Constellation Data

Name: PISCES Translation: Two Fish Abbreviation: Psc Genitive: Piscium Size: 14 Regions: Equatorial, Zodiac RA: 0 hours Decl: +15 degrees Season: Fall Midnight Culmination: September 27 Pages where PISCES is discussed in Chet Raymo's 365 Starry Nights: 196-197

What is the Genitive form? What is Right Ascension (RA)? Is this constellation ever visible from my latitude? What is Declination? Where should I look for a constellation on a date before or after its midnight culmination? What is Midnight Culmination?

Skylore

According to Roman legend, Venus and her son Cupid escaped from Typhon, a fire-monster, by swimming through the sea. To stay together in the dark depths, they tied themselves together by a rope.

According to medieval tradition, Pisces was associated by ancient Babylonian or Persian magi with the nation of Israel, which led Kepler to consider it as a likely location of the star of Bethlehem. (Hellenistic and Roman astrologers associated Aries, not Pisces, with Israel.)

Description

South of Pegasus and Andromeda, near Aquarius. Pisces represents two fish tied together by two cords:

• The western fish, a pentagon of stars just south of Pegasus, is an asterism known as the circlet.
• The other fish lies on the opposite side of Pegasus, just under Andromeda.

The brightest star, alpha-Piscium, is known as El-Rischa or the "knot" because it ties the two cords together with the two fish on the opposite ends. Alpha-Piscium lies nestled up next to Mira, a bright variable star of the constellation Cetus the Whale.

Legend: In the constellation chart above...
• Star colors represent their spectral types (even for double stars).
• Bright star labels are yellow; significant other stars are labelled in magenta.
• The size of each star indicates its relative magnitude.
• Constellation names are light blue.
• Grid lines represent either 10 degree intervals of declination above or below the equator, or intervals of one hour (=15 degrees) of right ascension (measured along the equator).
• Messier object numbers are pink.
• Galaxies are ovals: blue if spiral, yellow if elliptical, light blue if irregular.
• Globular clusters are gold starbursts.
• Open clusters are dotted white circles.
• Planetary nebula are green diamonds.
• Bright nebula are magenta squares.
• Dark nebula are grey rectangles.
• Green x's are x-ray sources.
• Purple O's with a diagonal slash through them are quasars.

Asterisms

Circlet

What is an Asterism?

Special Stars

The reddish star TX Piscium varies in brightness.

Table of 25 Brightest Stars.
What is apparent stellar magnitude?

Galaxies

M74 (Spiral galaxy), mag. 9.3.

What are Galaxies?
Table of Messier Objects.
What is apparent Magnitude?

Discussed in these Shows

©1997 Welcome to the Basic Celestial Phenomena web site. To provide explanations of basic observational astronomy to students, teachers, families, and visitors to planetariums these pages have been written by an ex-OBU Planetarium Director, Kerry Magruder; the OBU Natural Sciences Coordinator, Mike Keas; and some of the students who work in the OBU planetarium.

The source for the logo is not a medieval woodcut!

These web pages may be printed, copied, and distributed for educational use by any non-profit educational group so long as they are not edited or altered in any way, nor distributed for profit, nor repackaged or incorporated into any other medium or product, and so long as full credit is given to Kerry Magruder.

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