his list agree with yours? Because Persia is so far south
of where we live. Ah, there are very few things that are absolutely
true. Let's remember that and not be too sure: for everything depends
upon the point of view! I hope you will see Fomalhaut before Christmas,
before he disappears in the west. He is with us only five months and is
always low--near the horizon. But the other seven months in the year he
gladdens the children of South America and the rest of the southern
hemisphere, for they see him sweeping high and lonely far up into their
sky and down again.

But the loveliest of all the constellations described in this chapter is
the Northern Crown. It is not a perfect crown--only about half a
circle--but enough to suggest a complete ring. Look for it east of
Arcturus. I can see seven or eight stars in the half-circle, one of
which is brighter than all the others. That one is called "the Pearl."
The whole constellation is only fifteen degrees long, but "fine things
come in small packages"; and children grow to love the Northern Crown
almost as much as they love the Pleiades.

THE TWENTY BRIGHTEST STARS

If you have seen everything I have described so far, you have reason to
be happy. For now you know sixteen of the most famous constellations and
fifteen of the twenty brightest stars. There are only twenty stars of
the first magnitude. "Magnitude" ought to mean size, but it doesn't. It
means brightness--or rather the apparent brightness--of the stars when
seen by us. The word magnitude was used in the old days before
telescopes, when people thought the brighter a star is the bigger it
must be. Now we know that the nearer a star is to us the brighter it is,
and the farther away the fainter. Some of the bright stars are
comparatively near us, some are very far. Deneb and Canopus are so far
away that it takes over three hundred years for their light to reach us.
What whoppers they must be--many times as big as our sun.

Here is a full list of the twenty stars of the first magnitude arranged
in the order of their brightness. You will find this table very useful.

----------------+---------------+-------------+--------------------------
Stars | Pronounced |Constellation| Interesting facts
----------------+---------------+-------------+--------------------------
Sirius | _sir'i-us_ | Big Dog | Brightest star. Nearest
| | | star vi