A little ramble through Corvus the Crow

 A small but quite prominent constellation in the spring sky. Corvus can be found low in the sky in the south just above Hydra the Water snake.

According to one 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.

It’s the Romans who seem to call it Corvus while the Greeks referred to it as a raven. Other Greek names for the constellation are Avis Ficarius the Fig Bird and Emansor or One Who Stays Beyond His Time.

To the early Arabic astronomers, the constellation was known as Al Ajmal or the Camel or Al Hiba the Tent, while the Akkadian astronomers saw the constellation as Kurra or a Horse.

There does not appear to be any apparent reason for to association of Corvus with the Hydra, although there is a Euphratean myth, from back to classical days, making it one of the monster ravens of the brood of Tiamat that represented; and upon a tablet appears a title that may be for Corvus as the Great Storm Bird or Bird of the Desert, to which Tiamat gave sustenance just as Aratos  described the pecking of the folds of the Hydra.

The Hebrews knew the constellation as Orebh the Raven while the Chinese saw the stars as a portion of their great stellar division The Red Bird. While the individual stars in Corvus were seen by the Chinese as an imperial chariot riding upon the wind.

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 ‘The Right Wing’ is a star of magnitude 2.6, Gienah is a B class giant star much hotter than the Sun, it lies at a distance 154 light years.

Beta which has no name from any Mediterranean peoples however in China it was known as Tso Hea or The Left Hand Linch Pin is a magnitude 2.7 and is located 146 light years away, it’s a G class  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 K class giant star and is cooler than the Sun.

Alpha is often called Alchiba which is the Arabic title for the whole constellation, however Ulug Beg and other Arabian astronomers called it Al Miiar al Ghurab or the Raven’s Beak. It’s a F class star with a magnitude of only 4.0 and is 49 light-years from Earth.

Corvus is another example of the system introduced by Johann Bayer in 1603 does not work. He allocated the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet to stars in a constellation in theory alpha is the brightest followed by beta all the way to omega. In Corvus alpha is actually the fourth brightest star.

 

There are no Messier objects the brightest dep sky object being the planetary nebula NGC 4361 but with a magnitude of 10.3 you will need  a moderate size telescope to see it.

 

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