The call of the stars; a popular introduction to a knowledge of the starry skies with their romance and legend . s what is known as the Precessionrf the Equinoxes. This phenomenon, discovered by Hip-parchus, the father of observational astronomy, whil:; atwork on his celebrated catalogue two thousand yearsago, is the slow westward movement of the equinoxesalong the ecliptic, at the rate of about fifty seconds ayear, one degree in seventy-two years, or a sign in2150 years. At the time the constellations were namedthe equinoctial points were in the constellations Ariesand Libra, but by reason of
The call of the stars; a popular introduction to a knowledge of the starry skies with their romance and legend . s what is known as the Precessionrf the Equinoxes. This phenomenon, discovered by Hip-parchus, the father of observational astronomy, whil:; atwork on his celebrated catalogue two thousand yearsago, is the slow westward movement of the equinoxesalong the ecliptic, at the rate of about fifty seconds ayear, one degree in seventy-two years, or a sign in2150 years. At the time the constellations were namedthe equinoctial points were in the constellations Ariesand Libra, but by reason of the precession of the equi-noxes they have retrograded nearly a whole sign, andare now in the constellations Pisces and Virgo. Hence,while the vernal equinox, sometimes called the Green-wich of the Sky, the passage of the sun through whichbetokens the opening of spring, is in the sign Aries, thissign now corresponds to the constellation Pisces, andwill soon pass to Aquarius. The name, first point ofAries, is, however, still applied to it by time-honouredusage. In a period of about 25,800 years, the equinox. Copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N. Y. Plate III. The Long Slant Passage of the Great Pyramid General Remarks 29 ought to have visited all the constellations of the zodiac,and the signs should have backed entirely round thecircle of the ecliptic. Another effect of this gyratory motion of the northcelestial pole—like that of some mighty top—aroundthat of the ecliptic, describing a circle whose radius is232 degrees, is a change in the pole star. The starPolaris, the most observed of all stars, long known asthe North Star, will not always hold this post of is now about is degrees from the true pole, aroundwhich, notwithstanding it seems stationary in theheavens, it describes a small but appreciable distance will gradually diminish until about theyear 2100, when it will be less than half a degree, afterwhich Polaris will slowly recede from the pol
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