THE CONSTELLATION ORION

Abstract

An article in the June number of these Publications gave a short description of Scorpio, one of the most prominent of the constellations of our summer evening sky. There is a certain degree of propriety in making Orion the subject of the next sketch in this series, for it is one of the best known and most brilliant configurations in the winter evening sky, and is, further, associated with Scorpio by the relationship of avoidance. Orion disappears at the western horizon as Scorpio rises in the east, a fact which the ancient mythologists explained as due to the mighty hunter's fear of the scorpion by whose sting he was slain. Even though translated to the skies he still flees from his venomous pursuer. Orion is always pictured as a giant wielding an uplifted club, with one hand and, in lieu of shield, holding a lion's skin over the other arm. In Bayer's Uranometry (1661) the club is held in the left hand, but the more familiar drawing is the one here reproduced from Flamsteed's Atlas Coelcstis (1729). The hunter faces the gigantic bull, Taurus, whose head and shoulder are indicated by the Hyades group, and the cluster of the Pleiades, and is followed by his faithful dogs Canis Major and Canis Minor, marked, respectively, by Sirius, the brightest, star in the sky, and Procyon, another star of great brilliance. Figure 1 gives an outline of the entire constellation, but when we think of Orion we generally have in mind only the region outlined by the four bright stars Betelgeuze (a), in the giant's right shoulder, Bellatrix (γ), in his left shoulder, Rigel (β), in his left foot, and Saiph (κ), in his right knee. Within this quadrilateral are the bright belt stars, the little line of stars in the hunter's sword, and also the richest parts of the great