Custos Messium Constellation

Custos Messium Constellation [Urania’s Mirror]

The obsolete constellation Custos Messium the Harvest-Keeper is a northern constellation bordering Camelopardalis, Cassiopeia, Cepheus, and another obsolete constellation, Rangifer the Reindeer. It was introduced by Jérôme Lalandein in 1775, and its stars now belong to Cassiopeia and Camelopardalis. Custos Messium spans 20 degrees of the zodiac in the Signs of Taurus and Gemini.

Custos Messium Constellation Stars

2000	2050	Star	Name	Sp. Class	Mag.	Orb
29♉29	00♊10	23 Cas	Shǎochéng	B8	5.42	1°00′
03♊34	04♊16	50 Cas		A2	3.95	1°30′
07♊46	08♊28	49 Cas		G8	5.22	1°00′
09♊07	09♊49	47 Cas	Dōngfāngcāngdi	F0	5.27	1°00′
14♊39	15♊21	γ Cam		A2	4.59	1°10′

Custos Messium Astrology

Robson

CUSTOS MESSIUM. The Harvest-Keeper.

History. Formed by La Lande in 1775 under the title Le Messier, but not now recognised. It lies near Cassiopeia and Cepheus.

Influence. It is said to give a simple, kind, retiring, pleasant and honest nature with interest in rural pursuits. ^[1]

Custos Messium Constellation [Bode]

Allen

Custos Messium, the Harvest-Keeper. La Lande published this on his globe of 1775, forming it from some inconspicuous stars not far from the pole, between the Camelopard, Cassiopeia, and Cepheus,.

His alternative title, Le Messier, Smyth said was “in poorish punning compliment to his friend, the ‘Comet ferret,’ ” as King Louis XV had called him, who for thirty years had been the gatherer and keeper of the harvest of comets, and the discoverer of twelve between the years of 1794 and 1798. This title also may have been induced by the fact that the two neighboring royal personages were rulers of an agricultural people, and the Giraffe an animal destructive to the grain-fields; all perhaps selected because the Phoenicians are said to have imagined a large Wheat Field in this part of the sky.

Its inventor was the enthusiastic astronomer who would spend nights on the Pont Neuf over the Seine, explaining the wonders of the variable Algol to all whom he could interest in the subject, and whose seclusion in his observatory, amid the turmoil of the French Revolution, enabled him to “thank his stars” that he had escaped the fate of so many of his friends.

Custos has now passed out of the recognition of astronomers. ^[2]