Johannes Hevelius, the Polish astronomer
who introduced this constellation in 1687, continued to measure
star positions with the naked eye long after other astronomers
had adopted telescopic sights. The French astronomer Pierre
Gassendi wrote that Hevelius had the ‘eyes of a
lynx’ and this constellation can be seen as an attempt to
demonstrate that. Hevelius wrote in his Prodromus Astronomiae that
anyone who wanted to observe it would need the eyesight of a
lynx. Lynx fills a blank area of sky between Ursa Major and
Auriga that is surprisingly large – greater in area than
Gemini, for example – but apart from one
third-magnitude star it contains no stars brighter than fourth
magnitude.
On his star atlas Firmamentum Sobiescianum
Hevelius called the constellation Lynx, but in the accompanying
star catalogue it is listed as “Lynx, sive Tigris”
(Lynx or Tiger). However, the illustration he
presented does not look much like either animal.
It is not known whether Hevelius had in
mind the mythological character Lynceus who enjoyed the keenest
eyesight in the world – he was even credited with the
ability to see things underground. Lynceus and his twin brother
Idas sailed with the Argonauts. The pair came to grief when
they fell out with those other mythical twins, Castor and
Polydeuces (see Gemini).
© Ian Ridpath. All rights reserved
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