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learnthesky.com and check out our online courses. Welcome! My name is Janine and in this
video we will be exploring the constellation called Auriga. Auriga is a
constellation that is easy to identify in the winter sky. It is surrounded by
many easy to find constellations, such as Orion, Taurus, and Gemini, and like all
other constellations Auriga has a variety of myths associated with it.
Auriga is best seen in the northern hemisphere during the winter months and
you can use the winter hexagon asterism to help you identify it. It is a large
constellation with a very easy to find pentagon shape, there's also a lot of
fuzzy patches of light within this pentagon shape, which are star clusters,
and these can be seen with the unaided eye, and also they're fascinating to look
at when you have a set of binoculars or telescope. Auriga is often identified as
a charioteer and it's one of the 48 constellations that Ptolmey himself
identified in his catalogue. The word Auriga is Latin for charioteer, and he's
often depicted as a goat herder as well. You can pretty much always see Auriga
depicted with a goat or two hanging over his shoulder. In ancient Greek mythology
Auriga is mostly identified with Erichthonius, king of Athens and son of the
fire god Hephaestus who is better known by his Roman name Vulcan. Erichthonius
was raised by the goddess Athena and during his upbringing he learned many
skills that most mortals would never have learned.
He was the first man to tame and harness four horses to a chariot, and imitating
the chariot of the Sun god. Zeus was impressed with him and placed him among
the stars after his death. In another myth Auriga represents Myrtilus, a
charioteer of King Oenomaus of Pisa and son of the god Hermes. The king of Pisa
had a beautiful daughter Hippodamia, but he didn't want to let go of her. He
challenged every one of her suitors to a glorious chariot race. The suitor and
Hippodamia were sped away on a chariot and if the king caught up with them the
suitor would be killed. A man named Pelops came to claim Hippodamia's hand,
and she fell in love with him on sight and begged Myrtilys is too betrayed a King
so Pelops would win the race. Myrtilus was in love with Hippodamia so he
tampered with the wheels of the Kings chariot and the king was thrown to his
death. Once Pelops won the race he cast his rival Myrtilus
into the sea. The betrayed Myrtilus cursed the house of Pelops before he
drowned and Myrtilus's father Hermes then placed his son among the stars.
Let's take a look at the pattern of Auriga and dive a little bit deeper into
what's located within this constellation pattern. So when we take a look at this
official star map of Auriga you can see the pentagon shape, and it almost has
like a little triangle hat on it, and maybe even a little nose, maybe you can
make out a face here with a little hats, um you can be creative as how you want
to see this, but often when I'm viewing in the sky I really just see this
pentagon shape, and the bright star of Capella is very easy to find. So when we
look at a star map here is where Auriga is located, it's also has a star that's
attached right to Taurus, so if you can find the Pleiadesm the v-shaped face of
Taurus, you should be able to find Auriga right next to it.
So let's get some practice with identifying this constellation of Auriga.
So before I point out the star pattern to you let's see if you can figure it
out for yourself. So you should obviously see the very bright star of Capella
that's sorted to the right hand close to the center side, and then right
underneath you should have three little stars underneath it, sometimes I call the
red white and blue stars, because that's what it looks like to me when I view it,
and then hopefully you can see that Pentagon shape. So here if we connect the
dots this is what Auriga looks like. So if we're gonna zoom out a little bit
let's see some other strategies we can use to help find it. So as you look at
this picture hopefully what will stand out to you is the little tiny star
cluster to the right-hand side of the screen. So that is the Pleiades, almost
looks like a little mini Dipper in the sky, but if you can find that move over
to the left side. Can you find the Pentagon shape? It's right here, okay, you
got those three little stars right underneath the bright star of Capella,
and again this is just the Pleiades, always very cool to see, it's one of my
favorite star clusters. Here's another picture of Auriga, and are you able to
find that Pentagon shape? Can you find Capella and can you find those three
little stars right underneath Capella? If so hopefully this is what you're finding.
So there is Auriga, and if we were to look at other points in the sky this is
what is surrounding it, so here we have Gemini, or part of Gemini, and then here
we have part of Orion, and then you can see this star right here connects with
Taurus. These are the horns of Taurus, and if we reverse back to this slide I'm
hoping you can identify these little patches, these fuzzy patches right here,
and these are different star clusters that you can identify within this
constellation.
Finally you can use the Winter Hexagon asterism to help you find the
constellation of Auriga. So whenever you're trying to find anything in the
winter sky Orion is the best constellation to start with. It's easy to
find, you can find the belt stars and if you use the four corner stars of Orion
it can help lead you up towards Auriga. So use the bottom left hand corner star,
move it up towards the right, and it will aim you right in the direction you want
to look at. So if we look at this large sky view, see if you can identify where
Orion is. It's kind of right in the center, or maybe a little bit below
center, and then use those two stars to help guide you where you need to go. If
you need a little bit assistance, there's where Orion is, use those stars
to help point you up towards Auriga. We're gonna take a look at another
constellation picture here, hopefully you can find Orion, then use Orion and move
up, here's Orion and then move up towards Auriga, and this pentagon shape
is just really obvious, it stands out, the stars are similar in terms of magnitude
and then Capella of course really stands out. We've got one more large sky view
here that I wanted to show you, and here you can see the Winter Hexagon, we come
down right around here, okay, there's that hexagon but really I just want to point
out all these constellations to you. So again we have Orion, okay, and then it
leads you right up here towards Auriga. You have Taurus,
Gemini, Canis Minor, and Canis Major. So again another practice shot, if you need
to press pause just kind of look at it for a while and see if you can get it
all go for it, and if we were to point all of these out this is what we would
be seeing. So again you want to use Orion to guide you up towards Auriga, but you
can also use Taurus really because if you can find the Pleiades you know it
can help lead you right to that V shaped face, and then moving up one
of the horns that'll take you right to Auriga as well. Now we'll take a look at
the bright stars of Auriga, and in reality Capella is the only really
bright star that stands out, out of all the ones in this constellation, and in
reality this is a star system of four stars. There are two binary pairs here,
two of them are yellow giant stars, which are looking at here, and then the other
two are red dwarf stars. It's estimated that Capella, this Capella
star system is 42 light-years from Earth. So here is our Pentagon shape again, and
that is where capella is. It is the 11th brightest star in the night sky, and the
third brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere. So if we look at
these pairs of binary stars we have Capella Aa, and Capella Ab, and they're
much larger than the Sun. They have exhausted their hydrogen cores and
they're becoming giant stars. This is our Sun, um for comparison in terms of
size, Capella Aa is estimated to be three times the mass of the Sun, where
Capella Ab is about two and a half times the mass
of the Sun, and then here are the pair of red dwarf stars that also orbit these
systems. Finally we'll review the celestial objects that sit within the
boundaries of Auriga, so as you notice this star map
take a look at where the celestial objects sit. They pretty much lie right
within the pentagon shape of this constellation. So if we take a look at
the picture can you see those fuzzy little patches within the constellation?
Here is where we can point it out, we have Messier 37, which is the richest of
the open star clusters here, and then M 36 and M 38. Nearby is a nebula, and this
is known as the Flaming Star Nebula, what a cool name and what a cool picture. If
we take a closer look at this, it is an emission and reflection nebula. So you
have the stars inside that are glowing that allow light to be given off, and
then you also have light reflecting off parts of the nebula as well. It's
estimated to be 1,500 light-years away and its size is about five light-years
across.
Let's review everything we've learned about Auriga so far. It is best seen in
the winter months in the northern hemisphere, and is classified as a
seasonal constellation. In its mythology it's often represented as a charioteer.
The best way to find Auriga is to use Orion and Taurus to help guide you to
this pentagon shaped star pattern. The brightest star of Auriga is called
Capella, and Capella is a fact a four star system with two yellow giant stars
that are closely orbiting each other, and two red dwarf stars as well.
The celestial objects that are easiest to see within the boundaries of this
constellation are Messier 36, 37, and 38, all of which are open star clusters. I
wish you luck finding this constellation. It really is one of the easiest to find
in the sky. I wanted to give a big thank you to David Cochrane for his amazing
pictures and constellation photographs, I really appreciate your support in this
endeavor, and we wanted to thank you for watching. Here at Learn the Sky we
encourage you to go outside, observe the stars, and share what you have learned
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