Delphinus, a very small
constellation located between
Pegasus and
Aquila, is a well known constellation with many stories surrounding it. It is located on the southern border of the
Milky Way, just north of the
celestial equator, in a portion of the sky known as the "Heavenly Waters" or just "the Water". It's best viewed between July and August, and contains stars of a very low magnitude, no stars as bright as 3rd magnitude.
It contains the
asterism of four stars known as "
Job's Coffin", most likely since Delphinus was interpreted as a whale in Chapter 41 of
Job, where God challenged
Job with, "Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?"
The Arabs knew the constellation as a camel, and named it
Al Ka'ud or "the Riding Camel", while the
Hebrews knew it as Jonah's big fish. Early Christians saw it as
the Cross of Jesus, and the Hindu as
Zizumara, a porpoise. To the Greek it was the Sacred Fish, and has been the sky emblem of
philanthropy.
There are two main stories that follow Delphinus, though. One talks of the great poet
Arion of
Lesbos, who was sailing from
Sicily to Corinth to visit his friend. He had acquired many treasures and wealth, causing his crew to throw him overboard in hopes to split it amongst themselves. It is said Arion was saved by a dolphin charmed by his music, while another story writes
Apollo called for a dolphin to save him. In either case, a dolphin brought Arion onto his back and brought him to the shores of
Corinth, and the image of the dolphin was put into the sky.
The other story tells of Poseidon/
Neptune who wished to make Amphitrite his wife. She was disgusted by this idea and fled to
Mount Atlas to preserve her virginity.
Poseidon sent out searchers for her, among them a dolphin. The dolphin discovered
Amphitrite and brought her (or talked her into going to) Poseidon, who married her and gave honor to the dolphin by putting his image into the sky.
Two of the stars located within the constellation are
Sualocin (Alpha Delphini) and
Rotanev (Beta Delphini), which is the latin name of the assistant director of the observatory that published a star catalog mentioning Delphinus in 1814,
Nicolaus Venator, spelled backwards.
Resouces:
http://www.winshop.com.au/annew/Delphinus.html
http://www.hawastsoc.org/deepsky/del/
http://www.cosmopolis.com/star-myths/delphinus.html
http://www.dibonsmith.com/del_con.htm