Asterisms Sentence Examples
Canes Venatici ("The Hounds," or "the greyhounds"), in astronomy, a constellation of the northern hemisphere named by Hevelius in 1690, who compiled it from the stars between the older asterisms Ursa Major, Bodtes and Coma Berenices.
Modern asterisms first appear in the Phaenomena of Eudoxus about 370 B.C. But Eudoxus, there is reason to believe, consulted, not the heavens, but a celestial globe of an anterior epoch, on which the stars and the signs were forced into unnatural agreement.
The nomenclature of the Hindu signs of the zodiac, save as regards a few standard asterisms, such as Agvini and KrittikÃ, was far from uniform.
In the Brahmana period they were distinguished as " deva " and " yama," the fourteen lucky asterisms being probably associated with the waxing, the fourteen unlucky with the waning moon.'
The nomenclature of the Hindu signs of the zodiac, save as regards a few standard asterisms, such as Agvini and Krittikä, was far from uniform.
Eighteen Chinese determinants were included in the Arab asterisms, and of these five or six were not nakshatra stars; consequently, they must have been taken directly from the Chinese series.
With the development of observational astronomy the sidereal universe was arbitrarily divided into areas characterized by special assemblages of stars; these assemblages were named asterisms by Ptolemy, who termed the brightest stars "of the fi rst magnitude," and the progressively fainter Stars.
They copied the Ba by Ionian asterisms, appropriated Babylonian knowledge of the planets and their courses, and learned to predict eclipses by means of the " Saros."
From the earliest times the star-groups known as constellations, the smaller groups (parts of constellations) known as asterisms, and also individual stars, have received names connoting some meteorological phenomena, or symbolizing religious or mythological beliefs.
In the 5th century B.C. the Athenian astronomer Euctemon, according to Geminus of Rhodes, compiled a weather calendar in which Aquarius, Aquila, Canis major, Corona, Cygnus, Delphinus, Lyra, Orion, Pegasus, Sagitta and the asterisms Hyades and Pleiades are mentioned, always, however, in re Corvus.
AdvertisementHe diverged from Ptolemy when he placed the asterisms Coma Berenices and Antinous upon the level of formal constellations, Ptolemy having 1 The historical development of star-catalogues in general, regarded as statistics of the co-ordinates, &c., of stars, is given in the historical section of the article 'ASTRONOMY.