Page:A Voyage in Space (1913).djvu/271

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THE STARS
251

the Heavenly Twins"—have you yet learnt their names and order?

These stars of the zodiac are comparatively bright and near. But there are many stars in the heavens which are fainter, that we cannot even see with the eye,

Voyage in Space page251.jpg

Fig. 81.—Region near the Southern Cross.
(The Cross is on the right, two big stars and two much smaller.)

especially those in the neighbourhood of the Milky Way.

In Fig. 81 you see a very large number of stars, some of them big. Two of them are so bright that their light has made a kind of halo by reflection from the back of the photographic plate. That circle of light does not belong to the star; it is merely a photographic fault, showing how bright the star really is. But in the picture there are also many fainter stars, and even dark patches where there seem to be no stars at all. Now, do you think it is possible that there are no stars at all in those places? The photograph rather deceives us by being a flat thing; as though the stars were scattered over a flat surface; but that is not really the case. When Mr. Daily Mirror came and photographed us all the other day, his picture was also on a flat plate;