Bootes Constellation Of The Herdsman Or...??

The Bootes constellation is a difficult one. Not to find or see but to pronounce and understand.

Boötes(notice the marking above the second o) is pronounced in three syllables...boh-oh-tease.

Understanding the constellation mythology is slightly harder. There are many different myths about Boötes.

He is a herdsman, which is the meaning of the name in Greek, in one myth.

He is the inventor of the plow in another myth. Using his team of oxen to drive them around the Pole.

This is what rotates the Earth and sky.

Some myths have him as a hunter chasing the great bear Ursa Major which the big dipper constellation is formed from.

The constellation is shaped like a giant kite and does not easily resemble a human.

Bootes is a large constellation, located southeast of the asterism of the Big Dipper and west of the Northern Crown, Corona Borealis.

Guarding The Bears

Declination: 30 degrees

Visible between latitudes 90 and -50 degrees

Best seen in June (at 9:00 PM)

Named Stars: ARCTURUS (Alpha Boo) Nekkar (Beta Boo) Seginus (Gamma Boo) IZAR (Epsilon Boo) Mufrid (Eta Boo) Asellus Primus (Theta Boo) Asellus Secondus (Iota Boo) Asellus Tertius (Kappa 2 Boo) Alkalurops (Mu 1 Boo) Merga (38 Boo)

Arcturus an orange giant star about 36 light years away is the fourth brightest star in the sky. This includes the Sun. However, the combined light of the alpha centauri stars is brighter.

Bootes also contains some great double stars for the backyard stargazer to enjoy.

Izar is the best and can be separated into it's component stars,an orange giant and a blue-green companion star, in a telescope with a 75mm(about 3 inches) aperture.

NGC5466 is a globular cluster visible in most telescopes.

The Boötes Void is a large section of the universe that has very few galaxies.

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