Snakes! Why'd It Have To Be Snakes?

.....One of the largest constellations in the summer sky is actually two constellations. In another sense, it could be thought of three constellations. Technically, the constellation of Ophiuchus is the Serpent Bearer, and the constellation of Serpens, the serpent that he his carrying/wrestling with. Here is a map of the constellation:

.....And below is the representation of this constellation as Johann Bayer drew it in the star atlas Uranometria, in case my description of the constellation didn't make sense to you ...

When illustrating a figure named "man wrestling giant serpent" it is a wise artistic move NOT to show from the front.

.....which would be reasonable, as while most constellations at least make some sort of surface level of sense (the hunter, the scorpion, the northern crown, the swan, ...) what the heck is up with "the guy holding snake"? When does that make sense?

.....Here's where the problem comes in. Suppose that it is not a good night, and the limiting magnitude is 2.00. (This would be a really bad night in the country, but if you live somewhere with a lot of streetlights, this could come into play as a bright night or if that part of the sky is over some of these lights.) In that case, you see nothing in this area.

.....With a little better sky, and a limiting magnitude of 4.00, at least the "house" shape of Ophiuchus shows up. Serpens is largely invisible yet, and since there are no real patterns in Serpens, just a "scraggly line of stars", this constellation is still invisible. (On our next pass through the constellations, next year, this does at least give us bright stars to allow us to start finding all of the bright globular clusters in these two constellations.)

.....We need to be able to see all the way down to fifth magnitude in order to make out the patterns of Ophiuchus and Serpens. On the map at the beginning, for this constellation I had to show stars down to sixth magnitude in order for the patterns to be apparent.

.....All of this can distract from the basic oddness of the constellations themselves. I'm not referring to Serpens being split in half, with Serpens Caput (the head) and Serpens Cauda (the tail), but the story of the constellation itself. The constellation group seems to be so old that there is not "a" story associated with the stars, but a "well, I guess it means..." explaining the large pattern of a guy wrestling with a snake. The most common explanation is that the star group represents Aesculapius, the son of Apollo who became so proficient at medicine that he could bring the dead back to life. (One of his subjects was Orion the Hunter, or this could be a Classical retconn to account for the two different legends of Orion's death.) This, as one might guess, is one of the fast ways to land you on the gods' &^%$ list, so he was immediately struck down and placed in the heavens. The serpent has represented the medical profession (including the intertwined serpents of the Caduceus) because the ancients saw the snake shedding its skin and got the idea that the snake could therefore regenerate its way to immortality, a feat actually reserved for Timelords. There are many, many other myths that have been attached to these stars from " Hey, maybe it's Izhdubar opposing Tiamat" to "Hey, let's change it to Saint Benedict among the thorns".

.....I was going to now try and see if I could find some other pattern among the stars that might be more recognizable than, well, something that no one has recognized, when Anne Marie walked behind me and asked, "Which constellation is the frog?"

.....Frog? What the heck are you talking ...

.....Well, blast.

.....Lastly Ophiuchus is actually the thirteenth constellation of the Zodiac, as the path of the Sun crosses that little leg sticking out of the bottom. Ophiuchus actually contains the Sun from November 30th until December 17th. Scorpius only contains the Sun from November 22nd until November 29th. (Yes, neither of these match up with what the columns in the newspapers say: those are based entirely on the Babylonian religion of 2500 years ago, and have slightly less reliability than, say, Charlie Sheen.