THE BOOK OF STARS
By A. Frederick Collins
The Book of Wireless
The Book of Stars
The Book of Magic
The Book of Electricity
Gas, Gasoline and Oil Engines
The Amateur Chemist
The Amateur Mechanic
How to Fly
The Home Handy Book
Keeping Up with Your Motor Car
Motor Car Starting and Lighting
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Publishers New York
THE BOOK OF STARS
BEING A SIMPLE EXPLANATION OF THE STARS
AND THEIR USES TO BOY LIFE
WRITTEN TO CONFORM TO THE TESTS
OF THE BOY SCOUTS
BY
A. FREDERICK COLLINS
“THE BOOK OF WIRELESS”;
“THE BOOK OF MAGIC,” ETC.
FULLY ILLUSTRATED
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK LONDON
1920
Copyright, 1915, 1920, by
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Printed in the United States of America
TO THE BURNHAMS
WITH PLEASANT MEMORIES OF
MOUNT HAMILTON NIGHTS
A WORD TO YOU
The stars are the friends of everyone who knows them.
If you have never stood out in the open and watched the stars on aclear night, you have missed the most wonderful sight to be seen fromthis little old mud ball of ours, and my advice to you is not to letanother night go by without making friends with the stars.
By the stars I mean everything in the far off sky that we can see,and this includes the white hot points of light we call the fixedstars, the blazing sun, the bright planets, the pale, cold moon,the fiery comets and the burning meteors.
All of these things in the sky are so easily ours to look at, toenjoy and to use, that we are apt not to take them at their true value,just as many of us do not appreciate to the fullest the green grass,the trees, the birds and all the other good things we have withoutprice.
You may wonder how you can make any use of the stars, but there aredozens of ways by which they will serve your purpose, from findingthe north to lighting a fire, and from telling the time to sending asignal, and they are all easy to you when you know how.
All the apparatus you need so that you can know the stars is a pairof good, sharp eyes, and if you are fitted with these you are ready tobegin your work in starcraft this very night.
A great many folks believe that they must have a telescope withwhich to see the stars, and while, of course, a great deal more can beseen with a telescope than without one, still it must be rememberedthat the telescope was invented not longer than four hundred years ago[Pg viii]and that many important discoveries in astronomy were made long before thetelescope was invented. And, by the way, it was a boy who invented the telescope.
A small telescope, or a pair of field or opera glasses, will showyou many things in the sky which you cannot see with the naked eye, andif you have one of these instruments, by all means use it. On the otherhand, you can get along very well without a glass of any kind until youhave learned the things that are set do