Aquarius. Viewing and history

Essay by Anonymous UserHigh School, 12th gradeA-, February 1997

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I only included one story about the myth of Aquarius. There are 1or 2 more but I only needed one. Good

Aquarius can be found in the SE sky in autumn, especially October. A dark night is especially helpful because many faint stars make up Aquarius. This will help to make the fainter stars stand out because its hard enough to see a shape in Aquarius. Up and to the west of aquarius, pegasus can be found. Down and to the east of aquarius, capricorn can be found.

Aquarius portrays a man or boy spilling water from an urn. Aquarius is identified with Ganymede, a beautiful young shepherd who was abducted by Zeus and taken to Mount Olympus to be the cup bearer for the gods.

Stars:

Sadalmelik: Arabic for 'lucky one of the king'. It lies just off the celestial equator.

Sudalsud: It means 'luckiest of the lucky' in Arabic.

It is the brightest star in the constellation

Sadachbia: Arabic for 'lucky star of hidden things' or ' lucky star of the tents.' This makes up part of the asterism sometimes called the tent, but is usually called the urn referring to Aquarius.

Skat or Scheat: It comes from the Arabic word for shin and it dates back to the translation of Ptolemy's Almagest.

Albali: The name comes from the Arabic, which means 'swallower'; no one really knows why the star got this name

Situla: This name comes from Latin and means 'well bucket'. Situla was the original Arabic name for the entire constellation Aquarius.

There are three star clusters contained in Aquarius. M2, which was discovered in 1764, is one that can be seen with a small telescope. A larger telescope is needed to make out the individual stars. M72 is another cluster that is located southeast...