four and a half, or, according to Hall, both four; distance 8.5", p.
180 deg.. A few degrees above gamma, passing by beta, is a wide double
lambda, magnitudes five and eight, distance 37", p. 45 deg., colors white
and lilac or violet. Three stars are to be seen in 14: magnitudes five
and a half, ten, and nine, distances 83", p. 36 deg., and 106", p. 278 deg.,
colors white, blue, and lilac. The star 30 is a very pretty double,
magnitudes six and seven, distance 38.6", p. 273 deg.. Sigma 289 consists of
a topaz star combined with a sapphire, magnitudes six and nine, distance
28.5", p. 0 deg.. The fourth-magnitude star 41 has several faint companions.
The magnitudes of two of these are eleven and nine, distances 34", p.
203 deg., and 130", p. 230 deg.. We discover another triple in pi, magnitudes
five, eight, and eleven, distances 3.24", p. 122 deg., and 25", p. 110 deg.. The
double mentioned above as being too close for our three-inch glass is
epsilon, which, however, can be divided with the four-inch, although the
five-inch will serve us better. The magnitudes are five and a half and
six, distance 1.26", p. 202 deg.. The star 52 has two companions, one of
which is so close that our instruments can not separate it, while the
other is too faint to be visible in the light of its brilliant neighbor
without the aid of a very powerful telescope.

[Illustration: MAP NO. 23.]

We are now about to enter one of the most magnificent regions in the
sky, which is hardly less attractive to the naked eye than Orion, and
which men must have admired from the beginning of their history on the
earth, the constellation Taurus (map No. 23). Two groups of stars
especially distinguish Taurus, the Hyades and the Pleiades, and both are
exceedingly interesting when viewed with the lowest magnifying powers of
our telescopes.

We shall begin with a little star just west of the Pleiades, Sigma 412,
also called 7 Tauri. This is a triple, but we can see it only as a
double, the third star being exceedingly close to the primary. The
magnitudes are six and a half, seven, and ten, distances 0.3", p. 216 deg.,
and 22", p. 62 deg.. In the Pleiades we naturally turn to the brightest star
eta, or Alcyone, famous for having once been regarded as the central sun
around which our sun and a multitude of other luminaries were supposed
to revolve, and picturesque on account of the little triangle of small
stars near it which the least telescopic assistance enable