Phoenix Constellation

FIXED STARS: Major Stars | 1000+ Stars | Constellations | About

Phoenix Constellation [Stellarium]

Constellation Phoenix is a southern constellation bordering Sculptor, Grus, Tucana, Eridanus, Fornax and the obsolete constellation Machina Electrica.

Phoenix was introduced by Johann Bayer in 1603 and remains one of the 88 modern constellations. It spans 50 degrees of the zodiac in the Signs of Aquarius, Pisces and Aries.

Abbreviation: Phe
Genitive: Phoenicis

Phoenix Constellation Stars

2000	2050	Star	Name	Sp. Class	Mag.	Orb
04♓54	05♓37	ι Phe		A2	4.69	1°00′
05♓20	06♓03	η Phe		A0	4.36	1°10′
09♓39	10♓21	ε Phe		K0	3.88	1°30′
11♓37	12♓20	λ¹ Phe		A0	4.76	1°00′
12♓05	13♓05	ζ Phe	Wurren	B6	3.94	1°30′
14♓31	15♓13	κ Phe	Al Rial I	A7	3.93	1°30′
15♓29	16♓12	α Phe	Ankaa	K0	2.40	2°10′
15♓49	16♓31	μ Phe	Al Rial II	G8	4.59	1°10′
20♓26	21♓09	β Phe	Al Rial III	G8	3.32	1°40′
23♓24	24♓07	ν Phe	Al Rial IV	F8	4.97	1°00′
23♓37	24♓20	δ Phe		K0	3.93	1°30′
28♓08	28♓51	γ Phe	Al Rial V	K5	3.41	1°40′
01♈19	02♈02	ψ Phe		M4	4.39	1°10′

ζ Phe is officially named Wurren, from the Aboriginal Wardaman people in modern-day Northern Territory of Australia. Wurren means “child” in Wardaman but in this context refers to a “Little Fish”, a star adjacent to Achernar (Gawalyan = procupine or echidna) to whom little fish provides water. IAU Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) (Press release). International Astronomical Union.

Phoenix Astrology

Robson

PHOENIX. The Phoenix.

History. Added by Bayer, 1604.

Influence. It is said to give a pioneering disposition, ambition and power, together with a long life and lasting fame. ^[1]

Phoenix Constellation [Bode]

Allen

Phoenix, is one of Bayer’s new figures, between Eridanus and Grus, south of Fornax and Sculptor, — its α, κ, μ, β, ν, and γ in a line curving toward the south like that of a primitive Boat, by which figure, as Al Zauraḳ, the Arabs knew them. Al Sufi cited another name, — Al Ri᾽āl, the Young Ostriches, — which Hyde wrongly read Al Zibal, perhaps a synonymous title; and Kazwini used Al Sufi’s term in describing some stars of Al Nahr, the River, in which our Phoenix was then included by Arabian astronomers.

Others changed the figure to that of a Griffin, or Eagle, so that the introduction of a Phoenix into modern astronomy was, in a measure, by adoption rather than by invention.

But, whether Bayer knew it or not, his title is an appropriate one, for with various early nations — at all events, in China, Egypt, India, and Persia — this bird has been “an astronomical symbol of cyclic period,” some versions of the well-known fable making its life coincident with the Great Year of the ancients beginning at noon of the day when the sun entered among the stars of Aries; and, in Egypt, with the Sothic Period when the sun and Sirius rose together on the 20th of July. Thompson further writes of this:

A new Phoenix-period is said to have commenced A.D. 139, in the reign of Antoninus Pius; and a recrudescence of astronomical symbolism associated therewith is manifested on the coins of that Emperor.

Coincidently, Ptolemy adopted as the epoch of his catalogue the year 138, the first of Antoninus. With the Egyptians, who knew this bird as Bennu and showed it on their coins, it was an emblem of immortality; indeed it generally has been such in pagan as well as in Christian times.

In China the constellation was Ho Neaou, the Fire Bird, showing its derivation there from the Jesuits.

Gould catalogues 139 naked-eye stars here, from 2.4 to 7.

α, of 2.2. magnitude, was Al Tizini’s Nā᾽ir al Zauraḳ, the Bright One in the Boat, rendered in Hyde’s translation lucida Cymbae.