The Constellation Sagittarius:

Aubrey Searle
 The Constellation Sagittarius has Grecian origins, the name means The Archer, there are

two different interpretations of the story; the first being that The Archer is Chiron the centaur,

son of Cronos the titan, and teacher of many Greek heroes. Another interpretation of the

constellation is that The Archer really isn’t a centaur at all and he’s a satyr named Crotus, who

was an excellent archer. He lived among the Muses on Mount Helicon, he created applause when

he heard the Muses perform. Today most people associate the constellation with Chiron even

amongst the debate that Centaurs hardly chose to practice archery. Regardless of what you chose

to believe it’s important to know about both mythos.

Chiron the centaur was born of the Titan Cronos and the sea nymph Philyra. Cronos was

having an affair with the sea nymph when his wife Rhea discovered them. Cronos turned himself

into a centaur and fled the scene. Nine months later Philyra gave birth to a bouncing baby

centaur. Philyra cast out Chiron and he was ultimately adopted by the brother and sister of the

Greek Pantheon Artemis and Apollo. Apollo taught him how to live with nobility and the art of

Medicine, while Artemis taught him the joy of the hunt, perfecting his archery skills. The skills

his adopted parents taught him, eventually nurtured him to become a great teacher of renowned

Grecian heroes such as Heracles, Perseus, and Jason. Chiron was known to be kind hearted and

selfless “Chiron has perhaps the most pure and selfless heart. You’ll never find him involved in

the tricks or squabbles of the other immortals; his dignity holds him above their schemes”

(Geller). Chiron’s demise came by one of his students Heracles. Chiron was helping Heracles

accomplish his tasks, while Heracles was boasting about arrows he had poisoned from Hydra

venom Chiron was pierced by one of the arrows. Chiron knew that he would never be able to

recover from being poisoned, and that he would never die (being immortal), so Chiron wanted to

help with Heracles last task in freeing Prometheus. Chiron took his place on the rock, and
resumed the punishment intended for Prometheus. This selflessness was noted by the gods, and

Chiron won his place in the heavens among the stars. The Constellation Centaurus is also

associated with Chiron.

The Satyr Crotos lived on Mount Helicon with the Muses, he was known for creating

applause. He would clap his hands together when the Muses would sing. Others eventually

started emulating the satyr, “Now the sound was feeble with only one person clapping in

applause, but when they saw what he was doing, the others followed his example” (pg. 76

paragraph 2, Eratosthenes, Hyginus, Aratus) With the others applauding the Muses as well, the

Muses renown spread even further. As a result, to this fame, the Muses asked Zeus to place

Crotos amongst the constellations. Since Crotos was also credited with the discovery of Archery

he was placed in the heavens wielding a bow and arrow.

The constellation Sagittarius is either known to be a centaur with the body of a horse and

the torso of a man, wielding a bow and arrow, yet there is cause to believe that the body of the

horse is actually the satyr Crotus, Zeus just changed the way he looked to accurately portray the

skills that Crotos displayed such as giving him the legs of a horse because Crotos had often gone

riding, a satyrs tail, and a bow and arrow for his discovery of archery. The arrow the

constellation wields is pointed west, and the constellation itself is in the winter tropic.

The Archer can be seen in Utah from July to September, it “rises in the southern sky

during summer and it looks like the Scorpion is dragging Sagittarius along behind it.”(Ockey)

The constellation consists of fifteen stars portraying in the heavens his head, bow, arrow, elbow,

foot, belly, tail, back, knee, and his shin. There are also seven starts that represent a crown that’s

being cast aside as if the satyr was in a play. A lot of people think that the constellation also

looks like a teapot, so it has thus been given the name Teapot Asterism. The Archer “is located in
the fourth quadrant of the southern hemisphere (SQ4) and can be seen at latitudes between +55°

and -90°” (Constellation Guide: Sagittarius) its area is around 867 square degrees and it is the

fifteenth largest constellation in the sky. Neighboring constellations include Aquila, Capricornus,

Corona, Australis, Indus, Microscopium, Ophiuchus, Scutum, Scorpius, Serpens Cauda, and

Telescopium. Some of the brightest stars of the constellation are listed below in a table:

vis. abs.
G H HI Dist.(l Sp.
Name F RA Dec ma ma Notes
. D P y) class
g. g.

has a possible
SWEEPS
17h 59m 02.0 −29° 13′ 23. shortest period
J175902.00- 26.23 ~6500
0s 7″ planet
291323.7
(SWEEPS-10)

SWEEPS
17h 59m 02.6 −29° 11′ 53. has a planet
J175902.67−29115 19.83 ~6500
7s 5″ (SWEEPS-11)
3.5

SWEEPS has a
17h 58m 53.9 −29° 11′ 20.
J175853.92−29112 18.80 ~6500 planet SWEEP
2s 6″
0.6 S-04

19h 17m 55.0 has a transiting

WASP-123 s −32° 51′ 36″ 11.1 G5
planet (b)

16297 17h 54m 54.0 −24° 53′ 13. O7/O8II

63 Oph (63) 8 87706 6.18
8 4s 5″ I

16619 18h 10m 55.3 −33° 48′ 00.

38 G. Sgr 38 89086 6.13 B2II/III
7 5s 2″

16726 18h 15m 12.9 −20° 23′ 16. B0.5Ib/I

16 Sgr 16 44 89440 5.96
3 7s 7″ I

16440 18h 01m 54.3 −22° 46′ 49.

21 G. Sgr 21 88298 5.72 B0Iab...
2 8s 0″

16726 18h 15m 12.9 −20° 43′ 41. B0/1Ia/a

15 Sgr 43 89439 5.29
4 1s 8″ b
 vis. abs.
G H HI Dist.(l Sp.
Name F RA Dec ma ma Notes
. D P y) class
g. g.

Polis;[2] quintu
16693 18h 13m 45.8 −21° 03′ 31.
μ Sgr 13 41 89341 3.84 >3000 B2III: ple star; Algol
7 1s 8″
variable

MOA-2007-BLG-
18h 08m 04s −27° 09′ 00″ has a planet (b)
192L

V1216 Sgr; 9th

18h 49m 49.3 −23° 50′ 10.
Ross 154 92403 10.44 13.08 9.68 M3.5V nearest star; fla
6s 4″
re star

19140 20h 11m 11.6 −36° 05′ 50. nearby binary

HR 7703 279 99461 5.32 6.41 20 K2V
8 1s 6″ star

17205 18h 38m 53.4 −21° 03′ 05.

HD 172051 86 91438 5.85 5.28 42 G5V
1 5s 4″

18808 19h 54m 17.8 −23° 56′ 24. BY Draconis

V4200 Sgr 242 97944 6.22 5.46 46 K3/K4V
8 2s 3″ variable

16518 18h 06m 23.6 −36° 01′ 11.

29 G. Sgr 29 88694 5.94 4.74 57 G3V
5 4s 3″

18132 19h 21m 29.7 −34° 58′ 59.

166 G. Sgr 166 95149 6.48 4.88 68 G1/G2V
1 0s 6″

18924 20h 00m 20.1 −33° 42′ 09.

262 G. Sgr 262 98470 5.65 4.05 68 F7V
5 6s 9″

16991 18h 27m 58.2 −25° 25′ 16.

λ Sgr 22 67 90496 2.82 0.95 77 K1IIIb Kaus Borealis
6 7s 5″

Terebellum,
18837 19h 55m 50.2 −26° 17′ 58. G3/G5II
ω Sgr 58 248 98066 4.70 2.82 78 part of the
6 3s 9″ I
Terebellum
 There are many things that are of

interest in the constellation of Sagittarius,

one of them being the Pistol Star and

Nebula. The pistol star is a blue hypergiant

that is about 25,000 lightyears away

towards the center of the galaxy. The

coordinates of the star are −28° 50′ 04″

declination, the absolute magnitude is -

10.75, and the mass is 27.5 solar masses. It

is currently considered one of the brightest

Figure 1: Pistol Star is the bright center,
surrounded by clouds of the Pistol Nebula
stars in our galaxy. It was discovered in the

1990’s by astronomers at UCLA the star has a luminosity ten million times that of our own sun,

and the surface temperature reaches about 11,800 Kelvin. The star is not visible to the naked eye

and was only discovered with the Hubble Telescope due to the clouds of dust that are in between

the Earth and the star. There are a great many numbers of stars we can’t detect because of the

dust of our galaxy, yet that doesn’t make these stars any less luminous. It is part of a group of

very bright stars called the quintuplet stars, which cannot be seen by the naked eye either.

Astronomers later discovered that the Pistol Star created a nebula when it expelled its

gasses a few thousand years ago, “its largest shell spans 4 light years, which is almost the same

distance as that between the Sun and Alpha Centauri. The gas in the nebula’s outer shell expands

at the velocity of 60 km/s.” (Constellation Guide: Pistol Star) the Pistol Nebula was already

discovered in the 1980’s but they hadn’t associated it with the pistol star until its discovery in the

1990’s. The low-resolution images that astronomers got back looked reminiscent of a gun, so
they named the nebula the Pistol Nebula. The pistol nebula will undergo a nova event in the next

couple million years.

Another interesting deep space item located in Sagittarius is M17 which has many

different nicknames such as Swan, Horseshoe, Checkmark, or Lobster Nebula, but the most

popular name is that of Omega as the nebula looks like the Greek letter for Omega which is

stylized as Ω. The symbol for Omega also looks like a Horseshoe. The nebula is around 6,000

light years away from the Earth, and among the brightest star forming nebulas in our galaxy. The

nebula was discovered by an astronomer in Switzerland named Philippe Loys de Chéseaux, in

1745, though Charles Messier also cataloged it separately in 1764.

Omegas coordinates are -16°10’36” (declination), the apparent magnitude of the nebula is

6.0, and apparent dimension is 11 arc minutes. The nebula can be seen around 10 degrees north

of the Teapot Asterism. Omegas diameter is 15 lightyears across, but it is a smaller part of a

cloud that is 40 lightyears in diameter. Omega

is a stellar nursery, giving birth to thousands

of new stars on the outer parts of the nebula.

Omega is very bright considering all the

young stars that are illuminating and heating

the gasses of the nebula “The 35 young,

massive stars responsible for the nebula’s

Figure 2: Omega Nebula Stellar Nursery glow are each 20 to 30 times more massive

than the Sun and about six times hotter.”

(Constellation Guide: Omega Nebula- Messier 17) The nebula itself contains roughly 800 stars

of differing classes. The star clusters being formed are the youngest that we know of being about
only one million years old. The stars that are currently being formed will eat away at the

hydrogen gas of the nebula and eventually end up as an open star cluster. For right now the

nebula has tendrils of both hot illuminated gasses with fingers of cold hydrogen clouds that are

strung through it.

Bibliography:

Eratosthenes, and Gaius Julius Hyginus. Constellation Myths with Aratuss Phaenomena. Oxford

University Press, 2015.

Geller. “Chiron - Wise Centaur of Greek Mythology.” Mythology.net, Mythology.net, 15 Dec.

2016, mythology.net/greek/greek-creatures/chiron/.

“List of Stars in Sagittarius.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Apr. 2018,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stars_in_Sagittarius.

Ockey, Natalie. “Sagittarius .” Utahsadventurefamily.com, 2014,

utahsadventurefamily.com/sagittarius/.

“Omega Nebula- Messier 17.” Constellation Guide, 23 Aug. 2014, www.constellation-

guide.com/omega-nebula-messier-17/.

“Pistol Star.” Constellation Guide, 14 Aug. 2017, www.constellation-guide.com/pistol-star/.

“Sagittarius Constellation.” Constellation Guide, www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-

list/sagittarius-constellation/.