Keith Wilson has had a lifelong interest in the night sky and has written for space and astronomy publications in both the UK and USA. He lives under the dark night skies of the Isle of Gigha.
The Sun doesn’t set until later in the evening but, if it is a nice night, it is worth going out to take a look at the pretty constellation of Corona Borealis which is also known as ‘The Northern Crown’.
It’s a small constellation made up of seven stars and you will need a dark sky location to see it well.
The constellation has a very distinctive pattern which forms the shape of the letter C. In the middle of the C is a bright white star which is the brightest in ‘The Northern Crown’.
It is called Alphecca or Gemma which means ‘jewel’ in Latin. It is the shining gem of the crown. Before it was known as a ‘gem’, Alphecca was known as ‘the bright one of the dish’, in Arabic.
To find this famous C-shaped pattern of stars, you need to look high in the south-east. Although it is faint, it is easy to locate because is lies on a line joining the two bright stars Vega and Arcturus. Use the chart accompanying this column to find it.
Ancient stargazers identified ‘The Northern Crown’ with a shape which was common to them. The Arabs knew it as the ‘poor person’s bowl’ because it looked like a broken bowl.
The Cheyenne of North America called the constellation the ‘Camp Circle’ because its shape was similar to the way they arranged their camps, in a semi-circle.
When you spot this faint but distinctive constellation, you will understand why aboriginal Australians called it Woomera, which translates to ‘The Boomerang’.
In Greek mythology, Corona Borealis is thought to represent a crown given by Dionysus to Ariadne, the daughter of Minos of Crete, after she had been abandoned by the Athenian prince Theseus. When Ariadne wore this crown at her marriage to Dionysus, he placed it in the heavens to commemorate their wedding.
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