The modern constellations offer a convenient way to appreciate the beauty of the night sky. Using the outline of a scorpion or a lion as a landmark makes it easier to find your way around. It’s also a good way to exercise your imagination.
Our imaginations don’t all show us the same pictures, though. The western constellations were passed down from ancient Greece and Rome. And many of them are even older – they came from ancient Babylon and Sumeria. But just about every culture had its own star pictures – its own map of the night sky.
An example is Capricornus. In western mythology, it represents a sea-goat – half goat and half fish – perhaps a story about the god Pan. But records from ancient China describe something different.
Six of the stars in that region formed an ox, known as Niu – a sacrifice for mid-winter. Three others formed dams to hold water for the emperor’s fields, which were also in Capricornus. And other stars formed parts of different pictures – different stories in the night sky.
Capricornus is low in the south at nightfall. The constellation isn’t especially bright, so it’s invisible from light-polluted cities. Under darker skies, you can see the outline of a wide triangle. Tonight, the gibbous Moon is near the triangle’s eastern point. That makes it easier to find where the sea-goat is, but harder to see its faint outline.
Script by Damond Benningfield
