Steaming teapot in the sky
Two depictions of the constellation Sagittarius. Diagram c/o Starry Night Education
With the Milky Way so prominently placed at this time of year, it is easy to pick out one of my favourite constellations, Sagittarius the Archer, not because it looks like an archer, but because it looks like a teapot. If you think that it is a long stretch of the imagination -- archer to teapot, not so. I’ll explain, by way of a little constellation history.
Ancient astronomers (astrologers, actually) of the Sumerian and Arabic cultures invented some of the constellations we use today. More were added by Greeks and Romans from their mythology, so we have Hercules and Pegasus from the Greeks, as well as Leo and Scorpius from Babylonian star charts. By the middle of the 18th century, the previously-unseen southern skies had also been organized into an additional 14 star patterns. Astronomers who took on the monumental task of cataloging stars, rightly felt they should be rewarded (immortalized?) for their work so they created many different (some very personal) sets of constellations. One minor assistant, Nicolaus Venator, even attached his name to stars in Delphinus the Dolphin. The alpha star of Delphinus is still called Sualocin on modern charts (hint: read the name backwards).
To end the starry chaos, the International Astronomical Union decided in 1922 on a list of 88 constellations (eliminating some plain silly ones like Felis the Cat) and formalized constellation borders. The charts had no art work, so artists even today continue to “join the dots” and create fanciful creatures, one such depicting Aquarius the Water Carrier as a waiter and Sagittarius as a teapot.
Modern star charts help stargazers by adding lines to create easy-to-recognize stick figures like the Big Dipper or Cygnus the Swan whose stick figure is a big cross like a long-necked swan with outstretched wings. In the 1950’s, illustrator and author Harold A. Rey created a simple set of these in a children’s book called The Stars - a New Way To See Them and these stick figures have become commonplace in astronomy. H.A. Rey is more familiar to many readers as the author of the Curious George stories.
So, if I cannot see an archer when I look at Sagittarius, it is because I see Rey’s teapot. There is the handle, the lid and the spout with steam (the Milky Way) wafting out. And there is no need to get that picture out of my mind because learning the constellations is not seeing the ancient creatures of mythology, but just recognizing simple patterns. The teapot lid, for example, is a triangle and near the top star is a globular cluster of several hundred thousands stars that look glorious in even small telescopes. In the rhombus-shape of Lyra, along the line that connects the bottom two stars is a faint “smoke” ring from a dying star, the Ring Nebula, and we can see that with our telescope, too.
So do go out with a simple star chart and look above the southern horizon after dark these nights for the stick-figure teapot. It is easy to spot. Or join our well-connected astronomers at the Fox Observatory for a tour of the constellations with laser pointer and telescope. See www.bluewaterastronomy.com for a schedule. In the steam from the teapot, there are some wonderful sights to see.