dimanche 5 octobre 2008

Ursa Minor 10

β, 2, reddish.

Kochab is from the Arabic title that it shared with α and it perhaps was this star that the Greek astronomers called Πόλος, for it was near the pole 1000 years before our era. Burritt has Kochah.
Alrucaba, variously written, is also common to it and Polaris, as well as to its constellation, Smyth saying that this was the Alfonsine Reicchabba.
Nāʼir al Farḳadāin and Anwār al Farḳadāin, the Bright One, and the Lights, of the Two Calves, were titles in the Desert for this star, from an early figure here, in the Fold, of these timid creatures keeping close to their mother. β was often designated by pre-Islamitic poets as the faithful and, from its ever visible position, the constant companion of the night traveler. Indeed the Badāwiyy claimed that they had a perpetual treaty with Al Farḳad to this effect, and their poets made the Two Pherkads, β and γ, symbols of constancy. Chilmead cited Alferkathan.
α, β, γ1, γ2, δ, and ε constituted the group Circitores, Saltatores, Ludentes, or Ludiones, the Circlers, Leapers, or Dancers around the early pole, well known from classical times to late astronomy.
In China β was another Ti, the Emperor.
Its spectrum is Solar, and the star is receding from us at the rate of 8 3/4 miles a second.
γ1, 3.3, and γ2, 5.8.

these were known by the Arabs as one star, Alifāʽ al Farḳadain, the Dim One of the Two Calves, but by us as Pherkad Major and Pherkad Minor, 57 minutes of arc apart.
With β and others they were the Dancers, and with β alone the Guards, or Wardens, of the Pole, that old Thomas Hood said were
of the Spanish word guardare, which is to beholde, because they are diligently to be looked unto, in regard of the singular use which they have in navigation;
and Recorde,

many do call the Shafte, and others do name the Guardas after the Spanish tonge.

While Eden, in the Arte of Navigation which he "Englished out of the Spanyshe," in 1561, from Martin Cortes' communication to King Charles V, mentioned "two starres called the Guardians, or the Mouth of the Horne"; and still earlier, in his translation of Peter Martyr, "the Guardians of the north pole." Shakespeare, in Othello, wrote:

The wind-shak'd surge, with high and monstrous mane
Seems to cast water on the burning Bear,
and quench the guards of th' ever fixed pole.

Riccioli's title for them is Vigiles, to which he added

Italicē le guardiole, overso guardiane.

These Guards, like the stars in Charles' Wain, were a timepiece to the common people, and even thought worthy of special treatises by navigators, as to their use in indicating the hours of the night.
In China γ1 was Ta Tsze, the Crown Prince.
δ, 4.3, greenish.

Yildun is generally given to this, probably from the Turkish Yilduz that is better applied to α; but it has degenerated to Vildiur, and the Century Dictionary has Gildun, perhaps by a typographical error.
Bayer's Χορευτής πρώτη for δ, and Χορευτής δευτέρα for the adjoining ε, the First and the Second Dancer, were also general designations in which α, β, and the two stars γ were included.

ζ, 4.3, flushed white,

marking the junction of the handle with the bowl of the Little Dipper, is Alifāʽ al Farḳadain of some lists, η being Anwār al Farḳadain; but these titles certainly, and much better, belong to β and γ.
In China it was Kow Chin.
b, a 5th‑magnitude, has been mentioned as How Kung, the Empress.

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