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ASTRA

STJÄRNORNA

ASTRA

Astra heter katteriets första kull

Astra är latin för stjärnor

Stjärnbilderna är förknippade både med vetenskap och legender samt inom astrologi. Här kommer dels den verkliga stjärnbilden för varje kattnamn, dels den fantasifigur/det astrologiska tecknet människor såg i stjärnornas placering.

Många av de västerländska stjärnbilderna har sitt ursprung i Babylonien och Egypten. Under 1500-talet fick de flesta stjärnbilderna sina nu allmänt vedertagna namn.

DRACO

Draken

Draken är en lång och smal stjärnbild mellan Stora och Lilla Björnen.

I romersk legend är Draco den drake som gudinnan Minerva dödade och kastade upp i skyn. In another Greek legend, Draco represents the dragonkilled by Cadmusbefore founding the city of Thebes Greece. In a third legend, it represents the dragon that guarded the Golden Fleece and was killed by Jason. The fact that the stars of this circumpolar constellation never set plays an important part in its mythologies.

The Greeks named it Draco, the dragon. In one of the more famous European myths, Draco represents Ladon, the hundred-headed dragon who guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides. The eleventh of the twelve Labours of Heracles was to steal the golden apples. He put Ladon to sleep with music, which enabled Heracles to freely take the golden apples. According to the legend, Hera later placed the dragon in the sky as the constellation Draco. Due to its position and nearby constellations in the zodiac sign of Libra (i.e. Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, and Boötes), the group of constellations can be seen to tell the tale of the eleventh labour.

Draken och Lilla Björn

TAURUS

Oxen

Centralt i stjärnbilden ligger en V-formad asterism, Hyaderna, vilken är en fysisk öppen stjärnhop av samhöriga stjärnor. Markant inom området för Hyaderna, finns den orangeröda stjärnan Alfa Tauri, med namnet Aldebaran, som dock inte är kopplad till Hyaderna utan ligger emellan dessa och solsystemet.

Plejaderna

I en lång förlängning ut ifrån V:ets spetsar, ligger stjärnorna Beta Tauri, El Nath, och Zeta Tauri. Markant i stjärnbilden är också Plejaderna, en annan närbelägen öppen stjärnhop.

Oxen, inte sällan kallad Tjuren, är en omisskänlig och ljusstark stjärnbild på den nordligaste delen av ekliptikan.

DORADO

Guldfisken

A small southern constellation introduced at the end of the 16th century by the Dutch navigators Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. Dorado was first depicted on a star globe of 1598 by the Dutchman Petrus Plancius. It represents the colourful dolphinfish ( Coryphaena hippurus , also known as Mahi-mahi ) found in tropical waters, not the goldfish commonly found in ponds and aquaria. Dutch explorers observed these large predatory fish chasing flying fish and so Dorado was placed in the sky following the constellation of the flying fish, Volans. This constellation has also been known as Xiphias, the Swordfish, which is how it was depicted on the Uranographia  star atlas of Johann Bode.

Dorado's main claim to fame is that it contains most of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small neighbour galaxy of our own Milky Way, about 170,000 light years away; this, like the Small Magellanic Cloud in Tucana, was first described by the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci in an account published in 1503 or 1504. Supernova 1987A, the first supernova visible to the naked eye since 1604, occurred in the outskirts of the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Dorado är en stjärnbild på södra stjärnhimlen. A small southern constellation introduced at the end of the 16th century by the Dutch navigators Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. Dorado was first depicted on a star globe of 1598 by the Dutchman Petrus Plancius. It represents the colourful dolphinfish ( Coryphaena hippurus , also known as Mahi-mahi) found in tropical waters, not the goldfish commonly found in ponds and aquaria. Dutch explorers observed these large predatory fish chasing flying fish and so Dorado was placed in the sky following the constellation of the flying fish, Volans. This constellation has also been known as Xiphias, the Swordfish, which is how it was depicted on the Uranographia  star atlas of Johann Bode.

Dorado shown in the Uranographia of Johann Bode under the name of Xiphias, the swordfish. Nubecula Major, above it, is better known as the Large Magellanic Cloud.

URSA MINOR

Lilla Björn

Denna stjärnbild sägs ha införts på 600-talet f. Kr. av den grekiske astronomen Thales från Miletos.

The Little Bear was said by the Greeks to have been first named by the astronomer Thales of Miletus, who lived from about 625 BC to 545 BC. The earliest reference to it seems to have been made by the poet Callimachus of the third century BC, who reported that Thales ‘measured out the little stars of the Wain by which the Phoenicians sail'. Certainly Homer, two centuries before Thales, wrote only of the Great Bear, never mentioning its smaller counterpart. However, it is not clear whether Thales actually invented the constellation or merely introduced it to the Greeks, for Thales was reputedly descended from a Phoenician family and, as Callimachus said, the Phoenicians navigated by reference to Ursa Minor rather than Ursa Major. Aratus points out that although the Little Bear is smaller and fainter than the Great Bear, it lies closer to the pole and hence provides a better guide to true north. We have the word of Eratosthenes that the Greeks also knew Ursa Minor as the Phoenician.

Lilla björn har vissa likheter med Karlavagnen, kallas ibland för Lilla Karlavagnen. Även här bildar fyra stjärnor en rektangel och tre stjärnor en svans. Svansen är dock böjd uppåt i Lilla björnens fall. Lilla björnen är mest känd för sista stjärnan i svansen. Den heter Polstjärnan (Polaris). För ca 3000 år sedan var det den ljusstarkaste stjärnan i Lilla björnen som var Polstjärna.

En saga om Lilla Björn

Lilla Björn var en mycket busig och livlig liten björn. En dag tog jätten Zeus tag om den lilla björnens svans och snurrade honom runt, runt i luften, samtidigt som svansen blev längre och längre. Med all sin kraft slungade han sedan Lilla Björn upp på himlen där han än i dag hänger med svansen fastknuten i Polstjärnan. Han springer där runt, runt på himlavalvet – ett varv per dygn.

Lilla björnen kallades förr drakens vinge och var en del av stjärnbilden Draken.

MUSCA

Flugan

Musca, under its original name Apis – the Bee , was introduced in the late 16th century by Petrus Plancius to fill the previously uncharted area around the southern pole and to provide nourishment for the nearby constellation Chamaeleon (17th-century celestial maps clearly show the chameleon's tongue trying to catch the insect). In 1752 Nicolas Louis de Lacaille renamed it to Musca Australis , the Southern Fly – Australis , since it counterparted the now discarded constellation of Musca Borealis composed of a few stars in Aries , and to avoid confusion with Apus .

Today the name is simply Musca . A small constellation to the south of Crux, the Southern Cross. Musca was introduced at the end of the 16th century by Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman from the stars they observed during the first Dutch expeditions to the East Indies. It was first depicted by their fellow Dutchman Petrus Plancius on his globe of 1598, but for some reason he left it unnamed. In his catalogue of 1603 de Houtman called it De Vlieghe, meaning fly. Bayer, also in 1603, showed the insect on his plate of the 12 new southern constellations in Uranometria  but called it Apis, the Bee, an alternative title that was widely used for two centuries. The Dutch historian Elly Dekker believes that this alternative identification arose because Bayer copied his southern constellations from globes produced by Jodocus Hondius in 1600 and 1601, on which the figure was left unnamed. Not knowing what it was meant to depict, Bayer wrongly identified it as a bee, not a fly.
The Latin name Musca first appeared in 1603 on a globe by Willem Janszoon Blaeu, another Dutch cartographer and rival to Plancius, who utilized data from the later catalogue of Frederick de Houtman that was completed after Keyser's death. Plancius himself did not adopt a name for the constellation until 1612, when he called it Muia, the Greek for fly, on a globe produced that year. For a time it was known as Musca Australis, when there was also a northern fly, Musca Borealis , in the sky.
The brightest star of Musca is of third magnitude. None of its stars are named, and there are no legends about the fly.

Flugan (latin Musca ) är en stjärnbild på södra stjärnhimlen. Den har, på svenska, även hetat biet och biflugan men sedan fick den helt enkelt heta flugan.

Musca ( Latin : fly ) is one of the minor southern constellations . The constellation was one of twelve constellations created by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman and it first appeared on a 35-cm diameter celestial globe published in 1597 (or 1598) in Amsterdam by Petrus Plancius and Jodocus Hondius . The first depiction of this constellation in a celestial atlas was in Johann Bayer 's Uranometria of 1603.

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