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Orion

...Starting our walk with one of the most beautiful and easy to see constellations: Orion. It's the head of a constellation family, in the equatorial region of the sky and it's surely one of the most known. Made up of a quadrilateral of stars, each one more beautiful than the other. In wintertime Orion is a magnificent constellation like the "queen of winter" which can be easily found by the three stars forming a line building, the belt of the Hunter. According to Greek mythology, it represents the giant hunter Orion, killed by Scorpion and made live again from Esculapio. I think it has always been part of our lives showing us "the right way"....

This quadrilateral is composed by four stars :

    Betelgeuse or alpha Ori, is a variable red giant with 0,8 magnitude, known    also as Fire star, Regal jewel or Lotus flower.

    Bellatrix , with a blue color, known also as Amazon's star.

    Rigel , situated in the lower part of the polygon, a shining star with a bright colour, like white and blue together. It's a supergiant star, the sixth star for brightness ; its brilliance is 50.000 times more than the Sun's.

    Saiph , the fourth corner of the quadrilateral, is situated opposite Betelgeuse.

In this quadrilateral, apart from the Nebula M42 easily visible and known as "Big Nebula", Lambda Ori star is situated, a double shining star with a light blue color. Theese stars are grouped in a way that they look like a planet with moons.

Mythology

According to Greek mythology, Orion was in love with Merope, one of the Seven sisters who form the Pleiades, but she wanted nothing to do with him. Orion died when he tragically stepped on Scorpius, the scorpion. The gods felt sorry for him so they put him and his dogs in the sky as constellations and Scorpius was collocated on the opposite part of the sky so Orion could never be hurt by it again...


Orion the "Hunter"	Orion the "star man"

The legend has always said that Artemis, the goddess of the Moon, was in love with Orion and that she neglected her task of lighting the night sky to think about him. After this, her twin brother, Apollo, decided to kill Orion with a sort of "play" but Artemis doesn't know anything about it. He challenged his sister to hit a dot among the waves and she couldn't see that the dot which they were talking about was Orion. She killed him with an arrow and when she understood what she had done, she decided to place his body in the sky together with his dogs to make him fell like a god in the sky. I think that it is a wonderful legend but like every legend it isn't the one!! In fact there are some other versions about the death of Orion and I will write them here to try to explain this story in the best way...

First version

In some old book it is written that Orion made Gaia (Earth) feel angry with him because he said that he could kill whatever was produced by the earth. For this reason she had sent the Scorpion to kill him.

Second version

It's said that gods decided to kill him because he was in love with Eos and so, Artemis, who loved him, very jealous, killed Orion.

Third version

According to Greek mythology the beautiful giant, Orion, son of the god of the sea, Poseidon, and Euriale, one of the Gorgons who could petrify people by their look, was blinded by Enopione for loving his wife, Merope, one of the Pleiades. Helios, personification of the Sun, cured him and so Orion looked for Enopione to revenge himself. During his walk he killed all the animals who he could see and for this reason, Gea, the first-born of Greek gods, made him sting by a small Scorpion. But Zeus didn't want the hunter to be forgotten and so Orion ascended to the sky at west whereas his murder was collocated in the east part. Also Sirius and Procione, his dogs were collocated next to him. He is represented high in the sky while he's fighting against the Taurus..

There are a lot of other example about the story and the importance of this constellation and they are written in some ancient poems....LIKE in the ODYSSEY.

This poem was written by Omero, a blind writer, and it is a poem based on the life of a king who didn't know how to come back home after a war... He talked to a prophet who was in the Hell, Tiresia, and he told him to follow the stars of this constellation and especially one of them : Alpha Orionis . He found the right way and he came back home....

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