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Updated: June 2, 2025
It was the finest view of the Zodiacal light that I had ever enjoyed thrilling in its strangeness but I was almost disheartened by the indifference of my guide, to whom it was only a light and nothing more. If he had no science, he had less poetry rather a remarkable thing, I thought, for a child of his clime.
Should it "be compared to the coruscation of the electric fluid in the aurora borealis? or to the more magnificent cone of the zodiacal light?" Above all, what was its function in the cosmos?
Consider, for example, the sun: its transit from one zodiacal sign to the next occurreth within a short period of time, yet only after a long period doth it attain the plenitude of its resplendency, its heat and glory, in the sign of Leo. It must first complete one full revolution through the other constellations before it will enter the sign of Leo again, to blaze out in its full splendour.
As indescribably lovely is the after-glow, the zodiacal light which may have originated the pyramid; the lively pink reflection from the upper atmosphere; the vast variety of tints with which the greens and the reds, the purples and the fiery crimsons of the western sky tincture the receptive surface of the neutral-hued granites; and the chameleon-shiftings of the dying day, as it sinks into the arms of night.
The reason why the Zodiacal Light is best seen in our latitudes at the periods just mentioned is because at those times the Zodiac is more nearly perpendicular to the horizon, first in the west and then in the east; and, since the phenomenon is confined within the borders of the Zodiac, it cannot be favorably placed for observation when the zodiacal plane is but slightly inclined to the horizon.
During my stay in the valleys of the Tuy and Aragua the zodiacal light appeared almost every night with extraordinary brilliancy. I had perceived it for the first time between the tropics at Caracas, on the 18th of January, after seven in the evening. The point of the pyramid was at the height of 53 degrees.
It is, again, a subject full of interest to the chronologist to inquire in what era of the world's history exact astronomy began, the moon was assigned her twenty-eight zodiacal mansions, the sun his twelve zodiacal signs.
The two last needed not an apology, as not being within the description of old almanacs. It is fixed on grounds which scarcely admit a doubt, that the planet Herschel was seen by Mayer in the year 1756, and was considered by him as one of the zodiacal stars, and, as such, arranged in his catalogue, being the 964th which he describes.
There was a faint and much narrower extension which they could just make out beyond the Pleiades along the ecliptic, but the greater part of the Zodiacal Light showed as a broad truncated column, and it did not appear nearly as conical as he had before seen it.
This very spring , as I walked about a town in the evening, I used to listen to find if I could hear any one mention the zodiacal light, which, just after sunset, was distinctly visible for a fortnight at a time. It was more than usually distinct, a perfect cone, reaching far up into the sky among the western stars. No one seemed to observe it, though it faced them evening after evening.
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