HOLIDAYS:

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR !!!

Today is Chinese New Year, the most important festival in the Chinese calender. The year we are entering is the Year of the Rat, or , more properly, the year of the Earth Rat. Because the Chinese calender is a combined lunar/solar calender the length of each year doesn't correspond to that of the Gregorian calender. This year will last from Today until January 25, 2009 when we will enter the Year of the Earth Ox. The Chinese years, which occur in a cycle of 60 years are often named for a corresponding element (Earth, Metal, Water,Wood and Fire) and then with one of the 12 animals of the Zodiac with their corresponding Chinese names. These are as follows:

1)zi (rat)

2)chou (ox)

3)yin (tiger)

4)mao (hare,rabbit)

5)chen (dragon)

6)si (snake)

7)wu (horse)

8)wei (sheep)

9)shen (monkey)

10)you (rooster)

11)xu (dog)

12)hai (pig)

The Chinese signs of the Zodiac obviously don't correspond with those we know here in the West. As an interesting side note traditional Chinese astronomy recognized only 28 constellations. For more on Chinese astronomy see HERE. Because of the discrepancy between a lunar year and a solar year the Chinese calender uses "leap months" to reconcile the difference. A regular month has either 29 or 30 days. Every 2nd or third year a "leap month" is added. This has the same number as the preceding month. Thus it ends up that a "regular year may have either 353, 354 or 355 days. A leap year has either 383, 384 or 385 days.

There is some argument about exactly which year this is in the Chinese calender. The most popular theory is that it is year 4705. This stems from the idea that the calender was instituted by Emperor Huang Di in the 61st year of his reign (2637 BCE). Others date the calender from the first year of his reign (2697 BCE). Because these dates are exactly 60 years apart they make no difference in terms of the naming of the years.

CHINESE SEASONS:

The Chinese Zodiac is used only for calculating years and has no reference to the months of a year. In Chinese astronomy seasons begin and end not at the solstices and equinoxes but at the midway point between these msolar events (see diagram at the left). The months of the year are usually simply numbered, with zhengyue ("principal month") being the first, and the others simply following the numbers ie "eryue" (second month), "sanyue" (third month),etc.. They can alternatively be named partially after plants. The list is as follows:

1)First Month

2)Apricot blossoms

3)Peach blossoms

4)Mei ripens

5)Pomegrnate blossoms

6)Lotus blossoms

7)Orchid blossoms

8)Osmanthus blossoms

9)Chrysanthemum blossoms

10)Good month

11)Hiermal month

12)Last month

The celebrations of Chinese New Year begin today and continue on (for a variable amount of time depending on the country) until the Lantern Festival (this year on february 21). For the "days of Chinese New Years" and other information on thgis holiday season please see the archives at this blog for February 2007. Included there are 'Happy Chinese New Year' (Feb. 18/2007), 'The Days of Chinese New Years' (Feb. 19,2007) and 'More on Chinese New Years'(Feb. 24,2007). For a reference that shows you how to convert from Chinese to Gregorian calender dates see HERE.

Finally, here's the story of how the months got their names. Supposedly the animals were quarreling over who should get precedence in the naming of the 12 years of the cycle. The gods decided to hold a contest to determine the order. The animals lined up on a river bank, and their order in the calender would be determined by the order in which they swam to the other side. The cat was, understandably, disturbed by this contest because he feared water. The ox, meanwhile, wondered how he could find the other shores because he had poor eyesight. The sneaky rat suggested that he and the cat jump on the ox's back and guide him across. On thye way over the rat pushed the cat off into the water. Just as the ox was to come ashore the rat jumped off and became the first to reach the shore. Thus the first month was named after hi. The ox finished second. The lazy pig came in last. The cat finished too late to have any place in the calender. from this point forward the cat vowed to be the eternal enemy of the rat.

BLOGGING:

BARON MOLLYDI'S HOUSE OF ZOMBIES:

As promised Molly is making some changes in the New Year here at Molly's Blog. Some of them involve editing the Links on this Blog. Baron (or is that Baroness ?) Mollydi's House of Zombies is one such change. Links that appear to be inactive will be gradually moved to this category. Their so-called vital signs will be checked now and then for signs of life, but the undead rarely return to the land of the living. This category is named after Baron Samedi in the religion of Vodou/Voodoo. Baron Samedi is one of the aspects of 'Baron', one of the loa. along with Baron Cimetaire and Baron La Croix he is the loa of the dead. Baron Samedi stands at the crossroads where the souls of the dead pass on their way to Guinee. He is noted for disruption, obscenity and debauchery, as well as having a fondness for tobacco and rum. He is also the loa of sex and resurrection. Hey, Molly likes this guy even if the old dictator of Haiti, "Papa Doc" Duvalier often used a disguise that resembled this loa. The internet is littered with such zombies that may still be interesting even if they are undead. Stay tuned as I do the edit.

Also coming soon the promised liens en francais and enlaces en espanol. More later.

MYTHOLOGY:

VIRGIN BIRTHS IN MYTHOLOGY:

It's that time of year again when people are expected to abandon common sense and believe in human parthenogenesis, or at least one instance that supposedly took place about two milenia ago. The doctrine of the virgin birth of Christ was formulated as an essential doctrine of the Church under the third canon of the Lateran Council held under Pope Martin 1 in 649. This doctrine was foreshadowed in the Nicene Creed, adopted under Emperor Constantine which states that Jesus was "born of the Virgin Mary". Catholic doctrine asserts not only the virginity of Mary at the time of the conception of Jesus, but also her perpetual virginity thereafter. The first assertion may have some scriptural backing- with the liberal use of apologetics of course- but the latter has no basis in the New Testament. It is, however, accepted as necessary dogma by the Roman Catholic Church.

Many have asserted that the myth of a virgin birth was a "borrowed concept" from surrounding pagan cultures, in particular from Mithraism, popular at the time of the early years of Christianity. Christian exegesis often attempts to put a prophetic gloss on the supposed event by citing Isaiah 7:14 , though most scholars agree that the "prediction" of a virgin birth of a Messiah in this passage was more than slightly distorted by Mathew (1: 22-23). The opposite theory, that the doctrine of the immaculate conception was a direct borrowing from pagan concepts, may, however, overstate the case. The fact is that the original literature from which the canonical New Testament was drawn (often by the violent suppression of conflicting texts) were written in an atmosphere in which certain ideas were taken as "givens". The mythology of a virgin birth was easily incorporated into the texts, not from any direct borrowing but rather from the authors taking the popular ideas of their time as an unquestioned framework to put their stories in. It is hardly different today. Only the tiniest intellectual elite of the Christian world knows just how common "virgin birth" stories were at the time of early Christianity. If they knew this fact they might question the whole doctrine that has built up around the immaculate conception over the centuries. But this source of questioning is not available to the average person today.

Comparing and contrasting is necessary to form intelligent opinions on many matters. What follows is a short list of some of the virgin birth mythologies from across the world. Those current in the Roan world at the time of the composition of the New Testament accounts are marked with an "@". Others are simply introduced with an asterix. What I hope the reader can see is the very common appearance of this myth across many human cultures, often with the concomitant idea of "impregnation by a god" such as that of Mary by the Holy Spirit.

@Mithras, the main object of the Mithraic cult in the early Roman Empire. Born on December 25th, according to legend.

@The philosopher Plato, supposedly a son of Apollo via the virgin Amphictione.

@Romulus and Remus, birthed of the vestal virgin Rhea Silvia, supposedly raped by the god Mars.

@Perseus, supposedly born of Danae by Zeus. Actually adduced as "evidence" by early Christian apologists to "prove" that their idea of virgin birth was not so strange.

@The Emperor Augustus, supposedly conceived via a virgin birth of his mother Atia by the god Apollo.

@Zoroastrian myths that the sperm of Zoroaster was preserved in the waters of Lake

Kansaoya to later impregnate a virgin who was to become a prophet and a savior.

@Many of the pharaohs of Egypt were believed to have been conceived of virgin births via impregnation by Amon-Re.

@Dionysus, supposedly born of the virgin Persephone via impregnation by Zeus. Persephone also reportedly gave birth to another son, the hero Jason, without resort to a godly sperm donor.

@The Egyptian god Horus was reportedly the parthenogenic offspring of the goddess Isis.

@Apis, the sacred bull of Memphis, was supposedly the offspring of a cow impregnated by a god the guise of a ray of moonlight.

@The supreme god of the Egyptians, Amon-Ra, was himself supposedly of a virgin mother Net, and had no father.

*Maumoon Abdul Gayyoom. Lord of the Maldive Islands. Reportedly born three times, the last two of virgin births.

*Deganawidah, a hero of the Hurons who reportedly planted the Tree of Peace at Onondaga. Greatest failure- not telling the Iroquois about said tree.

*Huitzilopochtli. Aztec god of war and the sun, conceived when a ball of feathers fell on his mother Coatlicue when she was cleaning a temple. This ball was supposedly Mixcoatl, god of the hunt. The Spaniards under Cortes were later to perform a similar "fluff job" under the name of this god. This resulted in the Aztecs being much more thoroughly "fucked" the second time around.

@Attis, a Phrygian god, was born of the virgin Nana who was impregnated by holding either a ripe almond or a pomegranate to her breast.

*Hunahpu and Xbalanque, Mayan hero twins supposedly, according to the Popul Vuh, conceived via the severed head of one of the original sons of the creators, killed for playing a ball game that was too noisy. Virgin mother- Ixquic.

*Laozi. Also known as LaoTzu. Would undoubtedly be very upset if he was able to see what succeeding generations had made of him, the author of the Tao Te Ching. Supposedly conceived when his mother gazed on a falling meteor.

*Montezuma (of the Pueblo Indians, not the Aztec Emperor of the same name). Supposedly conceived by a virgin after she either ate a pinyon nut or fell out of a tree onto her belly.

The above is merely a short list of the many world myths about virgin births. What can they say to us other than to avoid pomegranates, moonlight, swans, golden showers, almonds, pinyon nuts, climbing trees, feathers and, of course, toilet seats ? Either that or to always wear tent dresses and have the address of the local orphanage handy. They can say to a Christian who hasn't examined the dogma of their beliefs that they should perhaps examine at least one of these dogmas with a bit more of a critical eye.

OCCULTATION OF THE PLEIADES TONIGHT:

As Molly mentioned yesterday (see Sept. 1- 'Lunar Occultation of the Pleiades Tomorrow') tonight the Moon will occult 5 of the "seven sisters" that make up the Pleiades star cluster. The event will begin shortly after midnight here in Central Daylight Time. For the time in other time zones visit the Time and Date.Com website. For a forecast of visibility conditions in numerous places across North America see the Clear Dark Sky website.

OPEN CLUSTERS:

The Pleiades are an "open star cluster". These are star groups which were formed by the same interstellar molecular cloud and are still loosely gravitationally bound to each other. This is in contrast to "globular clusters" where the stars are tightly bound to each other. Open clusters form only in spiral or irregular galaxies, and are usually less than a few hundred million years old. This is because they are gradually disrupted by encounters with other objects in their home galaxy as well as by close encounters within the cluster itself. Over time radiation pressure drives the remaining gas within the cloud from which the stars form away from the cluster. Typically only about 10% of the material ends up condensing into stars. Star clusters are important for the study of stellar evolution because they are a 'control group' that are quite similar in age and chemical composition.

Some star clusters such as the Pleiades have been known since ancient times. Others appear merely as fuzzy patches to the naked eye. Globular clusters are more common towards the centre of galaxies, and consist of thousands of stars in a regular spherical distribution. Open clusters are found in any direction in the sky and have a much sparser stellar population. They do, however, form almost only in the plane of galaxies such as the Milky Way, and hence they are sometimes referred to as galactic clusters.

Stars always form in groups because only a cloud of gas containing the mass of many stars has enough matter to collapse under gravity. Many things such as shock waves from nearby supernovae or the graviational influence of other bodies may initiate the process of collapse. Several thousand stars are usually formed in the process. In the Milky Way such formations are estimated to occur every few thousand years. Once the process is underway the hottest and largests stars, of class O and B, emit radiation sufficient to ionize the surrounding gas, producing what is known as an H II region. The radiation from these ultrahot stars and the first few supernovae both act to expell the remaining gas from the area of the cluster, and in afew tens of millions of years there will no be enough to support further star formation.

Clusters can be classified by the Trumpler system devised by Robert Trumpler in 1930. The Roman numberals I to IV indicate the "concentration" of stars in the cluster, from highly concentrated to weakly concentrated). The arabic numerals 1 to 3 indicate the range of brightness of the stars, from a small to a large range. The letters "p", "m" or "r" are added to say if the cluster is poor, medium or rich in stars. The letter "n" is added if the cluster lies with enough gas to produce a visible nebula. By this method the Pleiades are an I3rn system. The Pleiades are one of over 1,000 known open star clusters in our galaxy. There are probably many times more yet to be discovered. As mentioned above open star clusters are found only in spiral or irregular galaxies. In elliptical galaxies star formation has essentially ceased many millions of years ago, and hence the young stars found on open clusters are not present.

Open clusters are essentially unstable. In many the average speed of the individual stars formed is greater than the escape velocity from the cluster. The stripping away of extrastellar gas alluded to above also reduces the mass of the cluster and hence its gravitational pull. Those clusters with enough mass to avoid early dispersal may remain in existence for tens of millions of years, but eventually processes both internal (close encounters between stars) and external (encounters with molecular gas clouds) lead to the disruption of the cluster.

Because the stars in an open cluster are of about the same age, the same distance from Earth and of roughly the same material they are useful in studying and testing models of stellar evolution. They are also useful in determining astronomical distance scales. Some clusters such as the Pleiades are close enough that their distance can be measured directly by parallex (the small change in apparent position when the Earth is at one or the other side of the Sun during a year. Many cluster distances have been determined by the Hipparcos satellite using this method. Another method is to use the "proper motion" of members of the cluster which converge on a "vanishing point". This along with the radial velocity from the Doppler shift of the stars and the angle from the cluster to its vanishing point give the distance by simple trignometry. Distances to clusters too far to estimate by these methods can be estimated by comparing a Hertzprung Russell diagram from a cluster of a known distance to a close fit for the more distant cluster of interest. A comparison of the apparent magnitude of stars in the distant cluster to the absolute magnitude of stars whose distance is known allows an estimate of distance to be made.

THE PLEIADES:

The Pleiades comprise not just the "seven sisters" but also stars named after their mythological parents, Atlas and Pleione(see diagram at the top of this page). You can find the Pleiades by looking down towards the horizon from the constellation Perseus (see articles in the August archive of this blog about the Perseid meteor shower). Both the Pleiades and Perseus are just above a line drawn due east from the two upper stars of the "Big Dipper". As the year advances the Pleiades will gradually come to lie more east than down from Perseus. You have to have good eyesight to distinguish individual stars in the Pleiades, but ancient people were able to distinguish at least 6 of the "7 sisters". Many cultures, both European and Native American, used the Pleiades as a sort of celestial eye-chart. The keenness of your vision could be estimated by how many stars you could see in the group.

This star group is prominant in many cultures across the world. In Japan the group is known as Subaru which gave its name to the car manufacturing company which uses the stars in its logo. In China they are the Hairy Head of the white Tiger of the West. In India they are known as the Kuttika which means "the cutters". They are also called the star of fire and are associated with the Vedic God Agni, the fire god. Other Hindu myths say they are the six mothers of the war god Skanda who developed six faces for each one of them. The star group is mentioned in both Homer's Illiad and Odyssey, as well as in Hesiod's Works and Days. They mentioned three times in the Bible (Job 9:9, 38:31 and Amos 5:8), and some Muslim scholars believe that they are the Star of Najm mentioned in the Koran.

Indiginous Australians have many myths about the group. One of these is that the Pleiades is a woman who escaped being raped by the 'Man in the Moon'. Another myth is that they are seven sisters who are being pursued by a man named Jilbi Tjapaltjarri. They were transformed into stars to escape his pursuit. In return Jilbi trandformed himself into one of the stars in Orion's belt so that he could continue his pursuit across the sky.

The Vikings referred to them as Freyja's hens , and their name in many European languages compares them to a hen with chicks. To the Celts the stars were associated with mourning and funerals. This was because during the Bronze Age this cluster rose in the eastern sky just as the Sun was setting in the west at the time of Samhain (our modern Halloween), the festival of remembrance of the dead. Because of precession this no longer holds true, but it held true long enough to become embedded in Celtic mythology.

In Africa the Pleiades are known as kilimia in the Swahili language. This translates as the "digging stars" as it was time to start digging as the onset of the annual rains was near when they were visible. In southern Africa the Basotho people call the Pleiades seleme se setshehadi , the "female planter" because their disappearance in april and the appearance of the star Achernar signals the beginning of the cold season. Most peoples in southern Africa associated the visibility of the Pleiades with the time of agriculture and plenty.

In the New World the Seris of northwestern Mexico call the Pleiades Cmaamc ie women as they are supposed to be seven women giving birth. Mayan cultures in Guatemala used the Pleiades and also the star Eta Draconis as references for astronomy. The Pleiades were believed to be their original home by some Mayans. The Aztecs of Mexico borrowed this method of reckoning, and based their calender on these stars. Their year began when they were first observed the heliacal rising in the east just before being obliterated by the rising Sun. This was generally in our month of June. Both the Maoris of New Zealand and the original Hawaians also set their new year by this method.

THE PLEIADES:THE MYTH AND THE STARS:

The modern names of the stars in this cluster are taken from Greek mythology. According to this story the "seven sisters" are the daughters of the titan Atlas and the sea-nymph Pleione (see the diagram for the stars named after this pair). They were also sisters to other figures from Greek mythology including Calypso, Hyas, the Hyades and the Hesperides. The Pleiades were nymphs in the service of the goddess Artemis, and along with the Hyades served as the nursemaids and tecahers of the infant god Bacchus. As the story goes when Atlas was forced to hold the world on his shoulders Orion began to pursue them. To help them escape Zeus first changed them into doves, and then,when this proved insufficient, into stars. orion the hunter is said to still pursue them through the sky.

The star Atlas is a blue giant star about 290 lys from Earth. His consort Pleione is blue subgiant about 95 light years (lys) away. Atlas has a magnitude of 3.6, and Pleione shines at magnitude 5.1. Their daughters mated with several of the gods and produced a number of children.

The eldest of the seven sisters was Maia. She mated with Zeus to give birth to the god Hermes. Maia is another blue giant that lies about 390 lys from Earth and has an apparent magnitude of 3.9. Electra became the wife of Corythus but was seduced by Zeus and gave birth to Darnanus (the Dardanelles) who became the founder of the city of Troy. Electra is a blue giant as well, lieing about 390 lys away and shining with a 3.7 magnitude. Alcyone is yet another blue giant star 240 lys distant and with a magnitude of 2.9- the brightest of this star group. She mated with Poseidon and bore him many children.

Taygete was raped by Zeus on Mount Taygetos where she was in attendance on Artemis. The goddess changed her into a doe to escape the god's pursuit, but Zeus continued anyways. The issue of this union was supposed to have been Lacedaemon, the mythical founder of Sparta. Taygete is a blue main sequence star about 360 lys away with an apparent magnitude of 4.3. Another of the stars is Celaeno. She married Poseidon and bore him several children.Celaeno is a blue subgiant about 590 lys away and has an apparent magnitude of 5.5. Sterope mated with the god Ares and produced the son Oenomaus. This star Sterope, also called Asterope, is a blue main sequence star about 490 lys away and has an apparent magnitude of 5.8. The final star in the cluster Merope was the only one of the sisters who escaped divine attention. She was the wife of sisyphus and bore him one son, Glaucus. This star is a blue main sequence star about 390 lys away and has an apparent magnitude of 4.2.

As Molly mentioned yesterday only 5 of the seven sisters are being occulted tonight. The Moon will pass above the stars Alcyone and Merope, as well as Atlas and Pleione. These will be visible throughout the occultation. Have fun and see if you can identify each star in this group.

THE PERSEIDS ARE COMING: AUG 12/13:

THE MYTHOLOGY OF PERSEUS:

Several of the constellations in the region of Perseus are connected to one Greek myth cycle. According to this legend Acrisius, King of Argos had a daughter Danae, but no male heir. So, as good kings in ancient Greece were wont to do he consulted the Delphic oracle. The oracle replied that he would never have a male heir, and to top matters off prophesied that he would be killed by one of Danae's children. Not too happy a reply.

To avoid this outcome Acrisius locked his daughter up in a bronze underground chamber. Far away enough from the local motorcycle hoods (chariot hoods in those days I guess) to save his daughter's honour - and his own ass besides. But not far enough away to escape the prying eyes of that ol' leader of the pack, Zeus king of the gods. Zeus came into the chamber in the form of a shower of gold and impregnated Danae with the child that was named Perseus.

Acrisius was ticked, but he was afraid to kill the child of Zeus outright so he ordered that Perseus and his mother be locked in a chest and thrown into the sea. The pair were washed ashore on the island of Seriphos where the fisherman Dictys took them in and raised the boy to manhood.

Dictys' brother Polydectes was the king of Seriphos, and he took a shine to Danae as well (seems that she was Ms popularity of the Aegean). Perseus had some objections to this match and so the King hatched a plot to get rid of the obstacle. He announced a banquet where each of the guests was expected to bring a horse so that Polydectes might gather them together to ask for the hand of Hippodamia, the "tamer of horses". He was, of course, just horsing around with this ploy and the real reason was to get rid of Perseus. as the adopted son of a fisherman Persues didn't know a horse from a codfish and had much more chance of getting the latter than the former. As an alternative it was proposed that he bring back the head of Medusa the Gorgon whose gaze turned people to stone.

The legend of Medusa has many variations. In some stories she is turned into a monster by the goddess Athena for having sex with the god Poseidon in a temple devoted to Athena. In others her "horse-like" nature(hence the equine connection above) is emphasized by saying that she was the monstrous filly of Demeter in her mare form when Poseidon took the form of a stallion to mount her. Once more, just horsing around.

As quests go this was a rather difficult one as Perseus 1)had no idea about where Medusa might be, 2)no idea of how to get there and 3)no idea of what to do once he found her. The god Hermes and the goddess Athena came to his aid. From Hermes he obtained an adamantine sword which was capable of slaying the Gorgon, and Athena gave him her highly polished shield that he might do the deed by seeing the Gorgon's reflections in it and avoiding looking directly on them. Perseus then began his journey through three realms of three goddesses each by visiting the spring nymphs, the Naiads. From them he obtained three gifts, the winged sandals that enables him to fly to any part of the world, a helm of invisibility and a sack in which to carry the head of Medusa once he did the deed.

They told him to go to the islands of the Hesperidae, daughters of Hesperus, god of the evening, in the far west. From them he learned that the Graeae knew the way to the lair of the Gorgons. The Graeae were three hags who had one tooth and one eyes between them. Perseus forced them to give him directions to the Gorgon cave by snatching the eye as they passed it one to the other. He refused to return it until they had told him the way.

Once in the cave of the Gorgons he snuck up on them using the shield of Athena to find his way. He beheaded Medusa and escaped from the other Gorgons by using the helm of invisibility. As he flew across the sea back to the Greek islands blood dripped from the sack holding Medusa's head, and when it struck the water the winged horse Pegasus and his brother Chrysaor were born from the mixture. As he entered the Mediterranean he met the titan Atlas and asked him for aid against the surviving Gorgons who pursued him. When Atlas refused Perseus punished him by turning him to stone with the head- hence the Atlas Mountains. Once more Greek mythology derives from many independent traditions, often wildly different from each other. despite being "stoned" by Perseus Atlas was in fully anthropomorphic form when he featured in the labours of Heracles, a descendant of Perseus.

The legend goes on to tell of how Perseus stopped in the Kingdom of Ethiopia on his way home. this kingdom was ruled by the Phoenician royal couple King Cepheus and Queen Cassiopeia (see the previous blog on the constellations near to Perseus). Cassiopeia had boasted that she was as beautiful as Aphrodite. This sort of thing always caused trouble in ancient Greece. In revenge Aphrodite sent a sea monster Ceto to ravage the land. To propitiate the goddess and the monster Cepheus prepared to sacrifice his daughter Andromeda to Ceto.

Perseus came upon the scene where Andromeda was chained on the shore, slew Ceto and rescued her. The couple were then married even though Andromeda had earlier been promised to a rival, Phineus. Never one to under use a good thing Perseus turned Phineus to stone with the Medusa head. Perseus and Andromeda had seven sons and two daughters. One of them, Persus, was supposed to have been the ancestor of the Persian royal line. One son, Alcaeus, was the grandfather of Heracles.

Perseus continued his journey back to Seriphos, and on the way the blood of Medusa once more dripped out of the sack and fell on the sands of Libya. Here it birthed a brood of serpents which were to later kill one of the Argonauts. Back in Seriphos Perseus found that his mother had had to seek sanctuary from Polydectes. Here we go again. Another day, another stoning. Rock on Perseus ! Perseus then placed his foster father Dictys on the throne, and returned his magical gifts to the gods. Athena took the head of Medusa (which Molly imagines must have been getting rather rank by this time) and placed it on her shield, the Aegis.

The legends relate that Perseus then returned to the mainland and that he was responsible for the death of Acrisius. Some say that he was killed by accident by a discus thrown by Perseus during an athletic competition. The reported locations vary, perhaps Larissa, perhaps Pelasgiotis, both in Thessaly. Other tales report that he killed not Acrisius but Proetus, the brother of Acrisius by, guess how, turning him into stone with the gorgon head.

Perseus is then credited with the foundation of the city of Mycenae, 6 km north of Argos. Mycenae dominated the pre-Dorian age of Greece and lived on in the legend of Agamemnon and Menelaus, the high kings of the Greeks in the Trojan War. The city itself was captured by Argos in 462 BCE, and its inhabitants were expelled. It was the site of excavations by Schliemann, the "discoverer" of the site of ancient Troy.

If anyone is interested in reading English translations of some of the original classical sources from which these myths derive Molly recommends the following:

The Argosy of Appolonius of Rhodes

Ovid's Metamorphoses

COMING NEXT:

THE PERSEID METEOR SHOWER:

THE CONSTELLATION LEO:

The constellation of Leo is ideally placed for observation in the late spring/early summer sky. After nightfall it lays almost due south, and the proximity of the planet Saturn to the constellation makes for interesting viewing.

The ancient Sumerians, Egyptians, Babylonians, Syrians, Jews, Hindus, Turks, Greeks and Romans all recognized this group of stars as a lion. In Chinese astronomy it was, however, represented as a horse, and some claim that the Incas recognized it as a springing puma. The Egyptian association of this constellation has provoked many possible explanations. One says that because the Sun is in Leo during the hottest time of the summer and the lions come to the Nile to cool themselves then that the constellation was named for the lion. Another theory is that the power of the Sun in midsummer led to its being associated with the most powerful of beasts. Pliny wrote that the Egyptians worshipped the stars of Leo because the waters of the Nile rose in its annual flood when the Sun entered Leo. The Sphinx was said to represent Leo's body with the head of the adjacent constellation of Virgo. This, however, is disputed as most Egyptologists maintain that the head represents one of the early kings or the god Harmachis.

The Greek legend of this constellation associates it with the Nemean Lion. The first labour of Heracles was to slay the lion which had been terrorizing the area around Nemea near Corinth and bring back its invulnerable skin. After attempts to slay the lion with arrows and a sword were unsuccessful Heracles threw away his weapons and wrestled with the lion. Some accounts say that he strangled it. Other accounts say that he broke its neck or that he thrust his arm down its throat and choked it. After he had killed the beast Heracles found that he couldn't skin it, but Athena, in the form of an old crone, came to him and suggested that he use the lion's own claws to do the job. After this he took to wearing the lion's skin as armour, and it was said that when he returned to Eurystheus who was his taskmaster for the twelve labours that the King was so frightened by his appearance that he hid in a large bronze jar. From this point the king only communicated with Heracles through a herald.

The Romans often associated this constellation with Bacchus, the god of wine, who was often dressed in a lion's skin. It is also supposed to be both the 'Lion of Judah' and the lion on the British coat of arms.

The most prominent star of Leo is Regulus(see above diagram). The name means "little king" as does its Greek name "Basiliskos". The name Regulus dates from the 15th century. Its Arabic name Qalb Al Asad means "heart of the lion", and it was often referred to in the same way in Latin as "Cor Leonis". The star is about 85 light years distant and is the faintest of the first magnitude stars with an apparent brightness of 1.4. It is a young blue dwarf star, only a few hundred million years old and has a mass of about 3.5 times that of the Sun. It spins very rapidly with a rotation period of only 15.9 hours. Regulus is actually a triplet system. Its two faint companions are a binary system that orbits Regulus A about every 130,000 years.

Regulus lays closest to the ecliptic of all the brightest (1st magnitude) stars in the sky. This means that it is regularly occulted by the Moon. The next occultation of Regulus is due for western Canada On June 19th. It will, unfortunately, occur during daylight (see following list). It may still, however, be visible given clear skies and a good telescope. The occultation will not be visible in the eastern part of Canada, but residents of the southern USA may be able to see the event in dark skies. If this event were to happen during darkness it would actually be quite spectacular from here in Winnipeg because Regulus will "skim" the edge of the Moon rather than being fully occulted. This means that it will "blink on and off" as it passes behind mountains on the Moon. This may be visible if you drive south or west of Winnipeg one or two hours. The further west (or south) you are the longer the period of occultation. Here is the schedule for major cities in western Canada.

City:

Winnipeg: 7:36 pm

Saskatoon: Disappears 6:02pm; reappears 6:43pm

Regina: Disappears 6:06pm; reappears 6:48pm

Edmonton: Disappears 5:47pm; reappears 6:39pm

Calgary: Disappears 5:45pm; reappears 6:45pm

Vancouver: Disappears 4:28pm; reappears 5:42pm

As a side note the present excellent conditions for viewing Saturn and its rings won't last very much longer. As May and June go by the position of this planet will be lower in the west, and by the end of June it will be too low for a decent telescopic view. At the end of June, however, there will be an outstanding conjunction of Saturn and Venus. On June 30th between 10 and 11 pm Venus and Saturn will be within a degree of each other in the lower western sky. This will be the closest planetary conjunction of the year.

But back to Leo. The second most visible star in the constellation is Denebola (see map above). The name is a contraction of the Arabic 'Deneb Alasad' which derives from "the tail of the lion" in that language. It is a blue white star with an apparent magnitude of 2.1. it is about 39 light years distant. Its apparent luminosity varies slightly over a period of a few hours. This star has a strong infrared excess which means that it has a disc of cool material about it like the disc from which our solar system formed.

Another named star in Leo is 'Algieba' (Gamma Leonis in the above diagram). This comes from the Arabic 'Al-Jabhah' which means "the forehead" even though its position in the constellation means that it is more part of "the mane" of Leo than the forehead. This star is actually a binary system with an apparent magnitude of 1.98. The two component stars have magnitudes of 3.3 and 3.5, but they sum up to a brighter star to the naked eye. With a telescope they are 4 arc seconds apart. One is an orange colour and the other is yellow-white in colour. The stars orbit each other with a period of about 500 years. Both these stars are giant stars that are about 36 light years from Earth.

There are a number of other named stars in Leo. Delta Leonis is called Zosma, meaning "the girdle" from its older Greek name meaning "hip". It is the northern vertex of the triangle marking the haunches of Leo. It is about 56 light years distant, with an apparent magnitude of 2.6 and is a blue-white subgiant. Zeta Leonis called Adhafera from the Arabic for "lock of hair" lies in the lion's mane directly above Algieba along the curve of the sickle that defines Leo's head.

It is a white giant star with apparent magnitude 3.4 and is about 115 light years away. Theta Leonis is called 'Coxa' from the Latin for "hip" or sometimes 'Cheratan' or 'Chort' from the Arabic for "two small ribs". It is the star that marks the right angle of the triangle that defines the lion's hindquarters. It is a blue-white main sequence star with an apparent magnitude of 3.3 and is about 78 light years away. Lambda Leonis (not shown in the above diagram) is called Alterf from the Arabic for "the glance" . It lies to the west(right) of the tip of the sickle (epsilon Leonis in the diagram above) that defines the lion's head. It is an orange main sequence star with an apparent magnitude of 4.3 and is about 260 light years distant. Mu Leonis, at the top of the sickle, is called Rasalas from the Arabic for "northern part of the lion's head". It is an orange giant star with a magnitude of 3.9 and a distance of 180 light years. Finally there is Omicron Leonis to the west (right) of Regulus in the above diagram. This star is called Subra for "the mane" in Arabic even though it lies in the lion's paws. It is a blue-white main sequence star with a magnitude of 3.5, and it is about 55 light years distant.

A group of stars that used to be considered part of Leo, ie the tuft of his tail, were made their own constellation in 240 BC by Ptolemy III. These stars are the Coma Berenices and more on them later. The star Wolf359 in Leo is one of the closest stars to Earth, about 7.7 light years distant.

Molly Note: Molly's dim little feline mind has come up with the realization that when she refers to the stars in constellations that she is exploring that many may not be familiar with the Greek alphabet as she is (it's standard scientific usage and Molly has also visited Greece and learned "a little" of the language). So...if you wonder what the alphas and omicrons mean you can look it up on the Wikipedia site about this matter or, for a simpler and more convenient explanation go to this site about the Greek language.

THE CONSTELLATION HYDRA:

Hydra is the largest modern constellation but one of the least recognized ones. It is visible this time of year stretching from Cancer in the west to Libra in the east. It takes almost six hours to fully rise. Throughout its course it lays just south of the ecliptic and spans four of the zodiacal constellations. Its only bright star is Alphard which lays just south and a little to the east of the easily visible Regulus in Leo. Alphard (alpha Hydra) is giant orange star of apparent magnitude 2.0, and it is about 85 light years distant. It is from the Arabic and means "the solitary one".

Hydra was one of the 48 constellations recognized by Ptolemy, and its most common mythological reference is to the Hydra of Lerna that Heracles slew as one of his twelve labours. The lair of this water snake was beneath the lake of Lerna in the Argolid where it was reputed to guard an entrance to the underworld. The Hydra was reputedly one of the children of Typhon and Echidna, giants who waged war against the gods of Olympus. Its siblings were the Nemean Lion, the Chimaera and Cerebus. Like Cerebus Hydra was a multi-headed monster who grew two heads back for every one cut off. Heracles was stymied until he asked his nephew Iolaus for help. Iolaus came up with the idea of cauterizing each stump as the head was cut off, thus preventing regrowth. One of the heads, however, was immortal. When Heracles cut that one off he placed the still living head under a great rock where it could do no harm. When Heracles returned to Eurystheus, an agent of Hera who hated Heracles, who had assigned him his labours Eurystheus declared that the help of Iolaus made this labour invalid. Heracles used the poisonous blood from the Hydra applied to an arrow to kill the centaur Nessus as another one of his labours. It was the tainted blood from Nessus' cloak that eventually killed Heracles.

Another version of the origin of Hydra says that Apollo sent his servant the crow (the constellation Corvus) to fetch water in a cup (the constellation Crater), but the crow dallied lazily and brought back the water snake Hydra in the cup as an excuse. Apollo angrily threw the three of them into the sky.

OCCULTATION OF SATURN AND THE STARS OF GEMINI:

The Moon, now in its first quarter has moved out of the constellation Gemini and is now entering Leo via the very dim constellation of Cancer (hardly visible at all except in the clearest skies) When you look up tonight you can see the Moon separated by only about 2 or 3 degrees from Saturn which now lie just to the west of Regulus, the star that marks the beginning of the "hook" in Leo. Saturn is actually quite good for viewing at this time as its rings have a 15 degree tilt, and are quite visible. Tomorrow (april 25th), however, may be even better as the Moon and Saturn will reach their closest approach. In Northern Canada, Alaska, the west coast of Canada and the upper north west of the USA there will actually be an occultation of Saturn by the Moon. The occultation will occur at about 10:28 UT in Vancouver and at about 10:30 UT in Victoria BC. This translates to a local time of about 2:40 am in Victoria. In Edmonton Alberta it will begin slightly earlier, at 10:17 UT. Go to the Lunar Occulatations site for further information.

As long as the Moon is leaving Gemini it's perhaps time to visit the stars of this constellation. Refer to the above diagram for what follows, and imagine it as being rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise so that Castor is higher in the sky than its brighter companion Pollux. The above diagram, however, better illustrates how this constellation resembles two stick men side by side, the "twins". The apparent orientation of Gemini changes throughout the year. Presently it is gradually returning from a "left" rotation, and it will gradually become more horizontal until it is no longer visible come the month of June. When it returns in the late fall it will considerably rotated "clockwise". At that time one of the stars is within the Milky Way and one is outside of it. This is connected with the legend of "cattle theft" associated with this constellation (see later).

The twins are called the Dioskouroi in Greek mythology, meaning "youths of Zeus (the god), and Pollux is often referred to as 'Polydeuces'. The Greek legends probably derive from more ancient Indo-European myths as the twin horsemen, the Asvins, occur in the Vedas and the Alcis twins figure in Germanic mythology. In Rome they were sometimes confused with Romulus and Remus. In China, on the other hand, these stars are associated with the yin and yang of nature. The twins in such legends are usually depicted as unequal. Another Greek example of such a configuration is the Ampion/Zethus pair from Thebes. Various versions of the Greek legends exist. Sometimes both twins are immortal, sometimes neither and sometimes only one. If only one it is Pollux/Polydeuces who is the immortal one. The most common legend is that Zeus, disguised as a swan, seduced their mother Leda, and that the two brothers were born from eggs. The representations of the Dioscuri in vase painting feature skullcaps that are said to be remanants of the eggs.

In some versions Tyndareus, King of Sparta, is merely their step father. In others he is the father of Castor but not of Polydeucis. Their sisters were Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra. They were reportedly brought up by the centaur Chiron(represented by the constellation Centaurs), and later they joined Jason, who was also reportedly brought up by Chiron, in the quest for the Golden Fleece. They also were said to have rescued their sister Helen when she was carried off by Theseus and Pirithous. Seems like Helen tried more than once to get out of Sparta. The twins had a general connection to Sparta, and their duality was reflected in the two kings of Spartan government. Their grave shrine was at Therapne, across the Eurotas River from Sparta.

The Dioscuri met their match in the twin brothers of Thebes, Idas and Lynceus, when Castor and Polydeuces abducted the daughters of Leucippus, Phoebe and Hilaeira, known as the Leucippides ("white horses"). Seems the Greeks did a lot of kidnapping. Castor was supposedly killed in this encounter, and his brother pleaded with Zeus to grant him half his immortality. From that time forward each twin spent alternating days on Olympus and in Hades. Thus they weren't present at the siege of Troy. When the constellation is rotated clockwise it appears as if one of the twins is "stealing the cattle" from the Milky Way while the other looks on. Castor and Polydeucis are considered the patrons of mariners because of their role in calming a storm during the voyage of the Argo.

The two brightest stars of Gemini are Castor (now higher than Pollux) and Pollux. Pollux is the brightest at a magnitude of 1.1. It is an orange star that lies at a distance of 36 light years (lys). Castor is the second brightest at magnitude 1.6. It is a blue white star at a distance of 46 lys. It is actually a septuplet, and the individual stars have far lesser magnitudes than the combined brightness of the naked eye object. Mebutsa (on the upper arm of Gemini, going west comes from the Arabic for "lion's paw", but the name is only recent. it is a yellow white star of magnitude 3.0 and lies 685 lys away. Going further to the west we come to Tejat, and orange red star of magnitude 2.9 that lies 150 light years away. On the lower arm of Gemini we find Wasat, meaning "the middle" in Arabic, another recent name. It is a whitish double star of magnitude 3.5 (the brighter of the pair) and is 58 light years away. The now demoted "planet" Pluto was found close to this star in 1930. Further to the west is Mekbuda, which also means "lion's paw". It is a yellow white variable star with magnitude 3.7 to 4.2 every 10 days. It is 1,400 lys away. Then at the furthest west we come to Alhena meaning "mark on the neck of a camel". It is a blue white star of magnitude 1.9 and is about 85 lys away. One named star not shown in the above diagram is Propus, the "forward foot" of Castor. It is a little to the west of Tejat. It is an orange red variable star (magnitude 3 to 4 over 233 days), and is about 185 light years away.

The reader should note that the magnitudes listed above are "inverse". The smaller the number the greater the apparent brightness. In a city sky pretty well all that can be seen of Gemini is Castor and Pollux. On an exceptionally clear night some of the other stars named above can be visualized.

MORE MATTER ASTRONOMICAL:SIRIUS- THE "DOG STAR"

These late winter evening are a great time to observe Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. Sirius is actually at least a binary star system with an apparent magnitude of -1.47(1). Sirius is visible from any part of the Earth lower than about 73 degrees north latitude. At this time of year to see Sirius draw an imaginary line downwards from the stars in Orion's belt. At about 20 degrees to the southeast you'll come to a very bright object that seems to exhibit a faintly blueish white twinkling. When the star is near to the horizon the actual apparent colour may vary (2). This star's name is derived from the Latin "Sirius", a term borrowed from Greek meaning "glowing" or "scorcher". This is because in ancient Greek times this star rose at dawn during the hottest time of the summer. Because of precession Sirius now rises much later in the year.

The ancient Latin name for this star is 'Canicula', the "little star", and the Arabic name is 'Al Shira'. Many other culture have other names for Sirius. In Sanscrit it was known as 'Mrgavyadha' (the deer hunter) or Lubdhaka (hunter). The former name is a representation of the God Shiva. The Chinese knew Sirius as the "celestial wolf", and the Japanese common name for Sirius is Aoboshi (blue star). In ancient Egypt this star was worshipped under the name of Sothis. The Middle Kingdom of Egypt actually based their calender on the rising of Sirius which occurred just before both the summer solstice and the annual flooding of the Nile.

It was as late as 1844 when astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel deduced the existence of a companion star to Sirius by means of analysis of its proper motion(the way that stars move in relation to each other-first described in 1718 by William Halley). This companion was confirmed in 1862 by Alvan Graham Clark. Nowadays this companion star is called Sirius B while the star that we see with the naked eye is called Sirius A. Sirius B is a white dwarf with a diameter only that of the Earth even though its mass is 98% that of our Sun. Sirius A is a main sequence star with a mass of about 2.1 times that of the Sun. The two stars are separated by a distance of about 20 AU ie about 2o times the distance from the Sun to Earth. There is a possibility that there is a third member of this system, but this has never been definitely confirmed.

The stars Betelguese (at the upper left of Orion), Sirius and Procyon in Canis Minor form what is called 'The Winter Triangle' in the southern sky. Sirius lays about 8.5 light years from Earth and is the fifth closest star to our system (and the second closest "visible star" after Alpha Centauri). It intrinsically about 23 times as bright as our Sun.

Sirius has found its place in pseudoscience as well. Early ethnographers of the Dogon people in West Africa reported that "had knowledge" of the companion star to Sirius A. In actual fact this claim was based solely on the observation that the Dogon had a mask ceremony in which a new mask was created every 60 years, supposedly showing knowledge of the periodic dimming of Sirius A as its companion passes in front of it - every every 50 years actually- the star seems to dim, but this luminosity change is imperceptible to the human eye. A crooked book writer by the name of Robert Temple, inspired by the financial success of people such as Von Daniken, used this along with other pseudofactoids to concoct an "ancient astronauts" argument in 'The Sirius Mystery'. The whole matter has been thoroughly debunked by Carl Sagan, but it's doubtful that Sagan made 1/1000th of the money that Temple did with his book.

MOLLY NOTES

1)The astronomical scale for apparent luminosity is an inverse logarithmic scale. This is like the better known Richter scale for earthquakes where one integer equals a ten fold change. In astronomy, however, the lower the number the greater the luminosity. The Sun, for instance, has a luminosity of about +26, and the full Moon shines with a luminosity of about +11. This scale was originally devised by Hipparchus, and it assigns magnitudes such that the faintest stars in the sky have a magnitude of about -6.

2)This has led to some puzzles in interpretation as several ancient Latin texts refer to Sirius' colour as "red", even though Chinese texts of the same time describe unequivocally as white. Some have suggested that this represents a recent stellar evolution change in the Sirius system, but the position on the horizon is a more likely explanation.

Molly

In Homage to Clio:
In contradiction to the beliefs of modern "neo-pagans" who never bother to examine things too closely the mythology of Greece was a rather fluid thing. It varied with location and with time. Some beliefs were not just "different" from others but in total contradiction to them. One of the beliefs that changed through time is the mythology of the 'Muses' . In one version these are the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (one version of "memory" in Greek). At first there were only 3 Muses who were worshipped at Mount Helicon in Boeotia. Three different versions were worshipped at Delphi. Finally there were nine Muses. These were the goddesses of the various arts and sciences. What follows is my tribute to Clio, the Goddess of History.
Why is Clio a great goddess ? Many have said that physics is the queen of the sciences. This is because of its accuracy, simplicity and beauty. Recent developments in "string theory" have thrown this regal status in doubt because a branch of physics has become no more meaningful than theology or post modernism. But the goal of physics still remains for the other sciences to strive for.
That is one "great goddess". What is the equivalent in the "social sciences" ? These fields of study are not yet "sciences" in the strict definition of the term whereby they present propositions that can be proven true or false (ie "falsified") in a more or less dispassionate dialogue. The "dialogue" of the social sciences is heavily ideological, even though it is being encroached upon in fields such as psychology, anthropology and economics by "real science". One can expect the ideologues to carry out a rear-guard action against reality in these disciplines for a few more decades until the old professors are all dead.
There are some academic disciplines that are so much ideological creatures that one can never expect them to be penetrated by reality. Political "science" ? Philosophy ? In a more neutral field, ethics ?
But there is one social science that has its own methods and views that can compare to the natural sciences. Clio is the Muse of History. history assumes that there were real events that actually happened, despite the protests of foolish post modernists. It is as based in reality as any natural science. Even what actually happened may be in dispute, but Clio sets outs ways of argument that can lead to an understanding of such disputes. As to "why" certain events happened the "way of Clio" is a much better guide to reality than any other "method" that has been proposed. It restricts explanation in a way that other social sciences do not. So called "sciences" that give a greater range to the imagination than any theology ever has.
Thus, I am a worshipper at the shrine of the Goddess Clio. She is the greatest of the Muses. Things seen in her light take on a different perspective from other lights.
Molly waiting for her flight.