lmost directly overhead in the early
evening, during July and August, and can best be observed in a
reclining position. Thus placed, with an opera-glass to assist the
vision, you may study to the best advantage the wonderful sight spread
out before you, and search depths only measured by the power of your
glass.

When the sun enters the sign Libra the days and nights are equal all
over the world and seem to observe a certain equilibrium like a
balance, hence the name of the constellation.

[Illustration: LIBRA]

CORONA BOREALIS (k[=o]-r[=o]'n[:a] b[=o]-r[=e]-a'-lis)--THE NORTHERN
CROWN.

LOCATION.--A line drawn from [a] Cygni, to [a] Lyrae, and projected a
little over 40[deg], terminates in the Crown, which lies between Hercules
and Bo[:o]tes, and just above the diamond-shaped group of stars in the
head of the Serpent.

The characteristic semicircle resembling a crown is easily traced out.
The principal stars are of the fourth magnitude excepting Gemma, which
is a second-magnitude star and known as the "Pearl of the Crown."

Gemma, sometimes called Alphacca, forms with the stars Seginus and
Arcturus, in Bo[:o]tes, an isosceles triangle, the vertex of which is at
Arcturus.

Close to [e] a famous temporary appeared suddenly May 12, 1866, as a
second-magnitude star. It was known as the "Blaze Star" and was
visible to the naked eye only eight days, fading at that time to a
tenth-magnitude star, and then rising to an eighth-magnitude, where it
still remains.

The native Australians called this constellation "The Boomerang." To
the Hebrews it was "Ataroth" and by this name it is known in the East
to-day. No two of the seven stars composing the Crown are moving in
the same direction or at the same rate.

[a] Coronae is seventy-eight light years distant and sixty times
brighter than the sun.

[Illustration: CORONA BOREALIS]

HERCULES (her'-k[=u]-l[=e]z)--THE KNEELER.

LOCATION.--A line drawn from either Vega, in Lyra, or Altair, in
Aquila, to Gemma, in Corona Borealis, passes through this
constellation. The left foot of Hercules rests on the head of Draco,
on the north, and his head nearly touches the head of Ophiuchus on the
south.

The star in the head of Hercules, Ras Algethi, is about 25[deg] southeast
of Corona Borealis.

[a] Ophiuchi and [a] Herculis are only about 5[deg] apart.

The cluster 13 M., the Halley Nebula, can be easily seen in an
opera-glass. In a recent photograph of this