Where am I?

[MargaritaMc]

Mmm, I'd not noticed that, Stephen. Yes, would one normally see the word 'interpretation' in this context?
Ann says that her software (which is an excellent program, but I can't remember its name at the moment!) says definitely that Betelgeuse has a companion (she said in her recent post), so one would think that the situation has been clarified, but not written up in Wikipedia. I'll wait to see if she has any more information.

Margarita

[Ann]

Beyond wrote:
Odysseus first met Hercules in the underworld.

He did? Where did you read that?

Ann

http://suite101.com/article/greek-myth- ... ld-a198557

I stand corrected, Beyond! It appears that Odysseus did meet Hercules in the underworld. Oh well, Hercules is not as famous a constellation as Orion, and Orion is the one I was looking for!

Ann

[Ann]

This is what my software says about the multiple nature of Betelgeuse:

This system had been previously identified as multiple in the Hipparcos Input Catalog

My software also quotes Bright Star Catalog, which in turn quoted Margarita Karovska to say that Betelgeuse has three physical companions - that is, companions that really orbit Betelgeuse - and one optical companion, which doesn't.

WDS, the Wide Double Star catalog, described Betelgeuse as a double star and wrote about Betelgeuse and its optical companion:

WDS 05552+0724 (that would be the coordinates)
Discoverer's ID: SLE 831AG
Magnitudes 0.9 and 12.8

There is also some info on separation and position angles, but since I can't copy any information from my software but have to write it all down letter for letter and figure for figure, I won't be giving you that information.

Ann

[MargaritaMc]

So clearly Wikipedia is way out of date here. I have just read the article on Betelgeuse on the website of the American Association of Variable Star Observers and they refer to Karovska's findings as authoritative.
http://www.aavso.org/vsots_alphaori

This thread is SO educational!
Margarita

[Beyond]

I stand corrected, Beyond! It appears that Odysseus did meet Hercules in the underworld. Oh well, Hercules is not as famous a constellation as Orion, and Orion is the one I was looking for!

Ann

Well... in my case, i knew about the Hercules consternation w-a-y before i ever found out about the Orion consternation.
I found out about it from a Hercules movie. I think it was the one with Lou Ferrigno as Hercules.
Actually, i don't see any constellation as being famous.

Yeah, i know how to spell constellation, but when they're in a puzzle... they're consternations.

[MargaritaMc]

I don't know whether this will be immediately obvious or totally impossible!

It's a star and the constellation that it is in. The clue has both, but vice versa.

Margarita

PS. Err, a bit of punning is involved, but I don't think so much as to make it impossible for non-native English speakers - especially not the amazingly able persons who frequent this thread!

[Beyond]

ha-ha, neither one for me, Margarita.
The consternation is Canes Venatici... The main star is Mira, the first variable star discovered and the prototype of it's class.

[stephen63]

ha-ha, neither one for me, Margarita.
The consternation is Canes Venatici... The main star is Mira, the first variable star discovered and the prototype of it's class.

Close!
How about Cetus and Mira?

[Ann]

Consternations, Beyond!

I was asleep when Stephen and you solved the mystery, but I wouldn't have been very successful myself. When I first saw Margarita's post, I started thinking about cosmic mirrors. The whale didn't even ring a bell, although there are several goodies in the constellation of Cetus, the Whale.

Ann

[Beyond]

Dagnabit I just went back and checked and there isn't any Canes Venatici there. It's Cetus. So where the HE double hockey sticks did i get Canes Venatici from I even have it as being listed as a double galaxy. Well, don't know what happened. It couldn't be from cutting grass in the sun.

Ann, you missed the whale I caught it, but reeled in something different, somehow. But stephen63 got the whole anchalotta!

[MargaritaMc]

Congratulations!
Over to you Stephen.
- oh, and you nearly got the whole answer, Beyond. But I'd said that BOTH the star and the consternation /constellation were in the clue!
Margarita

PS. Beyond, Canes Venatici is the constellation that has the Whirlpool Galaxy in it. I've just discovered that its alpha star is called Charles' Heart, named after Charles II of England by Halley. That's the King who had Nell Gwynn as his mistress. Oh, and came after England's interlude of sort-of republicanism with Cromwell.

[Ann]

Cor Caroli, the heart of king Charles, is a BLUE star! It has a negative B-V index!

Ann

[Beyond]

Nothing like being blue, to perk Ann right up

[MargaritaMc]

COR! More info on this TRUE BLUE STAR from Kaler on Alpha Canum Venaticorum
Cor Caroli, the Alpha star. The telescope quickly reveals a binary, two stars 19 seconds of arc apart. In keeping with tradition, the western of the two is Alpha-1, the eastern Alpha-2.

The system is dominated by Alpha-2, a peculiar white class A (A0) dwarf with a temperature of 10,300 that at magnitude 2.90 far outshines Alpha-1, a sixth magnitude (5.60) class F (F0) dwarf. From a distance of 110 light years, Alpha-2 shines with the light of 83 Suns, which leads to a radius 2.6 times solar and a mass of 2.8 solar. Cooler (estimated at around 6500 Kelvin, anomalously cool for the class) and far fainter, Alpha-1 glows at only 5 solar luminosities, its mass just 1.6 times that of our Sun.

Of greatest interest, Alpha-2 is a "magnetic star," possessing one of the strongest known magnetic fields among otherwise normal hydrogen-fusing dwarf stars.(Margarita note: aka Main Sequence) The Sun has an overall magnetic field that is only a few times stronger than Earth's; Cor Caroli's, on the other hand, has one more than 1500 times stronger than does our planet. The star also has a weird chemical composition in which elements such as silicon, mercury, and rarer elements such as europium are locally enormously enhanced. The strengths vary with time as the star rotates with a period of 5.5 days (which is more or less consistent with the observed rotation velocity), revealing some kind of spottedness. The magnetic field is probably responsible for helping to redistribute the elements in the star's atmosphere, apparently elevating some to the surface, while depleting others. The origins of the fields of such stars are not understood.

Confusion exists about which King Charles it was named after. Kaler and others say

Cor Caroli, which means "Charles' Heart" in honor of England's King Charles II,

But Wikipedia reports

In the western world the star had no name until the 17th century, when it was named Cor Caroli, which means "Charles's Heart". There has been some uncertainty whether it was named in honour of King Charles I of England, who was executed in 1649 during the English Civil War, or to his son, Charles II, who restored the English monarchy to the throne in 1660.

The name was coined in 1660 by Sir Charles Scarborough, physician to Charles II, who claimed the star seemed to shine exceptionally brightly on the night of Charles II's return to England.

In Star Names, R.H. Allen claimed that Scarborough suggested the name to Edmund Halley and intended it to refer to Charles II. However, Robert Burnham Jr. notes that "the attribution of the name to Halley appears in a report published by J. E. Bode at Berlin in 1801, but seems to have no other verification". In Star Tales, Ian Ridpath points out that the name's first appearance on a star map was in the 1673 chart of Francis Lamb, who labelled it Cor Caroli Regis Martyris ("the heart of Charles the martyred king"), clearly indicating that it was seen as referring to Charles I.

I confess to preferring the attribution to Charles II than to his father. Charles II was a lovable rogue who had over a dozen mistresses and oodles of (acknowledged) illegitimate children! He fits the strange magnetism of the star Cor Caroli better than the rigid but righteous Charles I.

Nell_Gwyn_one_of_the_mistresses_of_Charles_II.jpeg

When I read about the Restoration times in England it makes nowadays seem so very straight laced and proper indeed...


Margarita

[Moonlady]

Anyone in the the mood to solve a puzzle?

Here is a new one:

When I spread my wings and fly,
I open my eyes to the sky,
there is so much to find,
what is above and beyond clouds.

What and where am I?

[Beyond]

Well, you sound like you're flying in a specially modified plane with a big door that opens so you can look out into space, but i don't remember what it is called, or looks for.

[Ann]

Where are you? My goodness! Give me another clue, please. Okay, though. You spread your wings and fly - that suggests something in the heavens that has wings and can fly. How about constellation Musca, the Fly? Of course there is also Cygnus, the Swan, Aquila, the Eagle, Corvus, the Crow, Pavo, the Peacock, Tucana the Toucan, Dorado, the Swordfish - okay, no, thatʻs not right. Still, though, am I close?

Ann

[geckzilla]

Sounds like a terrestrial migratory bird to me.

[Moonlady]

Well, you sound like you're flying in a specially modified plane with a big door that opens so you can look out into space, but i don't remember what it is called, or looks for.

Yes, that is right!

Now the proper name please!

[bystander]

SOFIA - Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy

[Beyond]

What bystander said. He knows all that kinda stuff.

[bystander]

I just knew the name of the airborne observatory you were describing, beyond.

[Beyond]

I just knew the name of the airborne observatory you were describing, beyond.

EXACTLY!

[Ann]

Let's try this again, shall we?

They say I am the mother of the great light and the small light. They are wrong about the great light, but they are right about the small light!

Ann

[Ann]

Another clue, perhaps?

I am not the mother of the world, but I have done it some significant force-feeding!

Ann