The easiest way to spot the constellation Leo in the sky is to look for the Sickle, shaped like a backwards question mark. Regulus is the dot of the question mark. It is a bluish star, and it can be seen all around the globe. It is the 22nd brightest star, although the 21st, Alpha Centauri, is not much brighter than it is. Regulus is not a binary star for once, although there is a binary nearby, and possibly a white dwarf.
Orion is a large, striking constellation, with many bright stars. I have already written about Rigel, its brightest star. Of its other bright stars, Betelgeuse is 12th brightest in the sky, while Bellatrix is down there at 27th.
Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky – its modern name comes from the Ancient Greek Seirios (“glowing” or “scorcher”). It is actually another one of those binary stars, a white star and a white dwarf. Like Procyon, its nearness to Earth makes it much brighter in the night sky than many other stars. It is brighter than our sun, but dimmer than Rigel and Canopus.
Procyon suffers from an inferiority complex – even its name points to a more important star. Procyon means “before the dog”, meaning Sirius, the dog-star. (Fun fact: the racoon genus is called Procyon, because it used to be thought that raccoons evolved before dogs.)
The North Star is not a particularly bright star; it doesn’t make the top 20. It’s no. 45, actually. What’s even more disturbing is that it hasn’t always been the pole star, and it will eventually move out of position again. The Earth’s orbit has a wobble in it, and thus the north pole rolls around a little over the course of the millennia.
Imagine the poles as the ends of the dowel sticking out of a round top, and you can imagine the north end wobbling around as the top rolls. This is a bit of a blow to myths about the north star, because they tend to stress the constancy and centrality of Polaris. Continue reading
These two stars are a case of the myths fitting the reality, since Pollux is the brighter (17th brightest) while Castor languishes at 23rd. Since many versions of the Classical story of the Heavenly Twins made Castor the mortal one, it seems fitting that his star is slightly dimmer.
In the next few months I plan to have an occasional series on the 20 brightest stars in the sky. Originally I was planning to start at 1 and work down, but I thought it made more sense to deal with them when they were most visible. So this month I’ll be writing about Capella, Sirius, Procyon, and Rigel.
Capella is the sixth brightest star in the sky, and third brightest in the northern hemisphere. It belongs to the constellation of Auriga, the Charioteer. As the title of this post indicates, the Charioteer is often shown cradling a goat in his arm, with the kids (or a whip). He also seems to have lost his chariot, which isn’t part of the constellation.
Rigel is basically Orion’s ankle. You can find it if you look for the three stars of his belt, then down the belt to the bright white star below it. The name comes from Rijl Jauzah al Yusra, the Left Leg of the Jauzah (Jauzah was the Arabic title for Orion).
Fun fact: Rigel was mentioned in several Star Trek episodes, in the form of its planet, Rigel VII. Captain Pike had landed there and been attacked, and this history, as well as more current events, were mentioned in episodes of New Generation and Deep Space Nine.
We Are Star Stuff 