Capricornus is considered a September constellation in that it crosses the meridian in mid-evening, and it's along the Zodiac between Sagittarius and Aquarius. But you need a location away from city lights to be able to really see it well...its brightest star is only magnitude three and no others are brighter than magnitude four. Dubbed the "Sea Goat" (whatever that's supposed to be), its shape is like a boat or basket...making it relatively easy to spot in appropriately dark skies. I misspelled Delta Capricorni's Arabic name Deneb Algedi in the above picture: it's that brightest star I was referring to, on the far eastern (left) end. On the opposite part of the sky is the constellation Cancer: yes, these two are directly related to Earth's "Tropic of" latitudes that at a time in the past represented the northernmost and southernmost points in the sky where the sun would lie...and on Earth where it would reach the zenith at noon...on the summer and winter solstices. The constellations fulfilling this function nowadays are Sagittarius and Gemini. I didn't put the different stars' Greek alphabet designations in the above picture because I prefer their proper names, usually derived from Arabic. Now that I've written about Capricornus I feel duty-bound to go outside in the evening and try to see it...shouldn't be too hard if the weather cooperates. After Cygnus (which I wrote about in September 2020) there just aren't that many standout constellations for this month...next year should be a challenge to find a third...
No comments:
Post a Comment