A little ramble through Andromeda

 Andromeda is an easy constellation to find. It is found in the autumn sky. It is also involved in probably the most famous mythological story.

Andromeda is the princess linked with the story of Perseus and the Medusa plus Cassiopeia, Cepheus and Cetus (Kraken). Andromeda is depicted in the sky chained to a rock, however needless to say the pattern is nothing like a princess.

In mythology Andromeda is the daughter of queen Cassiopeia and King Cepheus, Cassiopeia boasted that her daughter was more beautiful than the Nereids these were 50 charming daughters of Nereus the wise old man of the sea. This was a decidedly tactless thing to say, offended by Cassiopeia’s remarks they complained to their protector the sea god, Neptune. 

In anger Poseidon struck the water with his trident flooding the lands of the Palestine coast and calling up from the deep the sea monster the Kraken or Cetus. (There could be a basis in truth here because the great flood could have been caused by a meteor strike 3,700 years ago in the Eastern Mediterranean. The meteor crashed into where Austria is found but chunks could have fallen off into the sea causing the flood).

Cepheus consulted the oracle as to how to save his kingdom and was told that his land could only be saved if his daughter Andromeda was sacrificed to the monster. Accordingly, Andromeda was chained to rocks near Joppa.  Jaffa is the modern name for (Joppa) The name Joppa appears for the first time in the list of cities that Thutmose III captured (15th century BC). The legend of Andromeda being bound to the rock was first associated with Joppa by Strabo (1st century A.D.).

 With Andromeda chained to the rocks and the monster appearing everything seemed lost, however at the very last-minute Perseus riding the winged horse Pegasus appeared on the scene. He had just killed the Medusa. Anyone looking at Medusa would turn to stone. By chance Perseus still had the head of the medusa with him, he showed it to the monster who turned to stone. Perseus then landed and rescued Andromeda. They were married and lived happily ever after. All these characters can be found in the night sky.

Although we know the Greek version of the story of andromeda goes back to the Babylonian Epic of Creation much earlier than the Greeks, this would probably be the basis of the story of andromeda. In some editions of the Alfonsine Tables and the Almagest she is Alamac which is the star marked as gamma on star maps of andromeda. The Alfonsine Tables were produced in Toledo in Spain under the auspices of Alfonso X of Castile 1221- 1284 CE, the Almagest was written by the Greek astronomy Ptolemy around 150 CE and recorded all Greek science and astronomy up to that date. The Almagest is the Arabic name for Ptolemy’s book.

The idea of using the Greek alphabet to label stars in constellations was introduced by the German astronomer Johann Bayer in 1603 on his Uranometria star atlas. The idea was that the brightest star would be alpha the first letter of the alphabet, then the second brightest star would be beta all the way down to omega the 24^th and last letter of the Greek alphabet. Sometimes the system works and sometimes it doesn’t. People have asked me why, I simply don’t know.

Arabic astronomers over a thousand years ago portrayed the constellation not as a maiden chained to a rock but as a seal chained to a rock.

We start with something of a mystery in andromeda.  Starting with alpha or Alpheratz which is also sometimes called Sirrah which means the Horses Navel. This name clearly has nothing at all to do with a maiden chained to a rock.

Most of the star names you will see on star charts today are Arabic.

For some reason in 1930 the International Astronomical Union (IAU) the controlling body of world astronomers decided to standardise the constellation boundaries which had never been accurately defined. We still use the constellation borders that were introduced in 1930 today. The IAU decided to move one of the stars from the square of Pegasus to the neighbouring constellation of Andromeda.

 Therefore, delta Pegasus whose name is Alpheratz and was the top left-hand star of the square became alpha Andromedae.  This star is not unique there are many examples of stars getting transfers from one constellation to another. 

The other main stars in Andromeda are marked by a rather irregular line from the square of the Pegasus pointing from the top left-hand corner of the square of Pegasus towards the constellation of Perseus. In order they are alpha or Alpheratz, delta, Mirach or beta, and Almach or gamma.

Alpheratz itself is a double star lying at 97 light years from Earth. There is a third star that was discovered by William Herschel on July 21^st, 1781. However, this star is not part of the system merely a line-of-sight effect which makes it look like a companion star to Alpheratz.  Herschel was the astronomer who discovered the planet Uranus on March 13^th March 1781, Its brightness is ranked as magnitude 2.0 which is the same brightness as the North Star and therefore can easily be seen with the naked eye.

Alpheratz is much hotter than our Sun, it is a spectral class B star with a surface temperature of around 11,500 degrees compared to the 5,800 degrees of our Sun which is a G class star.

If we continue our line of stars that form andromeda from the square of Pegasus the next star along is the fainter star, delta andromeda. This star does not have a name, it’s worth pointing out that only the brighter stars tend to have names.

Delta which is the faintest star in this line of stars only has a magnitude  of 3.3 it appears as just one star to the naked eye however there are in fact three stars that make up this system. The other two stars can only be observed by using an instrument called a spectroscope. The star that we can see with our eyes is 105 light years away. This star is much cooler than our Sun it is classed as a K class giant star.

If we continue along this line of stars the next one, we reach is Beta or Mirach which means a girdle in Arabic and the star’s position marks the left hip of the princess. A much older Babylonian name for the star is Kamushikeu which means the Deleter.

Mirach is a single M class red giant star larger but cooler than the Sun with a surface temperature of around 3,500 degrees. It appears that from a study in 2023 that there might be a close companion object to Mirach not a planet but possibly a brown dwarf or a kind of failed star.

Beta or Mirach is also of magnitude 2.0 and can be used as a guide to find the Andromeda Galaxy. A line drawn upwards and slightly to the right from the star Mirach leads to the faint star Mu then slightly further along to Nu Then just to the right of Nu if the night is very clear and you are away from city light year will be able to see a little smudge of light in the sky. This is the Andromeda Galaxy. The Arab astronomers 1,000 years ago knew of the galaxy because in 905 Al Sufi described it as the ‘Little Cloud’ in Andromeda.

The first record of a telescopic observation we have from Europe is in 1612 from the German astronomer, Simon Marius who described the soft glow to the light of a candle shining through horn. 

Until the 1920s it was referred to as the Andromeda Nebula because it was assumed to be in our galaxy, which we refer to as the Milky Way, however in 1923 Edwin Hubble after whom the space telescope is named realised that the Andromeda nebula was another galaxy lying outside our own Milky Way Galaxy. It was Hubble who made the universe much bigger when he placed the Andromeda Galaxy not 700,000 light years away but over 2 million light years away. Today astronomers generally agree that the Andromeda Galaxy lies at around 2.5 million light years.

In 1885 a nova which is a binary system that throws of shell of gas into space and brightens up, hence its name nova which is Latin for new was seen in front of the andromeda galaxy.  Astronomers today realise that this was not a nova but a supernova. This is a star that destroys itself in a massive explosion. The term supernova was first used by astronomers Walter Baade and Fritz Zwicky in 1931.

What the astronomers had observed in 1885 was the first ever telescopic observations of an extra galactic supernova. In 1885 when astronomers thought it was just an ordinary nova it was given the variable star designation of S Andromeda.

There has only been one ordinary nova discovered in andromeda that was discovered in December 1986. It has since been given the designation of OS Andromeda.

A pair of binoculars will show it easily as a fuzzy patch in the sky.

The Andromeda Galaxy is the most distant object you can see with the naked eye at 2.5 million light years away.

Andromeda is larger than our galaxy and in about 3.5 billion years’ time the two galaxies will pass through each other!

The last star that forms this main line of stars of andromeda is gamma or Almach which means in Arabic either a small animal or the left foot of andromeda. It’s a double star with the companion star being discovered by the German astronomer Johann Tobias Mayer in 1778.

Almach also has a magnitude of 2.0 and  is a K class giant star cooler than the Sun with a surface temperature of 3,900 degrees and is 390 light years away.

There is also a meteor shower associated with andromeda, The Andromedids. Many people refer to meteors as shooting stars. They have nothing at all to do with stars they are tiny grains of dust burning up as the meteor enters the atmosphere of the Earth.  A comet is essentially a giant snowball travelling around the Sun leaving a trail of dust behind it.  If the Earth happens to pass through the trail of dust left by a comet we see a meteor shower.

This comet was first discovered in 1772 and is the first comet that allowed us to identify the link between comets and meteors.

In 1845 comet Biela was observed to break up. From that point on, it could not be observed again. There were then spectacular meteor outbursts in November1872 when 10,000 meteors per hour were seen and in November 1885 when 6,000 meteors per hour were seen. Today sadly there are only a very few Andromedid meteors ween every year.

With the breakup of comet Biela and the massive meteor showers in 1872 and 1885 astronomers were able to confirm the link between comets and meteors.

 

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Moon of Jupiter observed in wrong pace with a Cooke telescope in 1868

 The Rev R J Gould at Mortimer Vicarage in Reading using a 5 inch Thomas Cooke and Sons of York telescope and was observing Jupiter on October 7^th 1868 at 11h and 43 mins when he noticed an error in the Nautical Almanac on page 480. 

It stated that the 3^rd satellite will be on the west side of its primary in company with the 2^nd and 4^th; The fact was that it was on the east side with satellite number 1. The places of 2 and 4 were right enough but number 3 was certainly not so. 

Gould goes on to say that we have no right to expect even the Nautical almanac to be absolutely free from errors and misprints, but I should like to know whether others have observed this or whether it can be shown to have been a mistake on the part of myself.

 During the following days several observers confirmed Gould’s observations that the satellite was in the wrong place.

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A Cooke telescope for Old Trafford in 1856

I have come across a reference to a Rev Thomas Buckley of Old Trafford Manchester whom in 1856 purchased a portable 3.5 inch Thomas Cooke telescope for £50. I have not been able to discover any references to observations he might have made with the Cooke telescope. 

I have little information regarding Buckley other than he appears to be the Honorary Secretary of the school for deaf children in Old Trafford. The school was built in 1860 and adjoins the Botanic Gardens in Old Trafford

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The Astronomy Show on Drystone Radio

 Join me, Martin Lunn MBE tonight and every Monday evening from 7.00 pm-9.00 pm on the award winning Astronomy Show on Drystone Radio, probably the only regular astronomy show on any radio station in the country.

 I will take my weekly look at the night sky and look at all the latest news in astronomy. There will be the astronomical anniversaries this week plus the latest news from the astronomical societies in the north of England.

 

The Astronomy Show every Monday evening only on Drystone Radio live online at www.drystoneradio.com DAB radio in Bradford and East Lancashire, or 102 and 103.5 FM and can also be heard later on the Drystone Radio Podcast.

Photographs of the Moon taken from York in 1853 with a Cooke telescope

John Phillips 1800-1874 was an eminent geologist. He would become the first keeper of the Yorkshire Museum which was built by the Yorkshire Philosophical Society in 1829, he also had a great interest in astronomy and photography. 

He brought a Thomas Cooke 6.25 inch telescope in 1852 which he set up in the  Museum Gardens and in 1853 took some of the earliest photographs of the Moon. He was a keen observer of the Moon and the Sun. He used the 6.25 inch Cooke to observe both objects. 

He left the Yorkshire Museum in York around 1854 and moved to work at the University of Oxford firstly as deputy reader in geology and then in 1856 he became professor of Geology. 

He was still using the 6.25 inch in the early 1860s, but as with so many Victorian telescopes after his death in 1874 it just disappeared.

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Comet Morehouse observed from Australia with a Cooke telescope in 1909

 

James Nangle observed comet Morehouse on March 19^th 1909 form his observatory at Marrickville New South Wales. He had a 6.25 inch Cooke telescope. 

Nangle described the comet as having a long tail that was distinctly seen. He said that the telescope was not that well equipped for studying comets as the lowest power on the 6.25 inch Cooke was 150 magnification. With this power the comet was a very unsatisfactory object, the head only being slightly visible, and that an indistinctly defined mass showing a bright condensation at the centre. 

James Nangle 1868-1941 would go on to become Government Astronomer for New South Wales in 1926. One point of interest about the 6.25 inch telescope is that Nangle refers to the lens of his telescope being made by the elder Cooke. This suggests that this is a pre 1857 telescope made before the firm became Cooke & Sons. It also suggests that the telescope was made for someone in the UK and then made its way to Australia. 

In 1910 Nangle worked out that to reduce the glare of an object he was looking at it was useful to place a piece of mosquito netting in front of the lens. Simple but effective!!

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Alcuin the astronomical monk form York and Charlemagne king of the Franks

 This year 2025 is the 1290 anniversary of the birth of Alcuin one of the greatest Saxon scholars, Alcuin (735-804) was born in Northumbria possibly in York itself in 735, he would go on to become one of the best sources of information during the latter part of the eighth century. Alcuin would be described as the most learned person of his time. The young Alcuin went to the cathedral church school of York. The school become a centre of excellence with people flocking from far and wide to study there. The school would become the Minster School in York which closed in 2020.  It was founded in 627 by Paulinus of York the first archbishop of York. He was sent by the Pope in 601 to Christianise the Anglo Saxons.

It was here in York that Alcuin became a monk and teacher. Within the monastic world he was able to gain access to magnificent libraries, he wrote educational manuals and copied classical texts including those of the great scientists of Greece, it was here that Alcuin became interested in astronomy.

At this period of history monasteries were becoming the centres of learning. They would assume great power because knowledge is power and there was lots of knowledge in monasteries. This is often referred to as the Dark Ages which it wasn’t. There was lots of scientific learning going on. This learning was happening not in Europe it was in the Arabic world with places like Baghdad and Damascus becoming the scientific centres of the world.

In 781Alcuin was sent to Rome and on his return while travelling across Europe he met Charlemagne who was King of the Franks and emperor of what we call today the Carolingian Empire.

Charlemagne ruled a vast amount of western Europe. He would introduce things that would have a major impact on medieval Europe. However, what a lot of people won’t know is that Charlemagne was fascinated by astronomy, the movements of the stars and planets, and Sun and Moon. And then suddenly he was meeting someone who had a great deal of knowledge in astronomy. And luckily for science and astronomy they got on well together.

Charlemagne would build a great palace and library at Aachen it was here that Alcuin would teach Charlemagne and his son Louis at the palace school in Aachen. Charlemagne was able to follow the movements of the stars and studied them carefully with the help of Alcuin.

One of the books that would come into the possession of Charlemagne was a work produced by the Greek poet Aratus 310 BCE- 240 BCE during the period of classical Greek science. Aratus was a poet rather than a scientist, so his drawings had a very artistic rather than scientific nature. However, the work did describe what the constellations looked like.  The images are based on 38 small drawings. This work today is known as the Leiden Aratea because it is stored at the Leiden University library in the Netherlands. The artistic interpretations of the constellations are well known to astronomers today, however because this is an artistic interpretation the stars are not in their correct positions.

Alcuin because of his access to great libraries would have been aware of this work and he possibly knew of the Frankish churchman and poet called Modiun of Autun  770-840/3 which is in east central France. When Modiun tried to find favour with Charlemagne and then Louis the Pious, he wrote a poem talking about the star constellations and how if they were reproduced by Charlemagne he would be compared to the great scholars and philosophers of the  classical period of Greek civilisations of antiquity.   This poem would have helped Alcuin in trying to persuade Charlemagne to get the star maps re produced for future astronomers.

If it had not been for Alcuin encouraging Charlemagne to set up the great library at Aachen, then many books including scientific ones would have been lost to history. In astronomy in particular the wonderful Leiden Aratea constellations images would probably never have been reproduced and could possibly have been lost for ever. Astronomy owes a lot to Alcuin and to Charlemagne.

It was not just in the field of science that Alcuin worked he also in his education work he introduced his student to grammar, and it believed that Alcuin invented the question mark, although it did not look like the question mark of today.

Sadly, neither Alcuin nor Charlemagne would live to see the Aratea reproduced. Alcuin died on 19th May 804 CE. The constellations themselves were produced probably near Aachen around 816 CE and even Charlemagne never saw this work being completed as he died in 814 CE. The work was completed sometime in 816 by Charlemagne’s son Louis the Pious.

Alcuin’s legacy in York is such that one of the colleges at the University of York is named Alcuin College.

The work that was being produced by Alcuin during the Carolingian period was just before the great period of Arabic astronomy which began around 830. The following 500 years would see most of the develops in astronomy and science come from Arabic astronomers living in such places such as Baghdad and Damascus. 

 

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