A lion cub accompanying Leo, introduced by
the Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius in 1687. He formed it
from faint stars between Ursa Major and Leo that were not
previously part of any constellation. The brightest stars of
Leo Minor are of only fourth magnitude and there are no legends
associated with it.
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Leo Minor, the lion cub, lies immediately above the head of Leo itself. From the Uranographia of Johann Bode. For Hevelius’s original depiction, see here.
Curiously, Leo Minor has no star labelled
Alpha, although there is a Beta Leonis Minoris. This seems to
have resulted from an oversight on the part of the 19th-century
English astronomer Francis Baily. Hevelius did not label the
stars in any of his newly formed constellations, so 150 years
later Baily did it for him. In his British
Association Catalogue of 1845,
Baily assigned the letter Beta to the second-brightest star in
Leo Minor, but left the brightest star (46 Leonis Minoris)
unlettered by mistake.
There is further confusion, too. In his
book Star Names, Their Lore and
Meaning, R. H. Allen says that
Hevelius described the brightest star in Leo Minor as
Praecipua, meaning ‘chief’, which was later used as
a star name by Piazzi in his Palermo
Catalogue of 1814. However, I
am unable to find any such mention of “Praecipua”
in Hevelius’s catalogue, although the name does appear in
Piazzi’s catalogue. Allen also states that the star named
Praecipua by Piazzi was 46 LMi, but again he is wrong; the
American historian Morton Wagman has pointed out to me that the
star so named was actually 37 LMi, which Piazzi wrongly
assessed as brighter than 46 LMi.
In Chinese astronomy, Beta LMi and three
other stars in Leo Minor formed Neiping, the court of a mediator or magistrate.
© Ian Ridpath. All rights reserved
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