Star Tales – Columba

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.