10. Canis Major and Minor
Who let the dogs out?
The heavenly scene surrounding Orion tells of his exploits at hunting. He faces a bull, tramples a hare, and following him are his trusty hounds, Canis Major the Great Dog, and Canis Minor the Little Dog.
Canis Major is the most obvious of the two dogs, and the stars in this constellation do indeed look like the stick figure of a dog, either doing walkies across the sky, or sitting and waiting for scraps. Often he is shown chasing Lepus the Hare, a constellation under Orion’s feet.
But before I continue, here’s another question: what links A Certain Wizard Franchise, the river Nile, Florence and the Machine, and heatwaves? The answer is…the brightest star in the night sky, which you will find in the Great Dog.
Wait until after 9pm, and follow the line of Orion’s belt, imagine them as the Three Magi, and they lead down and eastwards to a glittering light that could well be the inspiration for the Christmas star, a true Star of Wonder…Sirius, the Dog Star. Outshining all other stars except the Sun, the only things that outshine it are the Moon, Mars, Jupiter and Venus. In fact, one might mistake Jupiter for Sirius this year, as both are close to Orion. But Jupiter is high above Orion, and Sirius is to the bottom left, identified by its distinctive multicoloured twinkle. Remember, planets don’t twinkle, and stars do. This is because stars appear as points rather than disks, so are more susceptible to atmospheric effects. Sirius’s light is especially prone to atmospheric turbulence making its starlight flicker in many colours, a very beautiful effect!
The reason for Sirius being so dazzling is actually because it is relatively close to us, only 8.6 light years away, that makes it one of our cosmic neighbours. That means the light from it only left in mid-2015. When it comes to stellar distance and time, normally measured in centuries and millennia, this is relatively short, but much can change in short spans of our modern human lifetimes. Eight and a half years ago, the world and its politics were so different to what would come…what were you doing back then?
It is a little bigger and also hotter than the sun, which is why it glows ‘white hot’ rather than yellow. Orbiting it is a tiny companion called Sirius B, first discovered in 1862. This is a white dwarf, a spent star that was once similar to our Sun, but has burnt up every bit of its fuel and is now a small and very dense ember about the size of the earth. This is also the destiny of our sun-after expanding into a red giant, it will then cast off layers of dust and carbon and oxygen in a gentler manner than a supernova, leaving behind a white dwarf. This carbon and oxygen is the same as the stuff that makes up all life, we are made of the remains of dead stars. Sirius B takes 50 years to orbit Sirius, and also goes by a very cute nickname-‘The Pup’!
Being *the* brightest star in the night, it isn’t surprising that Sirius has a lot of folklore going on. The Greeks linked the constellation to several mythical dogs, one myth says this was Laelaps, the dog of Europa, the princess who was seduced by Zeus in the form of a bull (see Taurus). Laelaps was said to catch any prey it chased…except for a fleet footed fox, and I’ll tell that story in a while. Most famously, Canis Major was one of Orion’s hounds, along with little Canis Minor, that accompanied the great hunter on his nocturnal chases.
It is intriguing that many peoples worldwide connect Sirius or Canis Major to canines, both tame and wild. The Chinese call Sirius the Celestial Wolf, the Phoenicians called it the Barker, it is Dogface to the Blackfoot of North America, and the Inuit name for the star is Red Fox and White Fox, because the star twinkles furiously and changes colour when its light is buffeted by Arctic winds. It is little wonder then that one wizard character from a certain book series/movie franchise, who shapeshifts into a dog, is named after this star.
Sirius’s name means ‘searing’ or ‘scorching’ in Greek, and Greco-Roman astrologers blamed the star for the ‘Dog Days’ of summer, occurring in July and August, thought to be caused when Sirius fused its light and heat with that of the sun to produce oppressive heatwaves. A few months later, when Sirius moved on and was high in the south at sunrise, this marked the mellower harvest days and the wine making season. The ancient Greek writer Hesiod said ‘When Orion and Sirius reach midheaven, and rosy-fingered dawn sees Arcturus (another bright star), then cut all the grapes…’
Or in the words of Florence Welch, ‘the dog days are over, the dog days are done!’
One civilisation that revered Sirius, elevating it to the position of goddess, was ancient Egypt. There it was called Sopdet, and she was the goddess of the new year and the Nile flood. The dawn rising of Sirius coincided with when the Nile overflowed its banks, a vital event that brought life giving waters to the parched land of Egypt and allowed agriculture to happen there. Sopdet was also linked to Isis, supreme goddess of Egypt. When her husband Osiris was killed, the tears of Isis were said to fill the Nile and cause it to flood.
By a wonderful coincidence, Sirius is also connected to our new year celebrations-at the stroke of midnight on Dec 31/Jan 1, this star reaches its highest point in the sky, flashing like a brilliant firework.
Also in Canis Major is a little star cluster called M41. Located just below Sirius, it is best seen where you have a clear south horizon and no haze or light pollution. If you live at more southerly latitudes it shows up even better. Look with binoculars for a speckling of stars under the big Dog Star.
Sirius burns with the promise of summer in the depths of winter. Whenever you feel blue and the depths of winter feel bleak, and the cold night winds are biting and howling, look upon this flashing spark. Think of how it represented the loving bond between humans and non-human companions in the form of the dog, and the fierceness that canines have…as Sirius teaches us, summer can be overwhelming and overheated, so use the gentler light of this star in winter to illuminate the gloom within and recharge over the winter.
Now let’s turn our gaze to the Little Dog. Return to Orion, and then look directly to his left, following Betelgeuse. You should reach another bright star. This is Procyon, the main star in Canis Minor, a tiny constellation made up of two main stars. Procyon means ‘before the dog (star)’ in Greek, referring to the fact that in Greece this star rises before Sirius, almost like it announces the rising of the brighter star. Procyon is very similar to Sirius, in that both stars are associated with dogs, both have a white dwarf companion star in orbit around them, and both are close to the earth, with Procyon being 11 light years away. The light we’re seeing left the star in 2013.
This is Orion’s other hunting hound, according to myth. It was also associated with other dogs and canids in Greek legend, such as Maera, Icarus’s pet dog, and the Temussian Fox, the fastest fox alive that could never be caught. One story says that Canis Major was Laelaps, the dog that always caught its prey, and set out to catch this fox, but even this speedy hound could not keep up with the fleet-footed fox. The chase got so long that Zeus put an end to their suffering by turning them to stone, and then turning them into constellations. Perhaps this is where ‘the quick fox jumps over the lazy dog’ comes from?
For a small constellation, there are a surprising number of stories associated with it, probably related to Procyon’s brightness, it is the 9th brightest star in the sky after all. In Babylonian myth it was Canis Minor, not Gemini, that was the constellation of the twins, and they appeared on protective amulets. An Arab legend tells of Procyon and Sirius being two sisters who are separated on opposite sides of the Nile, represented in the sky by the wide stretch of the Milky Way. The Aztecs had a constellation called Water that included stars from Canis Minor, and the Chinese had a similarly watery constellation called the Southern River made of Procyon and two other stars. In an Inuit story, Procyon represents a man who was too heavy to hunt on the sea ice, and kept falling into the water. As a result, he ended up stealing the seals caught by other hunters, which got him killed.
Canis Minor also makes up one corner of an asterism (a pattern of stars formed either of stars within a constellation, or from several constellations) called the Winter Triangle, which essentially comprises Orion and his dogs. The triangle is made up of Procyon, Sirius and Betelgeuse.
There is much more to say about the two Dog Stars, in particular Sirius. So I will post again about Sirius on New Year’s Eve with a special post to close 2024. The multifaceted nature of this diamond-like star spills over into how people have observed and reacted to its arresting light, with many stories and discoveries. I hope to post more Sirius stories in 2025 too, including one in the summer elaborating further on the Dog Days.
As Sirius and Procyon are binary stars, here are two journal prompts.
-what makes you shine? What is the thing that nurtures your spark, makes you feel warm inside, kindles a feeling of summer in your soul? Something that brings you immense joy and nourishes you like a benevolent flood.
-inspired by the scorching ‘dog days’: how can you avoid burnout during the festive period?