There are no plant constellations. The only constellations that are not animals (human or other) are inanimate objects such as the Northern and Southern Crowns, the parts of the ship Argo, Sagitta the Arrow, Crater the Cup, and the invented southern constellations such as Telescopium and Microscopium; or even abstract: the northern and southern Triangles. The only other natural thing is the river, Eridanus.
We might suggest that the forests are the dark spaces between the constellation forms.
A forest beside the Milky Way, and a forest within the Milky Way
Whereas human activity such as logging and mining has been shrinking the forests of Earth, light pollution has been enlarging the mysterious forests of the sky!
Light pollution – from page 82 of our book for children, To Know the Stars
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It would cost more than 20 billion dollars to carry out a plan, presented by scientists this month to world leaders, for halting destruction of the world’s natural habitat such as forests, and halting the exploitation of wild animals.
But it will cost at least 50 times as much NOT to carry out the plan.
For it is this destruction that is causing the increasing number of pandemics and will cause more and greater. The latest, Covid-19, has already caused economic loss of not billionss of dollars but trillion.
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Edmond Halley depicted the constellation Robur Carolinum, Charles’ Oak, to honor King Charles II. He planted it between Argo Navis and Centaurus, with Beta Carinae in the roots (the seed acorn?), and Eta Carinae in the branches. Hevelius and Bode included Robur Carolinum in their atlases, but it suffered sudden oak death when Lacaille rejected it.
By the way, I think the IAU should reconsider the southern constellations and recognize the traditional constellations of the peoples of the southern hemisphere, rather than those invented by European colonists. But given that the peoples of Africa, South America, the South Pacific, and Australia all share the same sky, whose constellations would go where? Maybe we should get rid of the idea of one official catalogue of constellations, and see the whole sky, south and north, as a multicultural palimpsest. These days working astronomers catalogue objects by right ascension and declination, rather than with quaint references to their nearness to particular stars, so we no longer need one universal map of the constellations. Let a thousand flowers bloom!
Indus represented an Indian,an Indian from North/South America rather than India.if anyone noticed this obscure far southern constellation would it be renamed’the native American’?
Another thought about Indus.it contains an Sun like star, Epsilon Indi,a mere 12 light years away.its an orange dwalf but a major snag to it’s potential to harbour life, well two major snags,is it is a triple star syestem.Epsilon a,has two brown dwalf stars with it b and c , which would probably disrupt the orbit of any planets orbiting a plus there’s the extra radiation.radioactive decay is said to be the source of heat in brown dwalfs as they’re not dense enough to achieve nuclear fusion but I often wonder about fission after all they now think that fission occurs in the Earth’s core .
You missed another natural non living thing Mensa the Table Mountain.which took it’s name from Cape Town’s famed Table Mountain.i think that originally it was called Mons Mensa but the Mons was dropped however it is definitely ment to represent Table Mountain and not a mundane table.
In my comment to your previous post, I mentioned that I once attempted to recall all the constellation names from memory, so it may not surprise you that I also categorized them :) I counted 8 birds, 8 sea creatures, 10 specific people, 14 scientific or technical instruments (both triangles count here), 21 animals that are not birds or sea creatures, 7 mythological creatures, 12 objects (counting Pyxis in this category as a “mast” not a “compass”), 5 generic persons, 2 geographic entries (Eridanus and Mensa), and 1 that I couldn’t fit into any other category (Coma Berenices). I counted Auriga and Virgo as “specific people” although I’m not sure of that. I counted Aquarius and Bootes as “generic people”, not sure of that either. My 12 objects are Ara, Carina, both Crowns, Crater, Crux, Lyra, Puppis, Pyxis, Scutum, Sagitta, and Vela. You’re right, there are no plants?!? I wondered if any other cultures created constellations depicting trees or flowers or fruit. One of Guy’s Astronomical Calendars featured the Navajo sky on the cover, but I don’t recall what their sky depicted.
Virgo, Bootes, Aquarius, Auriga, Ophiuchus, perhaps others – the generic persons: a little matter to research might be the various individuals they have been identified with. Allen’s Star Names would contain most of the answers. For instance Virgo: Ceres, Ruth, Venus? Queen Elizabeth?
You might find out whether Yggdrasil, the world tree of Norse mythology, was made into a constellation.
My 5 “generic people” might include some mis-classifications: I put Aquarius, Bootes, Indus, Pictor, and Sculptor in this category. I thought Pictor was “painter” but then read that it is more often considered the “painter’s easel”.
Does Gemini count as one specific person, or two? :-)
Definitely two. They weren’t joined at the hip, like another set of twins in Greek legend called, I think, the Moliones; and Castor was fathered by the mere king of Sparta, Pollux by Zeus.
Guy, I am not disputing your assertion that the deforestation of the world is causing pandemics. I am curious as to where you got your data for this?
Well, I got the information from the article to which gave a link. I hope that works in the blog post as you received it. I’ll give the link again here:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/30/rampant-destruction-of-forests-will-unleash-more-pandemics
Constellations known by the Incas of Peru consisted of recognizable shapes of dark dusty interstellar gas & dust clouds projected against the Milky Way – the center of which rides high in the night sky at that southerly latitude. Years ago I had the opportunity to observe these spectacular constellations, along with an astronomer from Arizona’s Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory I had the chance to meet in Peru, from the ruins of Machu Picchu, and extraordinarily dark archaeological site. Two of the most identifiable dark Incan constellations were the Llama (Urcuchillay) and its Baby Lllama. That was a truly spectacular experience.