very few.
But after all they are only lots of stars got crowded together like,
because they are so far from us.
Yet there are Nebulæ not to be resolved into stars even by Rosse’s six
feet mirror. Just turn round to the Southern Cross. You see the two
bright Pointers to the Cross, a part of the Centaur. Look now to the
other side of the Cross, where there is a collection of stars scattered
about. That is the _Argo_ or ship.
Ah! I can see a sort of light there. Is that the Argo Nebula?
Yes, and a very large one it is. Thousands of stars can be observed in
it by the telescope; but beyond these is still the same filmy light, as
irresolvable as ever.
There must be a lot of Nebulæ by the Cross, judging by the blaze of
light.
There is a very fine one there, of a blue colour. One near Spica, of
the Virgin, is quite round, and of enormous size. But there is a very
odd Crab Nebula between Orion and the Bull’s eye. It branches out like
the claws of a crab.
What an enormous Crab!
We have a Dumb-bell Nebula near the Lyre.
Oh! who could swing that about? Pray tell me some more about these
queer creatures, father.
Many in the south are planetary Nebulæ, as they are in the midst of
a cluster of stars. They are always of a pale blue colour. Some are
double ones. About a dozen Nebulæ are annular, or ring-shaped. Some are
double or treble ringed. Others have rings within rings, and star-like
eyes in the darkness. A few have a long, parsnip form. There are solid
Nebulæ, and hollow ones. One near Castor was found by Rosse to be
arched like eyebrows above and below, with a curious, crab-like form in
the middle.