The Flight Of The Phoenix.

[David_leeD.061001]

This posting is the very first of what I hope will be popular enough to become a weekly series. I have collected mythology, stories, names, translations, & other such data on all 88 constellations for somewhere around 25 years. I've always been a book collecter & when we built our house a few years back, a library room was planned in. These types of my "collections" fill up a pretty decent section of the shelves.

I call them "collections", rather than "writings", because I do not claim to be an author. I did this for my own use & enjoyment, but I do also enjoy sharing, & receiving, knowledge.

Just a brief description of what I am intending to do here. First, this is mainly meant to be a "story" series, not an "object" series...so the majority of each post will consist of the info previously mentioned. However, just to try to round it all out & make it more widely appealing, I am adding a selection of the better objects in each constellation.

I am trying my best to act like we are standing right beside the Canary Island telescopes. Thus, if it can be seen through those scopes, it makes the list. Only very rarely will I deviate from that, such as I probaly will with Polaris. The scopes won't go closer to the pole than just under +87 degrees, but Polaris is such an important star in history, it will be included.

I've tried to be as accurate as possible with the coordinates, magnitudes, translations, etc., but errors are possible. Just alert me to these & I will gladly change them. About 70 of the constellations can be at least 1/2 imaged with the scopes. If this series proves popular, I can occasionally combine a couple of them & make it almost exactly a year long. By that time, we'll hopefully have a southern hemisphere scope, & I can wrap up the series.

Well, enough description. I'll just let you browse the first one & you'll get the hang of what to expect. Give me some feedback on these please...it is a lot of work, but something I enjoy. I'm commiting myself to over a year of this, but only if it turns out to be a popular area.
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[David_leeD.061001]

At midnight in mid-October, very low in the southern sky, arises the firebird of the ancient Egyptians. Phoenix is definitely better situated for southern hemisphere observing, but that shouldn't keep us from enjoying what the constellation has to offer. As is common in the "Autumn Ocean", Phoenix doesn't have the brightness of other more popular areas, but there are about 30 galaxies that can be seen here with amateur-size scopes. It's brightest star, Ankaa, is only 2.4 magnitude.

The name Ankaa, is very original, meaning....well, meaning "Phoenix" in Arabic. This is the only named star in the constellation, at least that has been used in modern times. Although the Egyptians were the first to tell of the firebird on Earth, they pictured this part of the heavens as the "Little Boat". An older name for Ankaa is Nair al-Zaurak, Arabic for "the bright one of the boat", thus hinting back to it's Egyptian history.

The name Phoenix itself is not Egyptian, their name for the bird was Bennu. The Greeks borrowed the myth from them & called it Phoenix, which means dark red or purple. This is in testament to the bird's description, which was said to be, "as large as an eagle, with brilliant scarlet and gold plumage and a melodious cry." Later, the region & culture of Phoenicia were given that name because of their famous Tyrian purple dye, usually reserved for coloring the robes of royalty.

The Phoenix lived far to the East, across the endless & uncrossable Great Arabian Desert, in a land called Paradise, where the sun started it's daily trip across the heavens. Here it nourished itself with aromatic herbs such as cinnamon, frankincense and myrrh, which gave it immortality. And this was the crux of the bird's dilemma, for after exactly 500 years, the bird either just grew tired of existence, or heard some type of calling, known only to itself, which signaled to him that it was time for his life to come to an end.

Not being able to die in Paradise, the bird made a trip westward, on a given night (possibly a time of a total solar eclipse), taking him into the mortal's land of Arabia. Here, it would carefully & lovingly construct a nest, made of scented herbs, in the very top branches of a palm tree. Waiting for dawn, it's fate was already sealed. As soon as the sun-god, Ra, rose from Paradise, the Phoenix would face East, open it's bill, & sing such an enchanting song that it would cause the very ruler of the sun to pause for a moment & listen. Quickly realizing that he was late, Ra would whip & spur his horses so greatly that a spark from their hooves would ignite the firebird's nest, thus consuming the weary bird & ending it's life of loneliness.

However, destiny demands that there ALWAYS must be one Phoenix in existence, & ONLY one. So, as the old bird's ashes settled to the ground, from the midst of them arose a small worm, which in 3 days would grow to be a new Phoenix. It would then gather it's fathers ashes into a bough, & fly them to Heliopolis, where they were placed on the altar of the sun-god. The new bird would then fly back east, over the great desert, to the gates of Paradise, where it's fate had already been sealed also.....and the 500 year cycle would begin anew.

Our modern constellation of Phoenix was first invented, roughly, by the 16th century Dutch navigators, Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman, about 1596. However, it was slightly redrawn & popularized when Johann Bayer published it, along with 11 others invented by the 2 gentlemen, in his 1603 "Uranometria", which was the first atlas to cover the entire celestial sphere. These 12 new constellations became known as "Bayer's Twelve", although he actually stole their approximate positions from the 2 Dutch-men.

The most famous of the few objects of any great interest here is the star SX Phoenicis, which is one of the best examples of the "Dwarf Cepheids". The star was initially identified because of it's large proper motion in 1938, but was discovered to be an extremely rapid variable in 1952. SX varies from mag. 7.1 to 7.9 in only 79 minutes, however, it then skips 2 bright cycles, during which it only reaches 7.4. The exact cause of this is a mystery. Opinions are split between a single rotating star with vastly different hemispheres, or, more likely, because of interaction with a yet-undiscovered companion.

Phoenix's Beta star is a pretty nice multiple system, consisting of 2 close mag. 4 stars & a more distant mag. 12 one. The 2 brighter ones are close, but possible in amateur sized scopes. The best galaxy of the small group in this area is NGC55, which is sometimes mistakingly placed within Phoenix, but is actually in Sculptor, so is not included here. Of the remaining ones, NGC322, NGC625, & NGC862 are worthy of investigation, if you're in the mood to test your optics.

The constellation also hosts 2 rather poor meteor showers, the Phoenicids peak about December 5th, with a ZHR of 5. However, 1956 saw over 100 per hour & 1962 saw somewhat less, but many were exploding fireballs which rivaled the brightness of Venus. The other shower is even weaker, sometimes not even reaching 1 ZHR & has never really been known to have any dramatic outbursts. It is known as the July Phoenicids & peaks on July 14th.

One other interesting side-quest is available within Phoenix. The NGC lists a dim galaxy a little north of IC1630, but the only object anywhere close to the coordinates given is a rather close binary of mag. 7.1/8.7.

Next week, we will continue our voyage north, deeper into the "Autumn Ocean", & visit another dim constellation which seems out of place in the celestial waters of the fall sky.


Phoenix--Phe--Phoenicis--The Fire-Bird

469 Square Degrees---Rank 37th in area

Number of stars above Mag.3---One

Best visible between latitudes +45/-90.

Brightest Stars:

-Alpha(Ankaa)---2.4---002617/-421822
-Beta-------------3.3---010605/-464306
-Gamma----------3.4---012822/-431906
-Epsilon----------3.9---000925/-454451
-Kappa-----------3.9---002612/-434048

Multiple Stars:

-Beta----4.1/4.2/0.3"---010605/-464306
-Theta---6.5/7.3/3.9"---233928/-463816
-I1477---6.8/7.6/0.4"---000019/-441725
-I47------7.5/8.0/0.8"---005152/-434232
-h3415---7.4/8.4/1.0"---010356/-403853

Variable Stars:

-SX---234632/-413412

Deep Sky:

-NGC405----010834/-464004---(Mistake??-Binary-SLR2)
-IC1625----010742/-465500
-IC1630----010818/-464500
-IC5325----232842/-412000
-IC5328----233318/-450100
-NGC322----005712/-434400---(All Galaxies)
-NGC625----013506/-412600
-NGC641----013842/-423200
-NGC862----021300/-420300
-NGC7744---234500/-425500





Auxilio ab alto, Prorsum ad astra!!
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[TaviG.050801]

(sound of tapping foot) I'm waiting and looking forward to it, David. And thanks for finding a way to share "your astronomy" with us.

Tavi

Hey! How'd you do that? The moment I clicked "submit", your post came through!

[David_leeD.061001]

Tavi....magic
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[MarleenB.050308]

Gosh, David your posts are terriffic and really enjoyable! I am thoroughly impressed with what a very talented slooh community we have. What is even more exciting is the way everyone is willing to share information about astronomy, the cosmos, space and science in general.

Please continue your wonderful work David!

Thanks,
MarleenB
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20" Obsession, 12.5" Obsession, Meade ETX 125, 8" Orion Reflector, Celestron 25X100, Celestron 15X70

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