The glorious
Orion, Canis Major containing the brightest star in the heavens,
Cassiopeia, Perseus, Cygnus, and Lyra with its bright-blue Vega,
not to mention such constellations as the Southern Cross, all lie
in or near the Milky Way. Schiaparelli has extended the
investigation to all the stars visible to the naked eye. He laid
down on planispheres the number of such stars in each region of
the heavens of 5 degrees square. Each region was then shaded with
a tint that was darker as the region was richer in stars. The very
existence of the Milky Way was ignored in this work, though his
most darkly shaded regions lie along the course of this belt. By
drawing a band around the sky so as to follow or cover his darkest
regions, we shall rediscover the course of the Milky Way without
any reference to the actual object. It is hardly necessary to add
that this result would be reached with yet greater precision if we
included the telescopic stars to any degree of magnitude--plotting
them on a chart and shading the chart in the same way. What we
learn from this is that the stellar system is not an irregular
chaos; and that notwithstanding all its minor irregularities, it
may be considered as built up with special reference to the Milky
Way as a foundation.
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