Daniel Pope

As soon as it is dark, face north and look almost overhead to find the Big Dipper. Follow the handle and ‘arc’ to the bright star, Arcturus, in Boötes. Just below the upper part of Boötes you will see a small arc of faint stars. Your closed fist at arm’s length will just about cover the whole constellation. On a star chart you will see it is named Corona Borealis (kor-OH-nah bo-ree-ALICE), the Northern Crown.

From the myths of Australian aborigines we learn this is the boomerang that Totyhergul, a mighty hunter, threw at a giant snake before it dragged him under the water and drowned him. In a Native American story, this is the winter den for the Great Bear. The Great Bear, which includes our Big Dipper, emerges from its den each spring. The three stars in the handle of the Big Dipper are three hunters with a cooking pot and they chase the bear until fall, at which time they spear the bear and the blood from the bear colors our autumn leaves. The cooking pot is the second star some people can see next to the star in the middle of the handle.

The Shawnee Indians named this constellation “the Celestial Sisters.” Their legend tells of a warrior, White Hawk, who came upon a circular path on the prairie that had no paths leading to or away from it. While observing this he saw a circle of twelve beautiful maidens descend from the sky and proceed to dance around the circle. It took a few tries and disguises but White Hawk managed to capture the most beautiful maiden and took her as his wife and this is why the constellation is not a complete circle anymore.

Corona Borealis was written about at least 2,500 years ago. The following story is from the classical Greek period. Minos, king of Crete, kept a monster, the Minotaur (half man, half bull), in the famous Labyrinth beneath the palace in Knossos. Every year the king demanded that Athens send seven beautiful maidens and seven handsome young men to be sacrificed to the Minotaur in the maze that no one could escape. When Theseus, son of Aegeus – king of Athens – came of age he volunteered to be sent to the Labyrinth with the idea of killing the Minotaur and putting an end to these sacrifices. Ariadne, daughter of king Minos, met Theseus and they fell in love. Ariadne supplied Theseus with a special sword and a ball of string. Theseus slew the Minotaur and found his way out of the Labyrinth by following the string he had trailed behind him on the way into the maze. Theseus and Ariadne were married and on their way back to Athens they stopped at the island of Naxos. When Theseus departed Naxos, Ariadne was not with him. There are contradictory explanations as to why Ariadne was not aboard. Ariadne was quite distraught but sometime later the Greek god Dionysus (Roman, Bacchus) met and fell in love with Ariadne. Dionysus gave Ariadne a beautiful jeweled crown and after a long and happy life together he placed that crown in the sky as the Crown of Ariadne (our Corona Borealis) upon her death.

Corona Borealis looks like more than a half circle of gems that could be in a crown. Many say it looks more like a tiara than a crown, since it is not a complete circle. This was the first or original crown in the sky. The Borealis, Latin for Northern, part was added when someone found a crown in the sky in the southern hemisphere – Corona Australis.

One of the first exosolar planets to be discovered (1997) orbits one of the stars in Corona Borealis. The planet is about the size of our Jupiter and is about 57 light years away.

Over 400 galaxies have been detected (none by naked eye) in the southwestern corner of Corona Borealis at a distance of one billion light years. Our Moon will pass just below Regulus, brightest star in Leo, the night of May 2. The next night it will be just below Saturn.

That brilliant morning “star” you see above the eastern horizon before sunrise is of course planet Venus.

The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia is the host of the world exclusive exhibition “Galileo, the Medici and The Age of Astronomy,” from April 4 through Sept. 7. The one-time only special exhibition features one of only two existing, original Galileo telescopes that will leave Italy for the first and only time. The exhibit coincides with the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s astronomical discoveries and the International Year of Astronomy 2009.

Next week’s column will be about Hubble, the man, and Hubble, the space telescope.

Clear skies.