Good evening and thank you for joining me for another boring books for bedtime.

I hope tonight selection provides all the boredom your busy brain needs to quiet down and let you get some sleep.

So find a comfortable spot, adjust your volume, take a nice deep breath in, let it out slowly, and off we go.

This evening we're returning to one of your favorites,

Astronomy for young Folks by Isabel Martin Lewis AM

connected with the Nautical Almanac Office of the U.S. Naval Observatory,

published by Duffieldin Company, New York, 1922. Let's pick up where we left off in a month by month look at the skies.

Chapter 4 March

To the southeast of Orion and almost due south at 8 o'clock in the evening on the 1st of March

lies the constellation of Canis Major, the Greater Dog, containing Sirius the Dog Star, which far surpasses all other stars in the

heavens in brilliancy.

Serious lies almost in line with the three stars that form the belt of Orion.

We shall not have the slightest difficulty in recognizing it, owing to its

surpassing brilliancy, as well as to the fact that it follows so closely upon the heels of Orion.

Sirius is the Greek for scorching or sparkling, and the ancients attributed the scorching heat of summer

to the fact that Sirius then rose with the sun. The torrid days of midsummer they called the dog days for this reason,

and we have retained the expression to the present time.

Since Sirius was always associated with the discomforts of the Torrid season.

It did not have an enviable reputation among

the Greeks. We find in Pope's translation of the Iliad, this reference to Sirius.

Terrific glory, for his burning breath taints the red air with fever, plagues, and death.

In Egypt, however, many temples were dedicated to the worship of Sirius. For the reason that some 5,000 years ago

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