New Zodiac Ophiuchus - The 13th of Zodiac

Ophiuchus (pronounced off-ee-YOO-cuss) represents a man with a snake coiled around his waist. He holds the head of the snake in his left hand and its tail in his right hand. The snake is represented by the constellation serpent


The Greeks identified him as Asclepius, the god of medicine. Asclepius was the son of Apollo and Coronis (although some say that his mother was Arsinoë). The story goes that Coronis two-timed Apollo by sleeping with a mortal, Ischys, while she was pregnant by Apollo. A crow brought Apollo the unwelcome news, but instead of the expected reward the crow, which until then had been snow-white, was cursed by Apollo and turned black.


In a rage of jealousy, Apollo shot Coronis with an arrow. Rather than see his child perish with her, Apollo snatched the unborn baby from its mother’s womb as the flames of the funeral pyre engulfed her, and took the infant to Chiron, the wise centaur (represented in the sky by the constellation Centaurus).


Chiron raised Asclepius as his own son, teaching him the arts of healing and hunting. Asclepius became so skilled in medicine that not only could he save lives, he could also raise the dead.


Asclepius and the snake

On one occasion in Crete, Glaucus, the young son of King Minos, fell into jar of honey while playing and drowned. As Asclepius contemplated the body of Glaucus, a snake slithered towards it. He killed the snake with his staff; then another snake came along with a herb in its mouth and placed it on the body of the dead snake, which magically returned to life. Asclepius took the same herb and laid it on the body of Glaucus, who too was magically resurrected. (Robert Graves suggests that the herb was mistletoe, which the ancients thought had great regenerative properties, but perhaps it was actually willow bark, the source of salicylic acid, the active ingredient in aspirin.) Because of this incident, says Hyginus, Ophiuchus is shown in the sky holding a snake, which became the symbol of healing from the fact that snakes shed their skin every year and are thus seemingly reborn.


Others, though, say that Asclepius received from the goddess Athene the blood of Medusa the Gorgon. The blood that flowed from the veins on her left side was a poison, but the blood from the right side could raise the dead.


Someone else supposedly resurrected by Asclepius was Hippolytus, son of Theseus, who died when he was thrown from his chariot (some identify him with the constellation Auriga, the Charioteer). Reaching for his healing herbs, Asclepius touched the youth’s chest three times, uttering healing words, and Hippolytus raised his head.


Hades, god of the Underworld, began to realize that the flow of dead souls into his domain would soon dry up if this technique became widely known. He complained to his brother god Zeus who struck down Asclepius with a thunderbolt. Apollo was outraged at this harsh treatment of his son and retaliated by killing the three Cyclopes who forged Zeus’ thunderbolts. To mollify Apollo, Zeus made Asclepius immortal (in the circumstances he could hardly bring him back to life again) and set him among the stars as the constellation Ophiuchus.


Ophiuchus The 13th Stars

The head of Ophiuchus is marked by its brightest star, second-magnitude Alpha Ophiuchi, called Rasalhague from the Arabic meaning ‘the head of the serpent collector’. Beta Ophiuchi is called Cebalrai from the Arabic for ‘the shepherd’s dog’; the Arabs visualized a shepherd (the star Alpha Ophiuchi) along with his dog and some sheep in this area. Ptolemy in the Almagest located Beta Ophiuchi in the serpent holder’s right shoulder, along with Gamma; the left shoulder is marked by Iota and Kappa Ophiuchi. A scattering of stars between the right shoulder of Ophiuchus and the tail of the serpent once formed the short-lived constellation Taurus Poniatovii.


Delta and Epsilon Ophiuchi are called Yed Prior and Yed Posterior. These are compound names, formed from the Arabic al-yad, meaning ‘hand’, with the Latin words Prior and Posterior added to give names meaning the ‘leading’ and ‘following’ parts of the hand, where Ptolemy had located them. The hand in question is the left one; the right hand, according to Ptolemy, was marked by the stars we now know as Nu and Tau Ophiuchi, but these have no proper names. Zeta and Eta Ophiuchi are his left and right knees, Rho and Theta Ophiuchi are in his feet.

Serpens-Ophiuchus group occupies a very large celestial field in the West Side of the Milky Way. The Serpent is being grasped in the hands of Ophiuchus, the constellation wraps around Ophiuchus and is divided into two parts; Serpens Caput (head) and Serpens Cauda (tail).


The constellation of Ophiuchus represents Asclepius who was a skilled surgeon. He carries serpent because it had been regarded as a symbol of health in the ancient Greece.


Ophiuchus is the only constellation that the sun enters but which is not a part of the zodiac, because the southern area of Ophiuchus was that of Scorpius formerly.
The Serpens Cauda is bathed in the Milky Way, so it includes many nebulae and star clusters, and some novae have appeared around this field. In 1604, a supernova with a magnitude of about -2.5 appeared just southwest of theta Ophiuchi, marks right leg of Ophiuchus. The supernova is known as "The Kepler's supernova", and we have only three records of supernova appeared in the Galaxy including this one.




Deep Sky Objects in Ophiuchus:

There are six Messier objects in Ophiuchus: M9, M10, M12, M14, M19, and M62 (and one more as well, if you accept M107 as a true Messier). These are all globular clusters.


M9 (NGC 6333) is the smallest of this group, unresolved except in large instruments.


The cluster is found 3.5 degrees SE of eta Ophiuchi. It is considered to be about 26,000 light years away.


In the same field are two more globular clusters: NGC 6342 (1 degree SE) and NGC 6356 (1 degree NE).


M10 (NGC 6254) and M12 (NGC 6218) are nearly identical globular clusters: like tiny explosions of stars with dense cores.


M12 is eight degrees north of zeta Ophiuchi and two degrees east. M10 is 2.5 degrees SE of M12, with 30 Ophiuchi in the same field.


M14 (NGC 6402) needs a 20-cm telescope to resolve; it's more condensed than the preceding two and slightly fainter.


M19 (NGC 6273) is another very dense cluster, usually described as "oblate", meaning it's a bit egg-shaped. It is about 25000 light years away.


M19 is seven degrees due east of Antares (alpha Sco), or two and a half degrees west of the bright double 36 Ophiuchi (and very slightly north, less than a degree).


M62 (NGC 6266) is six degrees SW of theta Oph (and four degrees south of M19); this is another non-circular globular cluster, a little brighter than M19. (Note: Burnham includes this Messier in Scorpius; nearly all other authorities put it in Ophiuchus.)


M107 (NGC 6171) is the faintest of the bunch and quite small. This is one of those "Messiers" that were added to the original list, for some reason. It's three degrees SSW of zeta Ophiuchi.


B78, the "Pipe Nebula", is a naked eye dark nebula two degrees southeast of theta Ophiuchi, in very rich area of the Milky Way.


Barnard's Star is the most rapidly moving star relative to the solar system, with a proper motion of 10.31", and the second closest star to us, at a distance of 5.91 light years (if you accept the three-star system of alpha Centauri as a unit).


This is a red dwarf, with a visual magnitude of only 9.5, and consequently not easily found. Burnham has a finder's chart, page 1253, but since that chart was published the star has moved north 1.1 centimetres.


The star is three degrees due east of beta Ophiuchus. The actual location (Epoch 2000) is R.A. 17h58m; Decl. +04 degrees, 34 minutes.


A slight oscillation in both the right ascension and declination of Barnard's Star has led observers to suggest the possibility that one or more planets orbit the star.

Purchase New Zodiac Ophiuchus - The 13th of Zodiac 

Related tags; The 13th Sign, THE 13TH ZODIAC (OPHIUCHUS) AND THE GALACTIC SOLAR SYSTEM UNVEILED, Zodiac - The Director's Cut (Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition), Zodiac Unmasked: The Identity of America's Most Elusive Serial Killer Revealed