Sky and Telescope - June 2016 - 45

OBSERVING

Northern Hemisphere's Sky

Fred Schaaf welcomes your
comments at fschaaf@aol.com.

Fred Schaaf

The Seal of the Sky
The patterns we draw in the sky capture our hopes and ancient dreams.

I used another quote from this lovely song in the
April column, when I discussed the ways, practical and
mystical, in which a starry sky is the dwelling-place of
"a thousand secret ﬂames." But here, I want to use it to
compare the sky of June evenings to something else:
"the prince's seal."
After June sunsets in much of the Northern Hemisphere, the secret presence of the stars - we need to
remind ourselves they're always there, even during
our daytimes! - is revealed ever so slowly as the long
solstice twilight fades. But as the stars ﬁ nally come into
view, we're confronted with not just their raw natural
beauty, but also their roles as cultural markers. We're
seeing them in a sky that's been engraved and reengraved with complex patterns of both scientiﬁc and
mythological organization. The night sky reﬂects the
mind of humans. Another way to think of the starry sky
is as a melting pot of fact, lore, story, and history.
Summer's starry emblems of eternity. From even
the earliest era of human history, people must have pictured ﬁgures, mostly humans and animals, in the patterns of the stars and told stories about them. Part of the
purpose of doing so was no doubt to eternalize the most
important human experiences - love, death, fear, hope.
How wonderful it is that some of our greatest stories
have survived thousands of years, not just on the basis of
their own never-ending relevance to the human condition, but by being attached to the stars.
Three great multi-constellation myths were discussed
in last October's installment of this column: the Greek
myth of Perseus; the eastern Asian tale of the Weaving
Maiden and the Cowherd (or Prince); and the Native
American legend of the hunters who chase and, in
autumn, wound the bear (the bowl of the Big Dipper).

Corona Borealis
θ
ι

β
ε
δ

α
AKIRA FUJII

Crystal and the clay, nights and the day
All on the prince's seal
Eagle of the sky, lion of the earth
This is what the seal is worth, what the seal is worth
Holds all of the dreams of a man
Tapestries, wishes of man, pictures and visions of man
The spirit, the soul of the man
And he would vow to love her for the rest of all his days.
- Michael Dunford and Betty Thatcher, The
Young Prince and Princess

These stories feature diﬀerent constellations and asterisms. But throughout history, people have connected the
same stars to form diﬀerent patterns in their stories. For
instance, June's prominently visible Corona Borealis,
known as the crown of Ariadne, has also been imagined
as the ﬂying, revolving glass castle Caer Sidi, a spider, a
boomerang, a broken circle of dancing maidens, and the
lair of the bear.
And pattern-making in the summer sky hasn't
stopped. It's remarkable, but the now-famous Summer
Triangle of Vega, Altair, and Deneb, introduced in the
19th century, was only popularized a little more than
50 years ago. And the "Teapot" asterism of Sagittarius,
which now seems so obvious to everyone, was created
even more recently.
What's ironic is that even our longest-enduring myths
and legends are like the latest ripples in a pool compared
to the lifetimes of the stars themselves. Even the stars
don't last forever - but these shining lights that live for
billions of years are the closest thing to true eternity that
we can ever see.
The seal of the sky. Look at those lyrics again. The
only "seal" I can think of that can hold all of the dreams,
wishes, pictures, and visions of humans is the sky.
Our constellations are its engravings. "Eagle of the sky,
lion of the earth": Leo the Lion is coming back down to
Earth, sinking to the western horizon, on June evenings,
while Aquila the Eagle, rising from the eastern horizon,
is lifting up to the sky. ✦
Sk yandTelescope.com June 2016

http://www.SkyandTelescope.com

Sky and Telescope - June 2016

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