22 January 2009 by Tristan Gooley
I abhor the feeling of waste when throwing away a newspaper or magazine that I’ve bought but not read properly. It is more likely to find itself on a sprawling pile of catch-up reading. And so it was that I found myself picking up last month’s issue of Astronomy Now, one that had kept me company on a train journey in December. After flicking through its pages afresh, I came to thinking about the vast range and scale of human interest in the stars. It is sometimes hard to believe that the minds that give us astronomical science are from the same species that created the Greek myths. Let us take the example of the star Castor in the constellation Gemini.
Is it just that, a star in a constellation? Or is it the mortal son of Tyndareus, brother of Helen of Troy? Is it a ‘magnitude 1.93 A-class…
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Tags: Canis Minor, castor, celestial equator, constellation monoceros, finding east west, gemini |
19 October 2008 by Tristan Gooley
The incestuous relationship between the stars and mythology is nothing new, but we often overlook how constantly the relationship is rekindled or how fresh some of the stories are. The following paragraph is from Emily Winterburn’s entertaining new book, ‘The Stargazer’s Guide‘.
‘In Orion these [stars] are Rigel, Betelgeuse and Bellatrix; in Canis Major there is Sirius – and even Canis Minor, which essentially consists of only two stars, has the very bright Procyon. These are familiar names, but not perhaps for astronomical reasons. Bellatrix and Sirius are probably better known now as characters in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, while Betelgeuse was the title of a Tim Burton film, albeit with a different spelling [Beetlejuice].
Tags: Bellatrix, Betelgeuse, Canis Major, Canis Minor, myth, Procyon, Sirius, story |
