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ORION
Location: Celestial Equator (visible in both Northern and Southern
Hemispheres)
Coordinates:
Right Ascension: 05h
Declination: -05º
Source: Greek mythology, Arab, ancient Indian & Egyptian
The story behind the name: The pattern in the constellation Orion
was recognized as a human figure by many ancient cultures. Orion's
position on the Celestial Equator makes it visible all over our planet.
Ancient Indians saw the figure as a king who had been shot by an
arrow (represented by the stars in Orion's belt). Ancient Egyptians thought the stars in the belt
represented the resting place of the soul of the god Osiris. The Arabs saw the constellation as the figure
of a giant.
The constellation takes its name from the Greek stories about Orion, a legendary hunter. The stories
about Orion are only loosely connected and exist in several variants. Some are thought to be derived
from earlier stories from more ancient cultures. One myth says that Orion was banished to the sky for
boasting about how many animals he would kill (to impress Eos). He and his hunting dogs, Canis Major
and Minor, chase the constellations representing animals, but can never catch them.
There are two legends about Orion's birth, both relating him to water. In one, he is the son of Poseidon
and Eurayle, one of the three daughters of Ceto and Phorcys. In the other, he is the son of the widowed
bee-keeper Hyrieus, conceived from a sacrifice to the gods that may be related to an ancient African rainmaking charm. In this story he was named Urion, "maker of water". His birth legends may be connected
to the seasonal rains that come near the rising and setting of the constellation.
The Greek myths of Orion's death and subsequent placement in the sky may also be connected to
legends from other ancient cultures. In one myth, Artemis fell in love with him and was tricked by her
brother Apollo into killing Orion with an arrow. Artemis begged
Ascelpius to save Orion, but Zeus killed Ascelpius as he was
trying. Artemis set Orion's image in the stars. This story may be
related to the Hittite legend of Anat, the battle-goddess who falls in
love with a hunter but accidentally causes his death when he
refuses to give her his bow.
There are several stories of Orion being stung to death by a
scorpion. These may be related to an Egyptian myth about Horus,
the child of Isis and Osiris who met a similar fate, or to the
Babylonian story of the attack on Gilgamesh by the scorpion men.
Another version of the scorpion story has Artemis unleashing the
scorpion to punish Orion for having pursued the seven Pleiades.
All of these stories seem to recognize the astronomical
phenomenon that Orion and the constellation Scorpio each rise as
the other sets. In one version he is chasing the scorpion to try
finally to kill it. In another he is forever running away or hiding from
it.
CASSIOPEIA
Location: Northern Hemisphere
Coordinates:
Right Ascension: 01h
Declination: +60º
Source: Greek mythology. The constellation was also identified by the
Egyptians (associated with an evil god), the Chinese (a charioteer), and the Celts (home of the king of the
Fairies).
The story behind the name: Cassiopeia is named after the queen of a country on the northern coast of
Africa, Aethiopia (not modern Ethiopia). She boasted that she and her daughterAndromeda were more
beautiful than the Nereids, the 50 sea nymph attendants of Thetis, the sea goddess, and Poseidon, the
sea god. Thetis, and Poseidon's wife Amphitrite (an alternate sea goddess), were also Nereids, so
Cassiopeia's boast was an insult to the gods. The Nereids begged Poseidon to punish Cassiopeia.
Poseidon sent a flood carrying a sea monster to destroy the kingdom. Cassiopeia's husband, King
Cepheus consulted an oracle, who told him that the only way to appease Poseidon and stop the monster
was to sacrifice Andromeda. Andromeda was chained to a sea cliff to be eaten by the monster. She was
rescued by the hero Perseus who had seen her chained to the cliff and had fallen instantly in love with
her. Perseus was returning from carrying out his oath to kill the Gorgon, Medusa. Perseus offered to kill
the sea monster and rescue Andromeda in return for her hand in marriage. Cepheus and Cassiopeia
agreed reluctantly. They had already agreed to marry her to Cephus's uncle (his father's twin brother
Agenor), and once she had been rescued, they tried to break their promise to Perseus.
Andromeda wanted to keep their promise and insisted that the wedding be held immediately. In some
versions of the myth, Cassiopeia summoned Agenor, who rushed into the wedding party with armed men.
Perseus fought off a number of them but was greatly outnumbered. He picked up Medusa's head (which
he was bringing back as proof that he killed her) and when his attackers looked at it, they turned to stone.
Poseidon is supposed to have set images of Cepheus and Cassiopeia in the sky. As a punishment for her
treachery, her constellation (a zig-zag shape like an "M" or "W") is supposed to represent Cassiopeia
either chained to her throne (in an ironic reference to her daughter's ordeal) or stuffed into a basket.
Because the constellation is in a circumpolar position (meaning that it seems to revolve centered around
the pole star, Polaris), Cassiopeia is at times suspended upside down in the sky in a very undignified
position.
PERSEUS
Location: Northern Hemisphere
Coordinates:
Right Ascension: 03h
Declination: +45º
Source: Greek Mythology
The story behind the name: Perseus was the son of the Greek god Zeus
and the mortal princess Danae. Perseus' grandfather, Acrisius, the king of
Argos, was warned by an oracle that he would be killed by his grandson.
Acrisius locked his daughter Danae in a dungeon to prevent her bearing a
child. Zeus found a way into her dungeon disguised as a shower of gold.
When the child Perseus was born, King Acrisius locked Danae and
Perseus in a wooden chest and threw it into the sea. The chest floated to the island of Seriphos, where it
was rescued by a fisherman who was brother to the island's king, Polydectes. Polydectes offered them
protection and Perseus was raised in his house. Polydectes may have had an ulterior motive as he later
tried to force marriage on Danae. The king tried to mislead Perseus by saying that he intended to marry
someone else. Perseus was so relieved that he promised the king a rather extravagant wedding gift, the
head of Medusa.
Medusa was one of three sisters, daughters of Ceto and Phorcys, who was transformed into a hideous
creature by the goddess Athene. She was angry at Medusa for having a liaison with Poseidon in one of
her temples. Also known as the Gorgon, Medusa had serpents for hair, huge teeth, and a protruding
tongue. One look turned people to stone. Athene helped Perseus gather magic equipment and gave him
a shield to use as a mirror so that he would not look at Medusa directly. Perseus flew to the Gorgon's den
with his winged sandals, and, using the shield as a mirror, cut off Medusa's head and buried it. The
winged horse, Pegasus, and a warrior, Chrysaor, emerged fully grown out of Medusa's body, a product of
her liaison with Poseidon. They, and her two sisters chased after Perseus, but he escaped.
Perseus had many adventures on the way back to Seriphos. He stopped at the palace of the Titan Atlas
and was refused hospitality so he used the Gorgon's head to turn Atlas in to a mountain. He saw the
beautiful Andromeda chained to a cliff to appease Poseidon's sea monster. He rescued her from the
monster and married her, using Medusa's head to defeat an attack
by her relatives. Perseus then saved his mother from marrying
Polydectes by turning the king and his court to stone with the head
of Medusa.
King Acrisius, however, could not escape his fate. There are
several versions of how Acrisius and Perseus came to be in the
same place at the same time, but in all of them, Acrisius is
accidentally killed by a discus thrown by Perseus in funeral games.
Although Perseus was placed in the sky near Andromdea, the
constellation is usually depicted showing him holding Medusa's
head, with the bright star Algol marking her eye.
CEPHEUS
Location: Northern Hemisphere
Coordinates:
Right Ascension: 23h
Declination: 72º
Source: Greek mythology
The story behind the name:Cepheus is said to be the name of two ancient
mythological kings. One was king of Tegea, a part of the Peloponesian
peninsula, who fathered 20 children and sailed with Jason and the
Argonauts.
The other is the more familiar king of Aethiopia, husband to Queen Cassiopeia and father ofAndromeda.
After his vain wife boasted that her beauty was greater than that of the Sea-Nymphs (or Nereids), the sea
god Poseiden, father of the Nereids, sent a terrible whale-like monster (Cetus) to Aethiopia.
King Cepheus consulted with an oracle who instructed him to sacrifice his young daughter to the monster,
as the only way to appease the gods. Andromeda was chained to an ocean cliff and left to be devoured
by Cetus.
Johannes Hevelius' Cepheus fromUranographia (1690)
Perseus, son of Zeus, flew by at this moment and spied the beautiful princess. He instantly fell in love
with her and slew the monster, after first obtaining permission from the King and Queen to marry her.
At the wedding of Perseus and Andromeda, a family relative appeared and claimed (rightfully) that
Andromeda was betrothed to him. King Cepheus scolded the relative by asking why he hadn't come for
her when she was bound to the ocean cliff, in mortal peril. Cepheus failed to resolve the situation and a
fight broke out in which many of the wedding guests were turned to stone.
Upon his death, King Cepheus was placed in the heavens alongside his wife, with his daughter and her
husband Perseus nearby.
URSA MAJOR (BIG BEAR)
Location: Northern Hemisphere
Coordinates:
Right Ascension: 11h
Declination: +50º
Source: Greek, Roman, and Native American mythology
The story behind the name: The constellation name, Ursa Major,
means Big Bear. The "bear" association has its origins in two major
civilizations which saw two very different bears in the sky.
The Greeks who named this constellation (later translated into the Latin name we use today) thought that
the stars outlined the shape of a bear walking about on its clawed feet. It and its smaller companion, Ursa
Minor were said to be the prey of Boötes and his hunting dogs. The long cat-like tail on the bears was
part of the ancient pattern and is somewhat of a mystery. A story in Ovid tried to offer an explanation. In
that myth, Zeus fell in love with Callisto. Hera changed her into a bear out of jealousy. Her son Arcus (the
namesake of Arcturus, the alternate name for the constellation Boötes) came upon her in the forest and
she ran to greet him. Not knowing the bear was his mother, he was about to kill her. To save her, Zeus
turned Arcus into a smaller bear, grabbed them both by their tails and flung them into the sky, causing
their tails to be stretched.
A number of Native American tribes also referred to this constellation as a bear, but with a clever addition.
In their description of these stars, the bear is the same, but without the "tail". Instead, those three stars
are three hopeful hunters, and the middle one is carrying a cooking pot for cooking up the bear.
Johannes Hevelius' Ursa Major
from Uranographia (1690)
The most common pattern seen in this constellation is composed of a smaller group of the brightest stars
(called an asterism) that outline the Big Dipper. This name comes from many different cultures which
have seen in these stars a long handled spoon, often used for dipping water for drinking. Others call this
pattern a plow, seeing instead of a dipper, an old-style, ox-pulled farm plow. The plow pattern, pulled by
oxen, is the shape referenced in the myth of the Triones, the oxen and plow driven by Bootes the herder.
The Egyptians and the Chinese saw different associations. Even in relatively more modern times, early
European civilizations continued to invent new meanings for this pattern.