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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Learn the southern sky
From: Robin Stuart
Date: 2024 Sep 10, 05:50 -0700
From: Robin Stuart
Date: 2024 Sep 10, 05:50 -0700
There's a statement in an article on the Pleiades in November's Sky&Telescope that I found very strange. It is especially so as the author is a radio astronomer based in Australia.
"In the sky, the constellation of Orion lies just to the east of the Pleiades. When we look at them, Earth’s rotation makes it appear that Orion continues to chase the Pleiades. But in the Southern Hemisphere, Orion is upside-down, making it look less like a hunter. This may be why many people in Australia and New Zealand call Orion the Saucepan."
It's pretty obvious however that the main figure of Orion looks pretty much the same upside down or right way up and is just as striking in either hemisphere. The saucepan or cooking pot refers to an asterism formed by Orion's sword, belt and η Orionis with the sword forming the pot's handle.
Robin Stuart
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