ORION
ORION
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ORION |
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Constellation Data
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Where should I look for a constellation on a date before or after its midnight culmination? What is Midnight Culmination? |
Skylore
Orion the hunter boasted that he would slay all animals on earth. To prevent this, Gaia sent Scorpius to kill him first.
In Egyptian mythology, Orion was the abode of Osiris, a pharoah-god who was slain by his jackal-headed brother, Set. Osiris conquered death and, once resurrected, came to reside in Orion. Isis dwelt on Sirius.
Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, rises on the eastern horizon just before the Sun once each year. This following a period of complete invisibility lasting about 70 days (during which time it lies in the daytime sky). Egyptian inscriptions describe the last appearance of Sirius in the night sky as its death; its daytime invisibility as purification in the embalming house of the nether world; and its rising with the Sun as a resurrection. Accordingly they calibrated the process of mummification to this celestial cycle, completing it in exactly 70 days.
The pharoahs, so it was believed, began their journeys in the celestial realms with a visit to Osiris and Isis in the regions of Orion and Sirius. Many peoples have located their greatest gods here. Yet consider Solomon, who said when dedicating David's temple: "But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens--even the highest heaven--cannot contain you."
Description
Three stars in a row make up Orion's belt, within a rectangle of four bright stars representing his shoulders and feet.
At sunset in the autumn, Orion's belt appears to rise straight up on the horizon.
The sword hanging from his belt includes M42, the beautiful Orion nebula.
In a comical ballad called "The Star-Splitter," Robert Frost described a man outdoors splitting firewood after the first frost of autumn. Frost's poetic tale reminds us that Orion's rising on the eastern horizion at sunset is a marker of autumn.
However, for early risers it is visible all summer. Ancient Greeks marked the Mediterranean harvest seasons with Orion's positions. The poet Hesiod admonished his nephew farmer to watch for the early summer rising of Orion at sunrise: "Forget not, when Orion first appears, To make your servants thresh the sacred ears..." Late in summer, at the time of the grape harvest, Orion rises at midnight. And when Orion rises at sunset in autumn, sailors knew that the time had come to bring their ships to port:
...then the winds war aloud,
And veil the ocean with a sable cloud:
Then round the bank, already haul'd on shore,
Lay stones, to fix her when the tempests roar...
Since Orion's belt of three bright stars lies upon the celestial equator, Orion is visible from every inhabited part of the globe.
Orion the hunter appropriately faces the red eye of Taurus. His two hunting dogs follow behind: The Big Dog or Canis Major, with the bright star Sirius. And the Little Dog, or Canis Minor, with the bright star Procyon.
What do you hunt, Orion,
This starry night?
The Ram, the Bull, and the Lion,
And the Great Bear, says Orion,
With my starry quiver and beautiful belt
I am trying to find a good thick pelt
To warm my shoulders tonight,
To warm my shoulders tonight.
![[star chart]](../../../images/Ori.gif)
Asterisms
Winter Hexagon
Sword
Belt
What is an Asterism?
Special Stars
Orion's right shoulder is Betelgeuse, a red giant that is one of the largest of stars in the sky. If Betelgeuse were our Sun, its surface would reach beyond the orbit of Mars!
Bluish Rigel is Orion's left foot, the 7th brightest star in the sky.
Table of 25 Brightest Stars.
What is apparent stellar magnitude?
Nebulae
M42, Orion Nebula (Diffuse nebula), mag. 4.0.
A sword hanging from his belt at first sight looks like three stars, but the middle one is ill-defined. With binoculars you can tell that it is not a star, but a cloudy region, called the Great Orion Nebula. A powerful telescope reveals the nebula to be a giant cloud of luminous gas, a cosmic nursery where stars are now being born. Through the Hubble space telescope the Great Orion Nebula becomes a colorful and awesome spectacle, over 20,000 times larger than our solar system.
M43 (Diffuse nebula), mag. 9.0.
M78 (Diffuse nebula), mag. 8.3.
What are Nebulae?
Table of Messier Objects.
What is apparent Magnitude?
Discussed in these Shows
![[Small Logo]](../../../images/smLogo.gif)
©1997 Welcome to the Basic Celestial Phenomena web site. To provide explanations of basic observational astronomy to students, teachers, families, and visitors to planetariums these pages have been written by an ex-OBU Planetarium Director, Kerry Magruder; the OBU Natural Sciences Coordinator, Mike Keas; and some of the students who work in the OBU planetarium.
The source for the logo is not a medieval woodcut!
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