The Book of Stars: Being a Simple Explanation of the Stars and Their Uses to Boy Life

The stars are the friends of everyone who knows them.

If you have never stood out in the open and watched the stars on a clear night, you have missed the most wonderful sight to be seen from this little old mud ball of ours, and my advice to you is not to let another 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 fixed stars, 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, to enjoy 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 without price.

You may wonder how you can make any use of the stars, but there are dozens of ways by which they will serve your purpose, from finding the north to lighting a fire, and from telling the time to sending a signal, 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 pair of good, sharp eyes, and if you are fitted with these you are ready to begin your work in starcraft this very night.

A great many folks believe that they must have a telescope with which to see the stars, and while, of course, a great deal more can be seen with a telescope than without one, still it must be remembered that the telescope was invented not longer than four hundred years ago and that many important discoveries in astronomy were made long before the telescope 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 show you many things in the sky which you cannot see with the naked eye, and if you have one of these instruments, by all means use it. On the other hand, you can get along very well without a glass of any kind until you have learned the things that are set down in this book.

To win a merit badge in the organization of Boy Scouts, a boy must pass certain tests; but it is just as necessary for you to know the stars as it is for a Boy Scout, and this book is so written that anyone who studies it can pass the Boy Scout tests, and there are a few other things in it which everyone should know.

Once that you have an insight into starcraft, you will never need to be told again how very interesting and useful the stars are, and once that you have mastered the chief points in this book, you should make or buy a telescope having a two-or three-inch objective and get a little closer to the stars.