Auriga 7

Capella (α Aurigae) est l'étoile la plus brillante de la constellation du Cocher, et la sixième étoile la plus brillante du ciel nocturne.
Capella signifie « chevrette » en latin, l'étoile représentant traditionnellement la chèvre que le cocher porte sur le dos, ou bien parfois l'épaule gauche du cocher de la constellation éponyme. Parmi les étoiles les plus brillantes, Capella est l'étoile la plus proche du pôle nord céleste (l'étoile polaire paraît bien pâle en comparaison), et jouit ainsi depuis longtemps d'un rôle très important dans l'ensemble des mythologies.
L'une des principales caractéristiques de Capella est qu'il s'agit d'une étoile double, une binaire spectroscopique, composée de deux géantes jaunes de type spectral G. Chacune de ces deux étoiles est environ 10 fois plus grosse que le Soleil et 50 à 80 fois plus lumineuse. Elles sont séparées l'une de l'autre par 90 millions de kilomètres environ (0,6 ua), avec une période orbitale de 104,02 jours. Capella est également une source de rayons X, probablement due à une activité magnétique de surface sur l'une des composantes du système.
Cette étoile binaire centrale possède également un compagnon beaucoup moins lumineux, qui est lui aussi une étoile double, composé de deux naines rouges de type M, orbitant à environ une année-lumière du couple principal.
Située à seulement 42 années-lumière, Capella est l'une des 100 étoiles les plus proches de la Terre.

β Aurigae, traditionally named Menkalinan (also written as Menkarlina), is a white subgiant star approximately 85 light-years away in the constellation Auriga.

Menkalinan
The name Menkalinan is shortened from the Arabic منكب ذي العنان mankib ðī-l-‘inān "shoulder of the rein-holder".
Beta Aurigae is a white star of spectral class A , similar to Vega, Denebola, and Sirius. Beta Aurigae is also a subgiant star, which means it has started to change from burning hydrogen to burning helium, has moved off the main sequence, and is slowly expanding into a giant star like Aldebaran.
Beta Aurigae is actually a ternary (triple) star system. The two brightest components, Beta Aurigae A and B, are both white subgiants. Star B is about the same mass and radius as A. Beta Aurigae A and B form an eclipsing spectroscopic binary; the combined apparent magnitude varies over a period of 3.96004 days between +1.85 and +1.93, as every 47.5 hours one of the stars partially eclipses the other from Earth's perspective. The third star, Beta Aurigae C, is a red dwarf star that is far below naked-eye visibility. It is about 330 AU from the AB pair.
Beta Aurigae is believed to be a stream star member of the Ursa Major Moving Group. It is known as 五車三 (the Third Star of the Five Chariots) in Chinese.

Auriga 6

Is an ancient Northern Hemisphere constellation featuring one of the brightest stars in the heavens: Capella. Auriga is usually pictured as a charioteer; the youth Auriga wields a whip in one hand and holds a goat (Capella) and her two kids in the other.
Capella means "small goat". A previous name of this star was Amalthea, which was the goat that suckled the baby Zeus. There are many ancient stories relating to the star, as every culture in antiquity found a place for this bright companion to Taurus, its closest neighbour. To find Auriga, first locate Orion. Taurus is to the right (west) and just above these two, much higher in the sky, you will see Capella. While this star marks roughly the mid-point of the constellation, north to south, most of the more interesting aspects of the constellation are found to the south of the star, all the way down to El Nath, the second brightest star (gamma Aurigae) which is actually shared with Taurus, and also known as beta Tauri.
Auriga's stars are fairly bright; five are second magnitude or brighter. Alpha Aurigae (Capella) is the sixth brightness star, at a visual magnitude of 0.08. The star is 43.5 light years away, and is about ten times the size of our Sun.
Capella's visual magnitude is really the combined brightnesses of the primary star and a close companion, that revolves every 104 days. There is another companion, much fainter: a red dwarf which is itself a close binary.

Binary stars in Auriga.
Zeta Aurigae is an eclipsing binary; an orange giant primary with a blue companion that orbits every 972 days (2.7 years).
Theta Aurigae is visible in large scopes: 2.6, 7.1; PA 300º and separation 3.6".
Omega Aurigae: 5.0, 8.0; PA 360º, separation 5.4".
14 Aurigae is a multiple double, visible in larger scopes.
The primary is 5.1, with three companions: B (11.1, 352º, 11"), C (7.4, 225º, 15") and D (10.4, 356º, 7.7").

Variable stars in AurigaThere are a half-dozen variable stars in this constellation which are visible in small scopes, most of them of very small variance.
Epsilon Aurigae is an unusual variable which normally maintains a visual magnitude of 2.92 but every 9892 days (27 years) dips down to 3.83.
The next scheduled dip is in the late summer of 2010. The eclipse phase lasts about a year.
R Aurigae is the only Mira-type variable of interest. Normally a rather faint 6.7, every 457.5 days it takes a nose-dive to 13.9. The best time to view this feature is in late November of 2001, when it should be near the transit.

Auriga 5

Auriga is one of the oldest constellations going back to the Babylonian times. It has always been associated with a charioteer.

The Babylonians, Greeks, Arabs, and Chinese have associated Auriga with a chariot.

According to one Greek myth, Hera had a child who was born lame. Disgusted, she threw him out of Heaven to Earth, where he became the famous lame smith, Hephaestus, who fashioned beautiful ornaments and armor for the gods. He is also the smith who came to Orion's rescue after Orion had been blinded. It is said that because he was lame he invented the chariot so that he might get around better.

Son of Helios (the sun god) and Hera (Zeus' wife).

Auriga 4

Capella
Alpha Aurigae



Distance (Light Years) 42.2 ± 0.5
Visual Magnitude 0.08
Color (B-V) 0.8

Names For This Star

The name Capella is Latin and means "The Little She-goat."
The star is also known as Alhajoth, an Arabicization of the Greek name of the nymph Aige, who in some versions of the myths of Zeus, is named as one of the nursemaids who tended the infant god on the island of Crete, where he was being hidden from the threat of his monstrous Titan father, Cronos.

Description of the Star

Burnham describes Capella as the sixth brightest star in the sky, and the nearest star to the pole of the stars that are first magnitude or brighter.
A Pair of Giants

Capella is a quadruple system consisting of two giants and two dwarves. The A and B components are a close binary consisting of a yellow G5IIIe giant having 7.2 times the diameter of the sun 2.67 times the mass and a yellow G0III giant having 5.6 times the diameter of the sun and 2.55 times the mass.
The two stars individually have 80 and 50 times the luminosity of the sun. The data of the The Bright Star Catalog seem to indicate that the G5 star is the brighter of the pair.

The spectral types imply temperatures near that of the sun, 5600 K for the G0 star and 5000 K for the G5.

The two stars are separated by about 65 million miles and revolve with a period of 104 days.

The Red Dwarves

The remaining pair of stars in the system are two red dwarves of spectral type M1 and M5 designated as Capella H. These stars appear at Visual Magnitude 10.0 and 13.7 respectively. The separation between the stars is 2 sec of arc, corresponding to a projected distance of 26 A.
The pair of dwarves appear separated from the AB pair by 12 minutes of arc, a projected distance of at least 0.17 ly.

The dwarves are small stars having approximately 40% and 10% of the mass of the sun respectively with 60% and 30% of the sun's diameter. The stars have respective luminosities of about 1.4% of the sun and 0.05%.

Menkalinan
Beta Aurigae



Distance (Light Years) 82.1 ± 1.6
Visual Magnitude 1.9
Color (B-V) 0.03

Names For This Star

This star is also known as Menkalina. The star name derives from the Arabic name Al Mankib dhi'l Inan, "The Shoulder of the One Who Holds the Reins," that is, "The Shoulder of the Charioteer."
Description of the Star

The Menkalinan spectrum is characteristic of a white A2IV subgiant star.
Menkalinan is actually a multiple star system. According to Burnham the A and B components are almost identical in size and spectrum and revolve with a period of 3.96 days. The orbit appears almost edge-on to the earth. So one of the two stars eclipses the other twice each revolution.

During an eclipse, about 25% of the diameter of one star is covered by the other, and the brightness of the pair of stars decreases by about 0.09 magnitudes.

According to Burnham, the diameter of each star is about 2.6 times that of the sun. One star is about 2.35 times as massive as the sun, while the other star contains about 2.25 solar masses.

There is a third component to the system, Menkalinan C, of Visual Magnitude 14.1. The C component is separated from A and B by 13 sec of arc which corresponds to a projected distance of 330 AU or more than 8 times the radius of the solar system out to Pluto.

Auriga 3

Auriga
The Charioteer



The Brighter Stars of Auriga
Capella


Menkalinan


The Story
The Lame King

The Charioteer may be the legendary King Erichthonius of Athens. He was the son of Hephaestus, the God of Fire, whom the Romans called Vulcan. Like his father Erichthonius was lame.

Erichthonius was raised by Athene, the patron goddess of Athens, and from her acquired the skill of taming horses. It was he who first harnessed four horses to a chariot, in imitation of the Chariot of the Sun. For this he was honored by Zeus by being placed among the stars as the constellation of Auriga.

The Charioteer - A Bum Rap

Others say that The Charioteer represents Hippolytus, the son of the very same Theseus of Athens who sailed to Crete, ventured the Labyrinth with the help of King Minos' daughter Ariadne and killed the monstrous Minotaur. It is said that Hippolytus stepmother Phaedra lusted after the boy and killed herself in despair after he rejected her, but not before writing a note to her husband Theseus charging Hippolytus with rape.

Reading the note, Theseus banished Hippolytus from the city and prayed to that the god Poseidon should strike him down. As Hippolytus drove off in his chariot, the horses drawing the chariot were thrown into a panic by the vision of a giant bull emerging from the sea. The chariot crashed and Hippolytus was killed.

Chariot Drivers Have No Luck!

Others identify The Charioteer with Myrtilus, a son of Hermes and the chariot driver for King Oenomaus of Elis. The king had a beautiful daughter Hippodamia. There were many suitors who sought her hand. But to marry her, a suitor had first to win a chariot race with the king, who rode in a chariot driven by Myrtilus. Any suitor who could not beat the king's chariot, had his head lopped off.

Hippodamia's chances of marriage did not look very good until Pelops son of Tantalus showed up. She fell in love with him and arranged that Myrtilus would throw the chariot race. He sabotaged the king's chariot so that a wheel came off during the race and the king was thrown to his death.

The ungrateful Pelops threw the chariot driver Myrtilus into the sea, where he drowned. Hermes memorialized his drowned son Myrtilus by putting the image of the Chariot Driver among the stars.

Accounting for the Goat

The Chariot Driver is shown as holding a small goat. The goat is usually identified as the animal that had suckled the baby Zeus on the Island of Crete, where his mother Rhea had hid him from his father Cronus. Cronus was a Titan, one of the elder gods. Because of a prophesy that one of his children would otherthrow him, Cronus swallowed each of his children as they were born. Out of gratitude to the goat that had suckled him, Zeus placed the image of the goat into the stars.
Another story tells us that the goat was so very ugly that it could frighten even the Titans. When Zeus became an adult, he made a cloak from the hide of this ugly goat. This was Zeus "aegis" which protected him and frightened his enemies.

There is no explanation of how the goat became associated with the Chariot Driver.