Profile / Characteristics
| English translation | Latin declination and pronunciations | Size/ °² | # stars (visible) |
| the Dragon | Draco – DRAY-co Draconis – druh-CONE-iss | 1083 | 214 |
Main Star (brightest one):
| Designation | HIP number | name in IAU-CSN | brightness |
| α Dra | HIP 68756 | Thuban | 3.68 mag (V) |
Our (modern) Explanation
Draco is an ancient Greek constellation drawn as “the snake encirceling the navel of the world”, namely the celestial pole (actually, both of them: the equatorial pole as well as the ecliptic pole. It is the celestial parallel to Apollo’s python who is burried in Delphi and makes this place prone to oracles. The python of Delphi is depicted on gadgets called “omphaloi”, navel stones, in the same way as the dragon in the sky.
Ancient Globes
Farnese Globe
Kugel Globe
Mainz Globe
broken (hole in the marble)
Ancient Lore & Meaning
Aratus
Reference:
English translation by Douglas Kidd (1997).
Aratus: Phaenomena, Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries, Series Number 34
Pseudo-Eratosthenes
the snake is a depiction of the animal that guarded the golden apples for Hera
References:
French translation by:
Jordi Pàmias i Massana and Arnaud Zucker (2013). Ératosthènes de Cyrène – Catastérismes, Les Belles Lettres, Paris
English version in:
Robin Hard (2015): Eratosthenes and Hyginus Constellation Myths with Aratus’s Phaenomena, Oxford World’s Classics
Early Modern Interpretation
Contemporary
As one of their first tasks in the 1920s, the newly founded International Astronomical Union (IAU) established constellation standards. The Belgian astronomer Eugène Delporte was assigned to the task to define borders of constellations parallel to lines of declination and right ascension. They were accepted by the General Assembly in 1928. The standardized names and abbreviations had already been accepted in 1922 and 1925.
