Orion is one of the easier to recognizable and noticeable constellations. It is perhaps the most splendid of all constellations, befitting a venerated character from ancient times. Named for a hunter in Greek mythology, it’s a name so recognized that its use pervades popular culture – from comic book characters to music song and album titles, buildings, cities, and companies, and NASA’s next human-carrying space capsule. Not only is it a cultural icon, but it is easy to find, looks beautiful in astro-landscapes, and it contains a fantastic assortment of objects to photograph.
Orion’s Place in the Sky
Located on the celestial equator, Orion is visible across the world. Numerous cultures widely recognize the distinctive pattern of Orion. Perhaps the oldest depiction of the stars in Orion is on a mammoth ivory plate that’s 32,000 years old.
Often depicted as a person, the ancient Greeks saw him kneeling; his left hand stretched out, holding his shield with his right hand holding a club raised above his head. Two bright stars, Betelgeuse and Rigel, respectively, mark his right shoulder and left foot. Three stars, in a distinctive line, form his belt. The Sword of Orion hangs from his belt, comprised of three stars and a sizeable gaseous nebula.
Orion’s hunting dog, represented by the constellation of Canis Major and its brightest star Sirius, chases the celestial rabbit, Lepus, found below Orion’s feet. Orion’s focus appears to be the constellation Taurus, the bull, which looks to be charging at him. But his real focus is the constellation Scorpio on the nearly opposite side of the sky from Orion. These two constellations are locked in an eternal chase across the heavens. We’ll find out why when we look at the myths behind them.
The Mythology of Orion
Orion is a constellation that represents a rich tradition in Greek mythology. Many of his myths are contradictory, but all agree that he was a hunter with an exquisite physique, enormous in stature, possessing outstanding good looks, and remarkable hunting prowess.
Stories of Orion’s birth conflict tell that he was born from the earth. When Orion’s father asks the gods for a favor, they take a bull’s hide and place it into the ground. Next, they urinated into it and buried it. They told Orion’s father to dig it up ten months later – he did and found Orion in the hide!
Homer and Orion
Orion’s first literary appearance is in Homer’s 8th century BCE epic of the Trojan War, The Iliad. Homer refers to him as “huge” Orion as he was renowned for his large stature.
Later in the epic, Homer tells of the Trojan King Priam spotting the Greek hero Achilles approaching the walls of Troy, seeking revenge for the death of his beloved friend Patroclus. Achilles rapidly crosses the plain toward the city to battle with the only Trojan warrior who stayed to fight him, Troy’s greatest fighter, Hector.
Achilles, dressed in armor newly forged by the god Vulcan, shines so brightly that he is as “resplendent as the star Autumnal, of all the stars in the dead of night conspicuous most, and named Orion’s dog.” Homer refers to the star Sirius, which represents the hunter’s dog. It’s the brightest star in the night sky, located near Orion’s right foot.
Odysseus, Calypso, and Orion
In Homer’s second epic poem, The Odyssey, he mentions Orion several times. He tells us that Orion is the “finest” of all the “children that were ever born in this world” and that Odysseus sees the shade of Orion during a dreaded trip to the Underworld.
The nymph Calypso falls in love with Odysseus and enchants him, detaining him for seven years to make him her mortal husband. Odysseus’ patron goddess Athena intervenes and asks Zeus to set him free as it was not his destiny to live with Calypso forever. When Hermes goes to convey the god’s order that Calypso set Odysseus free, Calypso trebles with rage at the gods:
“You gods,” she exclaimed, “ought to be ashamed of yourselves. You are always jealous and hate seeing a goddess take a fancy to a mortal man, and live with him in open matrimony. So when rosy-fingered Dawn made love to Orion, you precious gods were all of you furious till Diana went and killed him in Ortygia”.
Orion in Ancient Greek Navigation
The stars are long used as navigational aids. Homer tells us how Odysseus uses the constellation Orion to find the way to his home Ithaca in the Greek Ionian islands. Odysseus sails on a raft from Calypso’s island home during the night. Homer tells us,
“Sleep never fell upon his eyelids as he watched the Pleiades and late-setting Boötes, and the Bear that men also call the Wagon; she turns about in the same spot and watches for Orion, and she alone has no share in the baths of Ocean. Calypso the goddess had told him to keep her on his left hand in his sailing.”
By keeping the Bear (Ursa Major, aka The Big Dipper/The Plow), which turns around the North Pole and never touches the horizon to his left, and then looking for Orion straight ahead, Homer is telling us that Odysseus steered towards the east. That is the only time Homer discusses navigation in his epics.
Photo Credit Till Credner, OrionCC, CC BY-SA 3.0
Marking Your Calendar
There is definitely an “Orion Season.” With numerous bright stars in an easily recognized pattern, Orion was used not only for navigation but reckoning the time of year. In Hesiod’s Works and Days, written about 700 BCE, he instructs us to “[…] winnow Demeter’s holy grain, when strong Orion first appears […]” This would be late July.
Next, he says, “But when Orion and Sirius
Hesiod then reminds us about the year’s end, “But when the Pleiades and Hyades and strong Orion begin to set, then remember to
Orion’s Ascent Into the Sky
As with tales of Orion’s birth, stories of Orion’s death are contradictory. We saw in The Odyssey, Diana, the goddess of the hunt, the moon, and nature, killed Orion.
Another myth tells of Orion, possibly drunk, boasting to Artemis (the Roman equivalent of Diana) and her mother Leto that since he was born from the earth, he can kill anything which came from the earth. Gaia, the personification of the Earth itself, took offense and brought forth a giant scorpion. With a tremendous shudder, the scorpion emerged from a crack in the earth. The scorpion is presumed to have stung Orion to death.
That scorpion immortalized by the constellation Scorpio, found on the opposite side of the sky from Orion. The two are in a never-ending chase across the night sky. When Scorpio rises in the east, Orion tries to flee into the west.
In 4 CE, Germanicus Caesar wrote in his adaption of Aratus’ 3rd century BCE Greek poem Phenomena, “Wretched Orion still fears being wounded by the poisonous sting of the scorpion.”
Other Cultural Interpretations
Numerous cultures immortalized the stars of Orion. Like with the Greco-Roman myths that many of us know, people on every habitable continent identified these stars and created stories to go along with them. Here are just a couple:
Chinese Astronomy
The Chinese knew Orion as Shen, also a great hunter or warrior. Considering the outline one can draw around Orion’s stars, it’s not surprising that the Chinese identified this asterism as a man. Four stars formed his outline and three his belt. Even the Sword of Orion was identified as a “sword” by the ancient Chinese. It’s one of the rare instances where both Europeans and Chinese imagined the stars in the same way.
Ancient Egypt
The Ancient Egyptians associated these stars with Osiris, the dying and rising sun god of rebirth and resurrection. They connected his appearance with the annual floods of the Nile River.
A controversial theory is that the Giza Pyramids represent the stars in Orion’s belt. But the majority of Egyptologists dispute this theory. Superficially there is a geometric similarity, and the visual correlation is striking. The pyramids were burial places for the ruling class, and funerary texts mention Sahu, the earliest Egyptian representation of Orion. But beyond this, there is little to support this theory.
The Stars of Orion
Orion contains two of the skies’ brightest stars – Rigel and Betelgeuse. These two stars make an exciting pair.
As seen from Earth, Rigel is the brightest star in Orion and the 7th most brilliant in the sky. It’s a blue-white supergiant from 120,000 to 279,000 times as bright as the Sun. Rigel has used up all the hydrogen in its core, and it has expanded to about 100 times the Sun’s radius. It’s a binary star with a companion that’s 500 times fainter and only visible with a telescope. Rigel is the first star visible in Orion in the southern hemisphere as the constellation rises. Rigel is one of the most important in celestial navigation as it’s near the equator and bright. It can be seen anywhere in the world except from latitude 82°N and higher.
Betelgeuse is the second brightest star in Orion and the 9th in the night sky as seen from Earth. It’s a red supergiant and one of the physically largest stars visible to the naked eye. Its diameter is nearly as large as the orbit of Jupiter! Yet its mass is estimated to be only as much as 10 to 20 Suns. It rises in the east just after sunset in January for the northern hemisphere. Astronomers expect Betelgeuse to go supernova in as little as 100,000 years. What a sight that would be to see!
Photo Credit: Davide De Martin (http://www.skyfactory.org); Credit: Digitized Sky Survey, ESA/ESO/NASA FITS Liberator [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
The Sword of Orion
Orion’s Sword contains a fantastic assortment of objects to photograph. It includes three stars pointing southward and is perhaps best known for the Orion Nebula. This nebula has the Messier Object designation M42 and is a massive cloud of molecules that is 30 to 40 light-years in diameter. It is a significant feature of the Sword and is an iconic object. Even though it is about 1300 light-years from Earth, it appears quite large in our sky. Containing a “stellar nursery,” it is a popular location for studying the birth of stars.
The Sword also contains the Running Man Nebula. It isn’t easy to see even with telescopes, but it shows up as the outline of a running man in photographs.
Winter Triangle
Like the summer skies, there is a triangle asterism in the northern hemisphere skies. A nearly equilateral triangle can be formed with Betelgeuse in Orion’s right shoulder, Sirius, the Dog Star, and nearby Procyon, in the constellation Canis Minor. These stars are also known as the Great Southern Triangle.
This triangle lies high in the sky during the winter of mid-northern latitudes. Appearing upside down to viewers in the southern hemisphere, it is up during the summer months there. It can be seen to the west in the evening hours in springtime.
Find Orion for Yourself
If you’ve not learned to find Orion, use the images above in this article to locate it. In January, head out after dusk ends and look towards the southeast. Orion should be near the horizon. Look for Rigel and Betelgeuse, and then find the three stars of his belt. It’s a distinctive pattern. It’s effortless to find. Once you find those, the rest will fall into place since so many of the stars are bright. It can be seen even with moderate light pollution.
Once you find Orion, consider photographing it as a part of your astro-landscape photographs. To learn how to do this, check out our article, How to Photograph Orion.
Adapted from www.keyesphoto.com Astro-Landscape Photography Notes for December 2018
kdk 583, 1/19/20, 2083 1/10/21
You can see my photos at www.keyesphoto.com
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