Judge — January 15, 1927 — page 13: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

JUDGE How to Appreciate the Stars by Ellis Parker Butler De you love the stars as w tronomers love them? Too many people go out on the back porch and say, “Look, Maggie, there is a moon; I wonder who left it there?” or “What, ho! there is a ” but they do not know what they are talking about. They have never weighed a star. They have never taken a star apart to see whether it was filled with atoms or only stuffed with sawdust. How many of you know how far it is from the earth to a star? Only last Tuesday I asked a man named James O’Haggerty the ques- tion. He is a democrat and wears a black derby hat. I asked him, “Mr. O'Haggerty, how far do you imagine it is to a star?” and he an- swered, “I don’t know; how far is it?” This is the common attitude toward this important matter. That is what we astronomers have to contend against. If you want to love the stars you must know how far off they are. To do this you make a picture of a railway train going to a star and then you write under it how long it takes the train to go from the earth to the star. When you have done this you begin to love the star. We will now show how we astrono- mers arrive at these distances. Let us first select a star. Suppose we choose Mongoose, which is one of the most respectable stars in Penn- sylvania. If we look at Mongoc through the naked eye we may , “I bet Mongoose is over twenty ——IN YOUR GREAT-COAT!|” UU hf Pneumatic Inickers for neophytes. The ulster. miles from here.” But if we are an astronomer we do not say that. We >, “T must see how long it would take a train to re a The first step is te in which we have perfect confidence. Lusually prefer the Long Island Rail- way because I can get a fifty trip ticket for nine dollars, but the B. & O. may be used if you prefer. We now take the railroad and aim it at Mongoose, allowing for curvature of the spine, a washout at- Woodside and the Einstein Theory. ‘This is usually one and one half per cent. It is best to put a cigar box or some- thing under the other end of the (Continued on page 26) comicbooks.com