Description
Since ancient times, in the culture of mankind — this is true for many peoples and countries — the image of a dolphin has been a symbol of kindness, help, sudden salvation in difficult times. There are at least three legends about the Dolphin as a character in ancient Greek myths. All of them confirm the exceptional qualities of the Dolphin, and partly explain how this sea creature, inhabiting the waters around the Hellenic islands in abundance, ended up in the sky among the constellations.
The latest legend borders on the plausibility of the hysterical chronicle and tells how the singer Arion, famous throughout Hellas, was returning by ship from a successful journey in which he sang his songs, and was gifted with countless treasures for his wonderful voice and heart-touching melodies — the Greeks in all times valued art and generously rewarded those who lived by art.
But at all times there were other people who envied other people's wealth. It was the latter who were hired on the ship of Arion as sailors. They found out what was in the holds, and as soon as the ship was on the open sea — invisible from the shore — they decided to get rid of the singer and take possession of his wealth.
In the fateful hour, Arion stood on the bow of the trireme and sang one of his songs, and a Dolphin swam next to the ship and enjoyed the music. When the robbers attacked the singer and threw him overboard, Dolphin helped Arion survive on the high seas and escorted him to Cape Tenar. This story was described by Herodotus, the Greek historian who laid the foundation for the chronological description of events. Later, this incident formed the basis of the plot of many literary works, including Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin's poem "Arion".
Other legends are exclusively mythological, but no less interesting. One of them tells about romantic feelings between the Greek goddess of hunting Artemis and the greatest hunter of antiquity — Orion. Artemis secretly arranged a date with Orion on the island of Delos, but her brother, the god Apollo, found out about the date. Orion tried to swim away from the island and hide from the wrath of Apollo, and had already sailed so far that his head was visible as a small black dot. Apollo tricked Artemis into betting that she would not hit the farthest target, and pointed to a black dot in the waves. Artemis did not know that it was Orion, hit the target without a miss, killing her lover.
Fortunately, Dolphin was nearby, who pushed the lifeless body of the hunter to the nearest shore, where the legendary Asclepius was able to revive Orion. This is the time to remember that the greatest of the ancient healers — Asclepius — was the son of Apollo, but he and his father had their own scores. Therefore, the salvation of Orion was also some kind of revenge on Apollo for the fact that he had once killed the mother of Asclepius out of jealousy. The Dolphin performed his saving actions always disinterestedly.
And the third legend is the happiest. She tells how the Greek god of the seas and oceans — Poseidon — fell in love with Amphitrite — the daughter of Nereus — the god of the deep sea. Nereus had many daughters — one more beautiful than the other, but Amphitrite was the most beautiful and graceful. When Poseidon confessed his love to her, Amphitrite, from the surprise of such an offer, disappeared into the abyss of waters, and so deep that even Poseidon himself could not find his beloved.
Noticing how sad the sea lord was, Dolphin told Poseidon that he knew where to look for Amphitrite. Amphitrite was found, and soon became the wife of Poseidon. Especially for her, the god of the seas built an underwater palace, where Poseidon and Amphitrite lived in love as long as people remembered their ancient gods and told myths about them as a true story.
Yours Andrey Klimkovsky
The Delphinus constellation refers to that rare configuration of stars in the sky, in the outlines of which the creature is really guessed, whose name the ancient astronomers named this constellation. It is small, not famous for its bright stars, but those of them that can be seen even in the sky of a big city really resemble the face of a Dolphin looking out of the ocean waves.
A trapezium of stars Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta form the well-known asterism "Dolphin's Head". Their brightness is close to the 4th magnitude, but the mutual proximity on the celestial sphere makes this stellar group clearly visible and beautiful.
Gamma Delphini — Al Salib (this is its ancient Arabic name) — is one of the most beautiful double stars available to astronomers for observations in small telescopes. In this pair, separated by only ten seconds of arc, the stars have contrasting hues — distinctly yellow and turquoise (or better, sea-green).
Alpha and Beta (the ancient names of which have not come down to us) are also binary, but it will not be possible to separate them in small telescopes. But with binoculars or a spyglass, you can admire the somewhat fainter stars B288 and Zeta Delphini, located not far from bright Alpha and Beta, which are considered optical quasi-satellites of each of the brighter stars — they seem close from the point of view of an earthly observer, but in real geometry outer space are very far from each other, and do not form gravitationally dependent systems.
Located in the immediate vicinity of the wide and bright summer Milky Way, Delphinus is replete with open star clusters and planetary nebulae — discarded shells of burnt out stars. However, all these objects are not easy for amateur means.
Over the past years, new stars visible to the naked eye have flashed twice in this constellation. In 2013, I was personally lucky to observe the Nova Delphini in the August sky of Moscow. It was great luck, because it is at the junction of summer and autumn that the best time to observe the Delphinus constellation.
