Corvus the Crow -Spring
Sky
A
small but quite prominent constellation which
is at its highest in
the late spring evenings, the crow is low in the sky depicted sitting
on the back of the water snake.
According
to legend Apollo sent the crow to bring the water of life, but was
unable to resist the unripe fruit of the fig tree, he let the cup of
water (the
constellation of Crater)
fall to the ground. Realising that he was taking too long he hurried
back to Apollo who discovered the truth and banished the crow to the
sky. Another version has this same story but with Noah and the ark.
Four
principal stars, Delta, Gamma, Epsilon, and Beta Corvi, form a
quadrilateral shape, none are particularly bright but because they
are in a barren part of the sky making the shape easy to see.
The
brightest star in Corvus is gamma or Gienah which means ‘Wing’ is
a star of magnitude 2.6, Gienah is a B8 giant star much hotter
than the Sun, it lies at a distance 154 light years.
Beta
is a magnitude 2.7 and
is located 146 light
years away, its a G5 giant star cooler than the Sun.
Delta
or Algorab, which means the ‘Crow’ is a magnitude 3.0 star lying
87 light-years from Earth. Algorab is an A class star.
Epsilon
has the traditional name Minkar, which means ‘The Nostril of the
Crow’ and
is a magnitude 3.0 star lying at a distance of 318 light-years from
Earth. It is an orange K2 giant star.
Alpha
or Alchiba, which is
just below epsilon the
meaning is unknown is a F1 class
star, it has a
magnitude of 4.0, and is
49 light-years from
Earth.
As
we have noted the star labelled alpha is not always the brightest
star in a constellation. In Corvus alpha is actually
the fourth brightest.
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