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t=function(e){return function(){var t=Math.trunc(1e4/parseFloat(window.getComputedStyle(e).getPropertyValue("font-size")))/100,n=document.body;t!=n.style.getPropertyValue("--f")&&n.style.setProperty("--f",t)}}(e);if("ResizeObserver"in window)new ResizeObserver(t).observe(e);else if("requestAnimationFrame"in window){var n=function(){t(),requestAnimationFrame(n)};requestAnimationFrame(n)}else setInterval(t,100)}()</script> <div class="c79"> <div class="ps228 v33 s259 z181"> <div class="v34 ps229 s260"> <div class="v34 ps229 s261"> <div class="v34 ps229 s260 c80 z182"> <div class="v34 ps230 s262 z183"> <div class="v34 ps229 s263 c81 z184"> <a href="contents.html" class="a21"><picture><source srcset="images/l/bear-155.webp 1x, images/v/bear-310.webp 2x" type="image/webp"><source srcset="images/0/bear-155.jpg 1x, images/l/bear-310.jpg 2x"><img src="images/l/bear-310.jpg" class="i79"></picture></a> </div> <div class="v34 ps231 s264 c81 z184"> <a href="contents.html" class="a21"><picture><source srcset="images/2/star-tales-masthead-215.webp 1x, images/n/star-tales-masthead-430.webp 2x" type="image/webp"><source srcset="images/v/star-tales-masthead-215.png 1x, images/n/star-tales-masthead-430.png 2x"><img src="images/n/star-tales-masthead-430.png" class="i80"></picture></a> </div> </div> <div class="v34 ps232 s265 c81 z185"> <picture> <source srcset="images/0/cethead-192.webp 1x, images/l/cethead-384.webp 2x" type="image/webp"> <source srcset="images/2/cethead-192.png 1x, images/c/cethead-384.png 2x"> <img src="images/c/cethead-384.png" class="i81"> </picture> </div> <div class="v34 ps233 s266"> <div class="v34 ps229 s267"> <div class="shape27 v34 ps234 s268 c82 z186"> <div class="shm131"></div> <div class="shm132"></div> <div class="shm133"></div> <div class="shm134"></div> <div class="shm135"></div> <div class="shm136"></div> <p class="p43 f200">Genitive:<span class="f201"> Ceti</span></p> <p class="p43 f200">Abbreviation:<span class="f201"> Cet</span></p> <p class="p43 f200">Size ranking:<span class="f201"> 4th</span></p> <p class="p43 f200">Origin:<span class="f201"> One of the 48 Greek constellations listed by Ptolemy in the </span><a href="almagest.html#48" class="f202">Almagest</a></p> <p class="p44 f200">Greek name:<span class="f201"> </span><span class="f203">Κῆτος</span><span class="f201"> (Ketos)</span></p> <p class="p43 f204"><br></p> <p class="p43 f204">When Cassiopeia, wife of King Cepheus of Ethiopia, boasted that she was more beautiful than the sea nymphs called the Nereids she set in motion one of the most celebrated stories in mythology, the main characters of which are commemorated among the constellations. In retribution for the insult to the Nereids, the sea god Poseidon sent a fearsome monster to ravage the coast of Cepheus’s territory. That monster, a dragon of the sea, is represented by the constellation Cetus.</p> <p class="p43 f204"><br></p> <p class="p43 f204">To rid himself of the monster, Cepheus was instructed by the Oracle of Ammon to offer up his daughter Andromeda as a sacrifice to the monster. Andromeda was chained to the cliffs at Joppa (the modern Tel-Aviv) to await her terrible fate.</p> <p class="p43 f204"><br></p> <p class="p43 f204">Cetus was visualized by the mythologists as a hybrid creature, with enormous gaping jaws and the forefeet of a land animal, attached to a scaly body with huge coils like a sea serpent. Hence Cetus is drawn on star maps as a most unlikely looking creature, more comical than frightening. It is sometimes identified as a whale because the Latin word Cetus means whale. However the original Greek name, Ketos, referred to any large aquatic creature or sea monster, and in most depictions it looks nothing like a whale.</p> <p class="p43 f204"><br></p> <p class="p43 f204">Andromeda trembled as the B-movie monster made towards her, cleaving through the waves like a huge ship. Fortunately, at this moment the hero Perseus happened by and sized up the situation. Swooping down like an eagle onto the creature’s back, Perseus drove his diamond-hard sword deep into its right shoulder. Agonized and enraged, the wounded monster reared up on its coils and twisted around, its cruel jaws snapping at its attacker. Again and again Perseus plunged his sword into the beast – through its ribs, its barnacle-encrusted back, and at the root of its tail. Spouting blood, the monster finally collapsed into the sea and lay there like a waterlogged hulk. Its corpse was hauled on shore by the appreciative locals who skinned it and put its bones on display.</p> <p class="p43 f204"><br></p> <p class="p45 f205">Amazing Mira and the stars of Cetus</p> <p class="p43 f204">Cetus (<span class="f206">Κῆτος</span> in Greek) is the fourth-largest constellation, as befits such a monster, but none of its stars is particularly prominent. The brightest of them is second-magnitude Beta Ceti, officially named Diphda by the IAU from the Arabic <span class="f207">al-</span><span class="f208">ḍ</span><span class="f208">i</span><span class="f207">fdi’ </span>referring to the second of a pair of frogs; the first frog was Fomalhaut. It was once also known as Deneb Kaitos from the Arabic meaning sea monster’s tail. Ptolemy in the <span class="f207">Almagest </span>described this star as lying on the end of the southern tail fin; the northern fin was marked by the star we now know as Iota Ceti. Albrecht Dürer imagined Cetus as <a onclick="return pop&&pop.openPopup('popup63',event)" style="cursor:pointer;" href="#" class="f209">a large fish with a forked tail</a> on his celestial chart of 1515, but from Bayer’s <span class="f207">Uranometria</span> of 1603 onwards it was depicted as <a href="https://www.e-rara.ch/zut/content/zoom/77526" class="f209">a monster with a looping tail</a>, with Beta lying on the coil and Iota on the tail fin. Alpha Ceti is called Menkar from the Arabic <span class="f207">al-minkhar</span> meaning ‘nostrils’, a misnomer since this star lies on the beast’s jaw – according to Ptolemy, the star on the nostrils was actually the one to the north we know as Lambda Ceti.</p> <p class="p43 f204"><br></p> <p class="p43 f204">The most celebrated star in Cetus is Omicron Ceti, popularly known as Mira, which lies at the base of the monster’s neck. Its name means ‘wonderful’ or ‘amazing’, given on account of its variability in brightness. Mira is a red giant star whose brightness variations are caused by changes in size. At times it can easily be seen with the naked eye, but for most of the time it is so faint that it is invisible without binoculars or a telescope; hence it went unnoticed by Ptolemy and Tycho.</p> <p class="p43 f204"><br></p> <p class="p43 f204">The star was first recorded in 1596 by the German astronomer David Fabricius (1564–1617), but the cyclic nature of the changes was not recognized until 1638 by the Dutch astronomer Johannes Phocylides Holwarda (1618–51). The name Mira was given to the star by the Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius in his report titled <span class="f207">Historiola mirae stellae</span> of 1662, when it was the only variable star known. Hevelius reported his own observations of its brightness and gave <a href="https://www.e-rara.ch/zut/content/zoom/6966322" class="f209">a chart of the star’s position</a>, labelling it ‘Nova’. Bode in his <span class="f207">Uranographia</span> labelled it ‘<a onclick="return pop&&pop.openPopup('popup64',event)" style="cursor:pointer;" href="#" class="f209">variabilis 1596</a>’.</p> <p class="p43 f204"><br></p> <p class="p45 f205">Chinese associations</p> <p class="p43 f204">When the Chinese constellation system was first established some 2,000 years ago this area of sky was rising in the early evening in the autumn, and so became associated with agriculture and harvesting, particularly the storage of cereals. Two granaries can be found in Cetus: <span class="f207">Tianjun</span>, a circular one, formed by thirteen stars in what we visualize as the head and neck of the sea monster, including Alpha, Gamma, Delta, and Xi Ceti; and <span class="f207">Tiancang</span>, a square one, formed by six stars in the monster’s body (Iota, Eta, Theta, Zeta, Tau, and Upsilon). Despite their names, the shapes formed by the stars of <span class="f207">Tianjun</span> and <span class="f207">Tiancang</span> are not circular or square. A third granary, <span class="f207">Tianlin</span>, was just over the border in present-day Taurus.</p> <p class="p43 f204"><br></p> <p class="p43 f204">South of <span class="f207">Tianjun</span> was <span class="f207">Chuhao</span> or <span class="f207">Chugao</span>, a group of six stars near the border with Eridanus that included Epsilon and Rho Ceti; this constellation represented a supply of animal feed or, in another interpretation, medicinal herbs. A loop of seven stars near Eta Ceti formed <span class="f207">Tianhun</span>, a manure pit or pigsty on a farm, although the stars’ identities are uncertain. The single star Beta Ceti was <span class="f207">Tusikong</span>, a controller of land and minister of works.</p> <p class="p43 f204"><br></p> <p class="p43 f204">Some maps show <span class="f207">Bakui</span>, a net for catching birds, in the region of 2, 6, and 7 Ceti. However, older maps place this constellation farther south, in Sculptor and Phoenix, which suggests that Chinese astronomers moved it northwards over time as precession took this part of the sky below their horizon.</p> <p class="p43 f204"><br></p> <p class="p43 f204"><br></p> <p class="p43 f210">© Ian Ridpath. All rights reserved</p> </div> <div class="shape28 v34 ps235 s269 c83 z187"> <div class="shm137"></div> <div class="shm138"></div> <div class="shm139"></div> <div class="shm140"></div> <p class="p46 f211">The bizarre-looking sea monster Cetus emerging from the ocean of the </p> <p class="p46 f211">southern skies, illustrated in the Atlas Coelestis of John Flamsteed (1729).</p> <p class="p46 f211">Bode in his <a href="https://www.e-rara.ch/zut/content/zoom/3341797" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="f212">Uranographia</a> gave it the alternative title Monstrum Marinum.</p> </div> <div class="v34 ps236 s270 c81 z188"> <a href="https://repository.ou.edu/uuid/ce00c340-a896-595d-9cec-2a774328c4d3" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="a21"><picture><source srcset="images/h/cetus-flamsteed1-595.webp 1x, images/8/cetus-flamsteed1-1190.webp 2x" type="image/webp"><source srcset="images/0/cetus-flamsteed1-595.jpg 1x, images/p/cetus-flamsteed1-1190.jpg 2x"><img src="images/p/cetus-flamsteed1-1190.jpg" title="Cetus Flamsteed" alt="Cetus on Flamsteed's Atlas Coelestis" class="i82"></picture></a> </div> <div class="v34 ps237 s271 c81 z189"> <a href="startales3.html" class="a21"><picture><source srcset="images/a/startales2018small-102.webp 1x, images/n/startales2018small-204.webp 2x" type="image/webp"><source srcset="images/h/startales2018small-102.jpg 1x, images/e/startales2018small-204.jpg 2x"><img src="images/e/startales2018small-204.jpg" loading="lazy" class="i83"></picture></a> </div> <div class="v34 ps238 s272 c81 z190"> <p class="p43 f201">◄<a href="ara.html" class="f213"> </a><a href="startales3.html" class="f214">Return to Constellation Index</a></p> </div> <a name="chinese" class="v34 ps239 s273"></a> <a name="mira" class="v34 ps240 s273"></a> </div> </div> </div> <div id="popup63" style="visibility:hidden;transform:translate3d(-999999px,0,0)" class="popup v35 ps241 s274 c84 z191" data-popup-group="0" data-popup-type="0"> <div class="v34 ps242 s275 c85"> <a onclick="return pop&&pop.closePopup('popup63',event)" style="cursor:pointer;" href="#" class="a22"></a> </div> <div class="v34 ps243 s276 c81"> <picture> <source srcset="images/r/cetusdurer-460.webp 1x, images/a/cetusdurer-920.webp 2x" type="image/webp"> <source srcset="images/v/cetusdurer-460.jpg 1x, images/n/cetusdurer-920.jpg 2x"> <img src="images/n/cetusdurer-920.jpg" loading="lazy" title="Cetus Dürer" alt="Cetus on Dürer's southern celestial hemisphere" class="i84"> </picture> </div> <div class="v34 ps244 s277 c81"> <p class="p43 f215">Albrecht Dürer’s illustration of Cetus on his celestial chart of 1515. The numbers against each star are the order in which they are listed in Ptolemy’s <span class="f216">Almagest</span>; numbers 21 and 22 on the northern and southern fin are the modern Iota and Beta Ceti. On this illustration south is up.</p> </div> </div> <div id="popup64" style="visibility:hidden;transform:translate3d(-999999px,0,0)" class="popup v35 ps245 s278 c84 z192" data-popup-group="0" data-popup-type="0"> <div class="v34 ps246 s275 c85"> <a onclick="return pop&&pop.closePopup('popup64',event)" style="cursor:pointer;" href="#" class="a22"></a> </div> <div class="v34 ps243 s279 c81"> <a onclick="pop.openClosePopup('popup64')" style="cursor:pointer;" href="https://www.e-rara.ch/zut/content/zoom/3341797" class="a21"><picture><source srcset="images/0/mira-bode-380.webp 1x, images/r/mira-bode-760.webp 2x" type="image/webp"><source srcset="images/v/mira-bode-380.jpg 1x, images/0/mira-bode-760.jpg 2x"><img src="images/0/mira-bode-760.jpg" loading="lazy" title="Mira Bode" alt="Mira on Bode's Uranographia" class="i85"></picture></a> </div> <div class="v34 ps247 s280 c81"> <p class="p43 f217">Johann Bode labelled the star Mira as ‘variabilis 1596’ on Chart XVII of his <span class="f218">Uranographia</span> atlas of 1801.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="btf c1"> </div> <script>shapesData={"shape27":[[0,0,430,0,600,574,0,0,1396]],"shape28":[[0,600,460,0,0,90]]};!function(){if("Promise"in window&&void 0!==window.performance){var e,t,r=document,n=function(){return r.createElement("link")},o=new Set,a=n(),i=a.relList&&a.relList.supports&&a.relList.supports("prefetch"),s=location.href.replace(/#[^#]+$/,"");o.add(s);var c=function(e){var t=location,r="http:",n="https:";if(e&&e.href&&e.origin==t.origin&&[r,n].includes(e.protocol)&&(e.protocol!=r||t.protocol!=n)){var o=e.pathname;if(!(e.hash&&o+e.search==t.pathname+t.search||"?preload=no"==e.search.substr(-11)||".html"!=o.substr(-5)&&".html"!=o.substr(-5)&&"/"!=o.substr(-1)))return!0}},u=function(e){var t=e.replace(/#[^#]+$/,"");if(!o.has(t)){if(i){var a=n();a.rel="prefetch",a.href=t,r.head.appendChild(a)}else{var s=new 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