Starship Asterisk*

things are a bit fish-y? Under water?

Moonlady wrote:things are a bit fish-y? Under water?

Under water? No, in the sky!

Ann

new guess: all the constellations that are named after animals???
but they are not blue

Here's another clue:
Getting easy now, isn't it?

You are right, though, that we need constellations, and animals are somehow involved. But the constellations in themselves are not the answer, and indeed, they are not blue!

Ann

you want me to read you what in your horoscope is written in the month of blue pisces?

Good that you got the things about pisces! But the pisces are not the answer. You are right that astrology is somehow involved. The answer(s) to the puzzle, however, is (are) all astronomical!

Ann

Okay, one more clue. We start from something astrological. Constellations are involved. What could this mean in that context?

Ann

I leave others to find out about the important details...I'm going to bed, was awake over 22 hours...good night.

Here's one more clue.

The ram is number one, but the ram is not the answer!

Ann

Another clue. I said that there are two answers to the puzzle that are both equally good. So there are two different objects that are both the right answer. But only one of the two objects can say, Hey, I'm pretty, I have meteors in my hair!

Ann

Eta Aquariids?
Aurigids?

Eta Aquariids is almost right. One of the two objects I'm asking for has meteors in its hairs, and Eta Aquariids is indeed the name of the meteors. But what is the name of the object? And how does it fit my puzzle?

Ann

Hmmmmmm
Eta Aquarids are associated with dense patches of debris left by Halley's comet
Aristotle used the derived word komts, "wearing long hair," as a noun meaning "comet."
So, is it Halley's comet?

Ann wrote:Eta Aquariids is almost right. One of the two objects I'm asking for has meteors in its hairs, and Eta Aquariids is indeed the name of the meteors. But what is the name of the object? And how does it fit my puzzle?

By the time they become meteors, they aren't in H*****'s hair anymore. The hair contains meteoroids, like cosmic dandruff...

Cosmic dandruff. Dats a good one!!

stephen63 wrote:Hmmmmmm
Eta Aquarids are associated with dense patches of debris left by Halley's comet
Aristotle used the derived word komts, "wearing long hair," as a noun meaning "comet."
So, is it Halley's comet?

No, the answer is much simpler! And the object really doesn't have any hair. The Eta Aquarids should originate from the direction of....

It is SO simple!!!

Ann

(Hey, I like the cosmic dandruff bit, but I don't think that either of the objects of mine need to stock up on Head and shoulders...)

Ahhh. I couldn't see the forest for the trees!

Aquarius

Aquarius is correct, but it is not the FULL answer!

The meteor storm is called the ETA Aquarids, so the object is...? (Please note that I didn't say that the constellation was the answer!)

C'mon, stephen63, I've got to go to bed now! Tell me the answer before I turn off my computer!

Ann

Okay, I'm off to bed now. Stephen63, when you write down the right answer - and I know that you know what it is - then you can start thinking of the next puzzle for us Asteriskians.

I'll explain my puzzle tomorrow! Good night now!

Ann

Eta Aquarii
Now go to bed!

Edit: I should have known. A blue main sequence star.

Indeed, stephen63, the answer is Eta Aquarii. But the answer is Lambda Librae, too!

When I constructed my puzzle, I didn't know the answer to it myself. I knew I was looking for 7/11 in the sky, and I knew that it wasn't a date. It would be 7/11 in the zodiac.

The word zodiac originates from a Greek term that means "circle of little animals".

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=zodiac wrote:
zodiac (n.)
late 14c., from Old French zodiaque, from Latin zodiacus "zodiac," from Greek zodiakos (kyklos) "zodiac (circle)," literally "circle of little animals," from zodiaion, diminutive of zoion "animal" (see zoo).

In Swedish, the zodiac is sometimes called "djurkretsen", the animal circle. That is why I used a picture of "the animal kingdom" to illustrate the zodiac.

The reason why I used the zodiac at all was that I wanted something where "eleven" would be a relevant term. There are twelve signs in the zodiac, twelve constellations. So if I used 7/11 in relation to the zodiac, it would be the seventh star in the eleventh constellation! Only later did it occur to me that it could also be the eleventh star in the seventh constellation.

Okay, but which constellation would be the eleventh one? Or the seventh one?
According to wikipedia, Aries the Ram is the first constellation of the zodiac. Also according to wikipedia, the sign of Aires begins in March. Apparently March was the first month of the new year for astrologers of classical antiquity. Right now, by the way, it is the sign of Pisces, which is the twelfth and last of the signs!


In the picture above, you can see that Libra is the seventh constellation and Aquarius is the eleventh one.

Okay. So now I needed the eleventh star of Libra and the seventh star of Aquarius. How could I know what was the seventh or the eleventh star of any constellation? I started from the Greek alphabet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_designation wrote:

A Bayer designation is a stellar designation in which a specific star is identified by a Greek letter, followed by the genitive form of its parent constellation's Latin name. The original list of Bayer designations contained 1,564 stars.

Most of the brighter stars were assigned their first systematic names by the German astronomer Johann Bayer in 1603, in his star atlas Uranometria (named after Urania, the Greek Muse of Astronomy, along with Uranus, the Greek god of the sky and heavens). Bayer assigned a lower-case Greek letter, such as alpha (α), beta (β), gamma (γ), etc., to each star he catalogued, combined with the Latin name of the star’s parent constellation in genitive (possessive) form.

As you can see, η (eta) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet. So η Aqr, Eta Aquarii, would be the seventh star of the eleventh constellation of the zodiac! And λ (lambda) is the eleventh letter, so λ Lib, Lambda Librae, would be the eleventh star of the seventh constellation.

So now I had to look up Eta Aquarii and Lambda Librae. To my delight, both turned out to be blue main sequence stars! That certainly wasn't something I had planned at all.

And I learned about the Eta Aquarids in the process. I had never paid any attention to them at all. Read about them here, too.

Ann

Ann, it looks like you didn't know where you were until you got there, and then you found that you could be in two places. You must have been 'beside' yourself in happiness when you discovered that you could be at two blue stars at the same time Decisions, decisions.

Annwikipedia

Goodness me!

I edited my post once, because there were some mistakes in it. When I thought I was done correcting the errors, I submitted the edited version. When I took a look at my post again, my name had changed from "Ann" to "Annwikipedia"!!!

I certainly didn't do that on purpose! But sometimes when I edit a post, something from the post is repeated at the very end of the new, edited version. I wonder if this is a glitch in my Opera browser, of if it has happened to the rest of you, too.

Ann (not wikipedia)

You've got an Opera browser The answer is simple At the end of your post... the fat lady sang off key.

O.K. A verysimple puzzle.

I'm bigger than a bread box
Smaller than a star
Hesiod described us
Guess who we are

I'm in here somewhere: http://htwins.net/scale2/