Stars of forgotten charts

A FEW weeks ago I wrote about the constellations and mentioned two: Crux Australis (the Southern Cross) and Scorpius (the scorpion).

They are two of the easiest to identify out of the 88 imaginary star patterns named over the ages.

Of these 88, there is quite a variety. Two are seen as dogs, and among the other animals there is a giraffe, a water snake, and a flying horse. Inanimate objects include the famous Libra, the scales, and even a microscope.

Of course, these patterns have no scientific meaning, and in any case, all of the stars within a constellation are at different distances from us. Nevertheless, astronomers still often refer to these constellation names when describing the location of an object in the sky.

But it’s interesting to note there have been many more than just the 88 modern constellations we see on our star charts today, and people of many different cultures have imagined a huge variety of patterns in the sky. In particular, this includes the Aboriginal people of Australia, who were very keen stargazers.

There are some constellations that may have survived to appear on our “official” modern star charts, if only the idea had stuck. Astronomers sometimes call these the “forgotten constellations” because they used to appear on one or more old celestial charts or globes. Many of these are very interesting.

One that I rather like, largely because of its name, was Officina Typographica, meaning “the printing shop” or “the printer’s workshop”. Of course, the pattern looks nothing like this at all.

It was named by Johannes Bode, who decided, in his atlas of 1801, to commemorate the appearance of the printing press, which was invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century. It was placed not far from the famous constellation of Canis Major, which is currently visible very low in our western sky in the early evening, dominated by Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky.

Another is one that was originally Psalterium Georgii. It was added to the sky by Father Maximilian Hell (17201792), who was director of the Vienna Observatory from 1756. A psaltery is a kind of harp, so its name basically means “George’s Harp”.

The placement of a harp in the sky dates back to 1781, when William Herschel, in England, discovered the planet Uranus. Herschel had originally suggested that the new planet be called Georgium Sidus, meaning “George’s Star”; he felt that to be quite fitting, as King George III was Herschel’s patron.

The name Uranus became far more accepted, but Hell, in 1790, had suggested three new constellations to commemorate Herschel and the King, and one of these was Psalterium Georgii. In Johann Bode’s 1801 atlas Uranographia, it is labelled as Harpa Georgii, and it appears to the north in our summer.

Unfortunately for this obscure little constellation and Father Hell’s idea to commemorate such significant people, it fell into disuse and did not appear in any later star charts.

You may be wondering what were Father Hell’s other two commemorative constellations. These had the names Tubus Herschelii Major and Tubus Herschelii Minor, and represented two of Herschel’s telescopes.

Despite having a great admiration for the work of Herschel, and his son John, I am rather pleased these cumbersome names were never formally adopted.

In any case, we do actually have a telescope among the star patterns: it has the rather unsurprising name of Telescopium, although it is a rather faint group of stars that, quite frankly, looks nothing like a telescope at all.

Martin George is manager of the Launceston Planetarium (QVMAG).