{"id":108,"date":"2020-02-01T03:19:38","date_gmt":"2020-02-01T03:19:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pixsilver.com\/Sky_School\/?page_id=108"},"modified":"2020-02-01T03:30:44","modified_gmt":"2020-02-01T03:30:44","slug":"pegasus-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/pixsilver.com\/Sky_School\/pegasus-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Pegasus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With this article, I’ll start to introduce you to some of the more challenging constellations.\u00a0Some are made of mainly dim stars; others are quite small. All will reward your persistence with beauty and charm.\u00a0The three subjects of this article are one large dim constellation and two tiny charmers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pegasus, the winged horse, is easy to find but hard to see.\u00a0Sound paradoxical?\u00a0Here’s what I mean.\u00a0To find Pegasus, follow Cassiopeia to Andromeda, then find Andromeda’s “head” (the star Alpheratz).\u00a0You’ll see that it is one corner of the asterism known as “The Great Square”.\u00a0The other three corners of the Great square form Pegasus’ triangular wing.\u00a0Most of the rest of Pegasus is quite dim, and will be very hard to pick out from a suburban back yard, but you should be able to see it from a fairly dark park.\u00a0In the Fall, it is low in the East as the sky darkens after twilight, so it seems to be standing on its tail.\u00a0The arrow marked N on the diagram points to Polaris.\u00a0I’ve also left the wing tip of Cygnus (the Swan) to help you orient yourself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After finding Pegasus, Cygnus and nearby Aquila, look for a little kite shape.\u00a0That will be the Dolphin, Delphinus, definitely my favourite small constellation.\u00a0Once you’ve seen it, you’ll be drawn back to it again and again.\u00a0The small image gives a closer look, without the lines, turned about 90\u00b0 CCW.\u00a0The entire constellation can just fit into the field of view of seven power binoculars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lacerta the Lizard is another little charmer.\u00a0Both the Dolphin and the Lizard are very pretty in binoculars, with many fainter stars forming beautiful star fields. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pegasus is, of course, a creature from Greek mythology.\u00a0Perhaps due to its nearness to Andromeda, Pegasus has been drawn into Andromeda’s story.\u00a0In the original Greek mythology, though, Pegasus was in a different story, and helped Bellerophon slay the Chimera, part goat, part lion and part dragon, that was destroying a kingdom.\u00a0Bellerophon was sent to the kingdom by the king’s son-in-law, with a secret letter asking that Bellerophon be killed.\u00a0The son-in-law suspected his wife of being in love with Bellerophon.\u00a0Neither the king nor the son-in-law could kill Bellerophon outright, as he was the son of the king of Corinth, so he was asked to rid the kingdom of the deadly Chimera.\u00a0Bellerophon agreed, and began to learn all he could.\u00a0One told him that his only hope was to find and tame Pegasus. The goddess Athena gave him a magic bridle, and a child showed him where and how to find the winged horse.\u00a0Captured, Pegasus was tame and brave, and carried Bellerophon to win at battle with the Chimera.\u00a0The king, not pleased that Bellerophon had survived, set him other tasks.\u00a0Eventually, when he and Pegasus had succeeded at them all, the king relented and rewarded Bellerophon with his daughter and succession to his throne. The story ends with Bellerophon, forgetting that all he did was with the help of the gods, trying to fly to Mount Olympus.\u00a0Zeus sent a fly to bite Pegasus, and Bellerophon was thrown off.\u00a0The ancient Greeks sure liked a tragedy! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With this article, I’ll start to introduce you to some of the more challenging constellations.\u00a0Some are made of mainly dim stars; others are quite small. All will reward your persistence with beauty and charm.\u00a0The three subjects of this article are one large dim constellation and two tiny charmers. Pegasus, the winged horse, is easy to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"templates\/template-full-width.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-108","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pixsilver.com\/Sky_School\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pixsilver.com\/Sky_School\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pixsilver.com\/Sky_School\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pixsilver.com\/Sky_School\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pixsilver.com\/Sky_School\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pixsilver.com\/Sky_School\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109,"href":"https:\/\/pixsilver.com\/Sky_School\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/108\/revisions\/109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pixsilver.com\/Sky_School\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}