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A constellation formed by the Dutch
cartographer and astronomer Petrus Plancius, who took some
stars that Ptolemy had catalogued
in his Almagest as lying outside
Canis Major. It was first shown in 1592 on a celestial
hemisphere tucked into the
corner of Plancius’s first great terrestrial map. Columba
lies behind Argo Navis, the ship, which Plancius later renamed
Noah’s Ark on a globe of 1613.
Columba is supposed to represent
Noah’s dove, sent out from the Ark to find dry land, and
which returned with an olive branch in its beak, a sign that
the Flood was at last subsiding. But those familiar with the story of
Argo might instead think of
it as the dove sent by the Argonauts between the Clashing Rocks
to ensure their safe passage. The constellation’s
brightest star, third-magnitude Alpha Columbae, is called
Phact, from an Arabic name meaning ‘ring dove’.
Columba with an olive branch in its beak as shown in the Uranographia of Johann Bode.
In Chinese astronomy, six stars in Columba
depicted three generations of a family. Alpha and Epsilon
Columbae were Zhangren, Beta and Gamma (or possibly Lambda) were Zi, while Kappa and
Theta were Sun – respectively a farmer, his son and grandson. A
star in the north of Columba, possibly Nu-2 or Mu, was Shi, droppings from
the celestial toilet Ce in Lepus.
© Ian Ridpath. All rights reserved
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