The southern hemisphere is saturated with a large number of bright stars. The Big Dog is a relatively small (which contrasts with the name), but a very interesting constellation, which is located in the Southern Hemisphere. Its brightness is such that it emits light twenty times stronger than the sun. The distance from planet Earth to Canis Major is eight and a half million light-years.
The location of the constellation in the night sky
The Big Dog, when moving daily, does not rise high beyond the horizon, and therefore it can not be seen in the sky for too long. However, this is offset by the fact that detecting it in the sky is quite simple. The constellation of Sirius is located in the southeastern part, next to another very bright constellation of Orion. In the north, the constellation Big Dog is bordered by a dimmer neighbor, the Unicorn. A little higher is the "Alpha of the Lesser Dog" - the constellation Procyon. Watching it is best from December to January.
Southern neighbors
To the south of Sirius are the Pigeon and Feed. Unfortunately, these constellations do not have bright stars, therefore they cannot serve as reference points for searching for such an object as the constellation Big Dog in the night sky. However, to find it simply taking into account the above information.
Myths about the origin of the constellation
The hypergiant of Canis Major is the star Sirius and served as the basis for creating the constellation around it. Myths about the origin of the star originate from the most hoary antiquity. People saw in her the image of a dog, which eventually transferred to the rest of the constellation. Sirius is mentioned among the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Incas, Aztecs, Mayans and among the peoples of the Near and Far East. In ancient China, he was considered a "heavenly jackal" by the name of Tien Lang. The southern stars represented his bow and arrows, with which Tien Lang was killed for tearing the emperor to pieces.
However, the most popular were the ancient legends about this star.
Ancient Greek myth of Ikaria
The ancient Greeks considered the dog to be the prototype of this star and the entire constellation. However, mythology diverges here, and you can recognize as many as two theories of the origin of Sirius.
According to the first version, the god Dionysus presented the shepherd Ikariy with a magical vine of grapes for sheltering the winemaker god for the night. Dionysus showed him how to grow grapes and make tasty wine. Ikarios told this knowledge to all people during his travels. Once a shepherd came to Attica and gave local residents a try of wine. However, he did not take into account that they never tasted the taste of wine and therefore became very intoxicated. Deciding that Ikarius wanted to poison them, they became furious and killed him. After the commission of this heinous crime, people hid in the mountains and buried their bodies. The shepherd's daughter went in search of her father. And only with the help of the devoted dog of Myra did the girl find a place where people buried his body. In a fit of despair, she hanged herself on a nearby tree.
The angry god-winemaker Dionysus furiously sent sickness to the inhabitants of Attica. Only after many years, with the help of rituals and sacrifices, were people able to beg forgiveness from God.
The dog Myra, the shepherd Ikaria and his daughter Dionysos placed on the sky as stars. Since then, the constellation Canis Major, Bootes and Virgo has appeared.
Ancient Greek myth of Oreon
Another ancient legend tells of a brave hunter. Oreon (according to some versions his name was Acteon) accidentally discovered the goddess Artemis bathing in a cool spring. Naturally, the young man admired the divine beauty of the naked goddess. Frightened Artemis turned poor Oreon into a deer, which his own dog tore. It was she who eventually became the prototype of the constellation Canis Major.
Ancient astronomers
Even in ancient Egypt, many temple priests carefully monitored the rise of Sirius in the morning. This long-awaited event marked the spill of the Nile and the onset of summer (summer solstice). Astronomers of Ancient Egypt called this star Sopt.
The name itself is of ancient Greek origin. The word sirios means brilliant. However, the Romans called this star "vacation", which means "dog." With the advent of Sirius, the sunrise began and the period of unbearable heat, epidemics arose. Therefore, in Roman schools and introduced the so-called "vacation" - days of rest, which actually translate simply as "dog days."
More than five thousand years ago, Sumerian astronomers, astrologers and priests associated Sirius with the "dog of the sun." It was this star from the constellation Canis Major that attracted maximum attention and served as an object for numerous predictions, superstitions and signs.
Historical quotes about the star Sirius
The constellation Canis Major Claudius Ptolemy was included in the famous catalog of the starry sky "Almagest". There it was called the Dog.
The poet Arat, who lived in the third century BC, called Sirius colorful. And the Roman orator Cicero, copying the poems of Aratus in Latin, indicated that "a hot dog shines under the feet with a red-golden light, reflecting the light of stars." A Roman poet named Horace notes that "the heat of the red Dog cracks the mute statues." Seneca also writes about Sirius as one of the brightest and most extraordinary space objects.
Double star or two stars?
Sirius, according to various estimates, ranges from two hundred thirty to two hundred and fifty million years. It moves at a speed of almost eight meters per second in the direction of the solar system, so the apparent luminosity of Sirius increases over time when observing it from the Earth. Today we see it white, and the temperature on its surface reaches ten thousand degrees. Arab astronomers surprisingly mentioned only five red stars, not six.
An astronomer from France, Camille Flammarion, argued that the translation of the Almagest was inaccurate, and Cicero, Seneca, and Horace used red light metaphors for their poetic descriptions.
However, it can be assumed that all these ancient figures did see the constellation Canis Majoris in red. Arab astronomers simply edited the Almagest according to the color of Sirius towards the end of the first millennium AD. This may indeed be the case, since over many hundreds of years some stars change their surface temperature and characteristic luster. That is why Camill Flammarion expressed the belief that this is due to a satellite near Sirius himself (that is, the substance flows from a larger star to a smaller one).
German scientist and astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel observed the oscillations and movement of Sirius. In 1834, he considered the presence of a satellite star. Its exact detection was recorded by the American astronomer Alvan Clark in 1862. This "companion star" received the nickname Puppy and the name Sirius V. Its radius is one hundred times smaller than that of the sun, but the total mass is actually the same for both of these stars. Sirius And as alpha, Canis Major shines ten thousand times stronger than a Puppy, whose density is about one ton per centimeter cubic. These characteristics actually correspond to the parameters of white dwarf stars, which completed the evolutionary cycle and shrank to the size of small planets.
Interesting facts about the constellation Canis Major
Many astrologers and astronomers believe that stars influence the human psyche. From ancient times it was believed that it was the constellation Canis Major, whose photo can be seen above, that affects supernatural and paranormal phenomena, magical and occult manipulations.
Closer to the south of Sirius, you can find a magnificent star cluster called M41, which is located at a distance of two thousand light years from our solar system. NGC 2362 is another interesting cluster that includes dozens of stars. His age is just over a million years. The cluster called Small Hive is also very interesting to study and contains hundreds of stars and even a dozen red giants.
There is one “super” star in the constellation Canis Major - VY Canis Major. This is a hypergiant by the standards of modern astronomy. Its diameter is almost twenty astronomical units, that is, about thirty billion kilometers. This is two thousand times larger than the diameter of the sun. Unfortunately, due to the extremely low density, it is impossible to determine a more accurate star diameter. If we put VY of the Great Dog in the place of our Sun, then this giant will take the place of all the planets along with Saturn. The mass of VY is four hundred solar, which means that the hypergiant has an extremely discharged atmosphere.