The sun passes through Sagittarius, the ninth zodiac sign, around January first. It has many things to interest astronomers. Messier, the French astronomer, catalogued fifteen objects, the most interesting being the Lagoon Nebula and the Omega Nebula. The finest view of the Milky Way is the great Sagittarius star cloud, just north of gamma Sagittarius.
Sagittarius, the archer, was depicted as a centaur named Chiron. A centaur is a mythological creature half man and half horse. Though we have no evidence there was much of an overabundance of them, there appears to have been at least one mythological family of centaurs. The centaurs, except for Chiron, were known for their generally bad nature.
At the wedding feast of Pirithous, prince of Thessaly (Marathon, Greece), and Hippodamia, one of the centaurs drank too much and made a pass at the bride. Dreadful violence ensued, many centaurs were slain.
Chiron, unlike the other centaurs, was famous for gentleness and his knowledge of music. A prophet, a doctor of medicine, and a poet, he was also an expert archer. He taught mankind the use of plants and medicinal herbs, and instructed the greatest heroes of his age in all the polite arts. He taught Aesculapius physics, Apollo music, Hercules astronomy, and tutored Achilles, Jason and Aeneas.
According to Ovid, he was mistakenly shot by Hercules at the river Evenus for offering an indignity to his newly married bride. The arrow Hercules aimed at the centaur had been dipped in the blood of the Lernaean sea snake Hydra, rendering the wound incurable even by the father of medicine himself. Chiron (Saggitarius) begged Jupiter to deprive him of immortality if that might relieve him of his excruciating pains. Jupiter granted his request, yet still gave him a place among the constellations. Sagittarius’ arrow is always aimed at the treacherous Scorpion’s heart.
As this constellation appears on the ancient zodiacs of Egypt, Dendera, Esne and India, it seems conclusive that the Greeks only borrowed the figure though they invented the fable. This is true of many of the ancient constellations; hence the jargon of the conflicting accounts which have descended to us. Some Christians assign Sagittarius to St. Matthew the Apostle, and others to Ismael, son of Abraham and Hagar. The Chinese call it Seih Nuh, meaning firewood and later as Jin Ma the manhorse. In the Hebrew zodiac, Sagittarius is assigned to Benjamin.
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| Symbol | Sgr |
| Right Ascension |
06:50
|
| Declination | -28 |
| Diameter (°) | 19 |
| Area (square °) | 867 |
| Opposition |
Jul 03
|
| Size Rank |
15th
|
| Brightness Rank |
12nd
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| Genitive | Saggitarii |
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