Coelacanth
Image Credit: National Geographic
PISCIS AUSTRINUS, THE SOUTHERN FISH Tropical Span: 20 degrees 14 Aquarius – 4 Pisces
Below Aquarius is Piscis Austrinus; this is the Southern Fish (not one of the Pisces fishes) into whose mouth the stream from the Urn enters at the bright star Fomalhaut (Arabic Famm-al-Hut, the Mouth-of-the-Fish). Frag-ments of an Euphratean celestial sphere in the British Museum has this as Sumero-Akkadian Sila-Da-Kha-Bi, Babylonian-Assyrian Nun-nagabi, Phoenician Dag: “Constellation-Fish-of-the-Canal” (this “canal” probably being the stream of water from the Urn of Aquarius). Among the ancient Sumero-Semites, the priests of Ea-Oannes, Lord of the Deeps (who was also shown as a fish-goat or fish-ram) wore a fish-skin as a theriomorphic dress. The fish headdress of Ea’s priests later became the mitre of the Christian bishops.
Besides stars in Aquarius and Pegasus, St Bernadette’s MC, Neptune & Jupiter also aligned with stars of Piscis Austrinus, the Southern Fish, which Manilius said offered “benefit from the waters”!
Sourced: The Ground of Heaven
Hubble took this shot of the star Fomalhaut (hidden behind an occulter) with its ring of dust, and the planet Fomalhaut b marked.
Image Credit: thebadastronomer
Alpha (α) Piscis Austrinus, Fomalhaut, is a reddish star in the mouth of the Southern Fish, Piscis Austrinus (not to be confused with the constellation Pisces).
Fomalhaut, from the Arabic Fum al Hut, the Fish’s Mouth, has long been the common name for this star, the English astronomer Smyth (1788-1865) saying that Fom Alhout Al-genubi appears, with its translation Os Piscis Meridiani, in a still existing manuscript almanac of 1340.
The Greek astronomer Aratus, circa 270 B.C., distinctly mentioned it as
“One large and bright by both the Pourer’s (Aquarius) feet,”
which is its location in the maps of to-day, although sometimes it has marked the eye of the Fish, and formerly was still differently placed, as is noted at beta (β).
In addition to putting it in its own constellation, the second-century Greek astronomer Ptolemy inserted it in his Udrochoos, and Flamsteed followed him in making it his 24 of Piscis Australis and 79 of Aquarius, calling it Aquae Ultima Fomalhaut.
It was Hastorang in Persia 2582 B.C., at the winter solstice, and a Royal Star, one of the “four Guardians of Heaven”, sentinels watching over other stars; while about 500 B.C. it was the object of sunrise worship in the temple of Demeter at Eleusis.
This is one of the four key stars in the heavens, also called archangel stars.
Michael (Aldebaran) watcher of the East.
Gabriel (Fomalhaut) watcher of the South.
Raphael (The Healing Archangel (Regulus) Watcher of the North.
Oriel (Antares) Watcher of the West.
[The angel associations come from Eric Morse, The Living Stars, p.35. Allen’s explanation of these four stars on p.256 of Star Names]
At one time they marked the two Equinoxes and two Solstices. Aldebaran marked zero Aries 3044 BC, Antares marked zero Libra 3052 BC, Fomalhaut marked zero Capricorn, 2582 BC, Regulus marked zero Cancer 2345 BC.
Eric Morse says: They have been characterized as Horses, reflected both in the famed Four Horsemen of Apocalypse (Revelations 6) and Chariot Horses in the Book of Zechariah.
Regulus was long considered the supreme of the Four Guardians but the role of Fomalhaut – Gabriel, in the birth of Jesus – must now be said to challenge or actually supplant, with a new stage in human spiritual evolution, the supremacy of the more ‘medical’ Archangel of the Leonine era. [Dr Eric Morse, The Living Stars, p.56.]
Sourced: Constellations of Words
The Violet Hour 