CORVUS
The Crow
(Cro)


Generalities: it is a small constellation situated in the southern sky, but at latitudes not too far from the celestial equator. The transit at midnight takes place in April.

Origins and mythology: the Crow belongs to the original Ptolemaic constellations. From the mythological point of view different traditions appear, all of them associated  with the divinity of Apollo. According to the first interpretation it represents the crow  Apollo sent to spy Coronide, with whom he had fallen in love. Even though the crow had brought a bad judgment on the woman, the god married her and from their love the great doctor Esculapio was born. According to another interpretation, it represents the Crow that had to quench  Apollo’s thirst, but that carried out its task with great delay and for this reason it was set in the  sky next to the constellation of the Cup, which it would have had to use to gather the  water necessary to the god.

Stars: the Crow shows three stars of moderate brightness, under  magnitude 3. A fourth star  has a magnitude value of 3.00. The three brightest stars (beta, gamma, delta)are named respectively  Krazes , Minkar and Algorab. All of them  are included between 100 and the 150 light-years.
 

Table of stars brighter than magnitude 3.5
 
Star Proper name Magnitude Spectrum Colour Distance (light-years) Notes
Gamma Minkar 2.59 B8 white 185
Beta Kraz 2.65 G5 yellow 290
Delta Algorab (or Algorel) 2.95 B9 white 117
Epsilon 3.00 K2 orange 105

Other objects: in the Crow some weak galaxies are found, among which two galaxies linked to each other, called  “spar galaxies" for their form.


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