midnight
Zeelna , traversing in twelve hours only one-fifth of the visible hemisphere , while crossing in the same time 144 ° on the zodiac -- twelve degrees per hour , or our Moon 's diameter in two minutes and a half -- was left behind by the stars ; and fixing what I may call the ocular attention on her , she seemed to stand still while they slowly passed her ; thus making their revolution perceptible to sense as it never is on Earth , for lack of a similar standard . Caulna , rising in the west and moving eastwards , crossed the visible sky in five hours , and passed through the stars at the rate of 48 ° per hour , so that she seemed to sail past them like a golden cloudlet or celestial vessel driven by a slow wind . It happened this night that she passed over the star Fomalhaut -- an occultation which I watched with great interest through an excellent field-glass , but which lasted only for about half a minute . About an hour before midnight the two moons passed each other in the Eastern sky ; both gibbous at the moment , like our Moon in her last quarter . The difference in size and motion was then most striking ; Caulna seeming to rush past her companion , and the latter looking like a stationary star in the slowly moving sky . We were received on landing by our former host and conducted to his house . On this occasion , however , I was not detained in the hall , but permitted at once to enter the chamber allotted to us .