ORION

THE HUNTER
THE CONSTELLATION

ALEXANDER Y. PERRY
PHYS 1040-010

The Legend
With his bright girdle, outstretched arms and prime location along the celestial equator,
the constellation of Orion has been regularly observed and documented by many cultures in both
hemispheres around the world. Though each culture has given the constellation different names
and imbued upon it a variety of weapons, stories and shapes, the focus here will be on the Greek
origins of what now is referred to as the constellation of Orion.
Orion was a giant and born of Euryale the daughter of King Minos of Crete and
Poseidon. As a son of a God he was augmented with wondrous physical prowess and was said to
be able to run over water as though it were as solid as land [1]. Because it wouldnt be fitting to
sail when you can walk on water, Orion travelled by foot over the Aegean Sea to the Island of
Chios where he was to offer his services to the king. He was welcomed with a banquet by King
Oenopion, son of Dionysus. As with most Greek stories the protagonist often succumbs to the
temptations of mortals; for Orion he indulged in too much wine which led to lust consuming
him. Merope, daughter of King Oenopion is assailed by Orion. Some tales say that she was
raped, while many say he violently pursued her, but in the end the outlook was the same. An
enraged King Oenopion begs his father Dionysus for help. Dionysus the God of wine and
bacchanalia sent satyrs to cast sleep upon Orion. After doing so an unconscious Orion was
delivered to King Oenopion and shortly thereafter the King gouged out Orions eyes.
Orion was banished from the island a blind and ruined man. With only his ears and
ability to walk on water still intact he wandered the seas aimlessly for a time until he heard the
magical sound of a smithy. A pitiful Orion eventually stumbles upon Hephaestus the smithy of
the Gods who took pity upon the once great man. Hephaestus instructs his aide Cedalion to

carry Orion upon his shoulders and seek out the Sun God Helios to restore the blind mans
vision.
With his eyes healed an enraged Orion returns to Chios to seek vengeance on the King
who had wronged him. Unfortunately for the water walker the King was much loved by his
citizens. The King was safely stowed away in an impregnable underground fortress for which
Orion was no match. A defeated Orion once again is left wandering without a calling.
After time and a great deal of hunting he finds a kindred spirit in the goddess of the hunt,
Artemis. They develop a close bond, much closer than her twin brother Apollo liked. He
implored her to leave the mortal, but she would not listen. A livid Apollo devised a plan to rid
himself of the mortal man. While Orion was off swimming one day, Apollo challenged his sister
to hit a mark out on the sea. From their vantage point the mark was an unremarkable spot on the
sea. Artemis could not let any challenge go unanswered so she knocked an arrow from her
quiver and let it loose. The arrow found its mark. Eventually the target washed ashore and to
Artemiss horror it was her beloved Orion. With the bond between the two so strong Artemis
could not simply let him go. She lifted him to the heavens as a constellation so that all may
remember him as the glorious hunter he was [1].
In other much shorter tales Orion, with the same origin story, was said to be a great
hunter who fell victim, as many in that time did, to hubris. Extremely pleased with his hunting
skill he boasted that he would rid the world of all wild beasts [1]. Hera, goddess of the earth and
often depicted as Mother Earth, did not take the threat lightly. A scorpion was sent to dispatch
Orion who died unceremoniously thereafter. To immortalize the story for posterity both the
Scorpion and Orion were placed in the heavens together, though never to occupy the same sky at
any given time.

The Constellation
Constellations come in many shapes and
sizes. Some are tiny like Canis Minor while
others are huge, like Orion. Variables like light
pollution, an unfamiliar eye, and stars in
constellations that seem to blend into one other
can make successful spotting quite the endeavor.
Fortunately, Orion (fig 1) has a handful of tricks
in its bag to make spotting it fairly easy. In the
Northern hemisphere between December and
January the constellation can be seen rising in the
east at eight pm to peak around ten pm [3]. The
easiest way to spot him is to look for the three
stars that make up his girdle- in left to right order
they are, Mintaka, Alnilam and Alnitak [8].
Starting with the red giant Betelgeuse on his right

figure 1
Fujii, Akira. Orion Constellation. Digital
image. Hubble Site. Space Telescope
Science Institute, 11 Jan. 2006. Web. 20
Nov. 2015.
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/re
leases/2006/01/image/n/format/web_print.

shoulder and going in a clockwise order Bellatrix

will form his left shoulder; followed by Rigel and Saiph making his left and right knee
respectively [8]. Those seven stars will form a squared hourglass which even on the brightest of
nights are easily visible. For a more precise location using the celestial sphere Orion can be
found at right ascension 5 hours and declination +5.

On the darkest of nights Orion can be seen with many constellations all around. Taurus,
Eridanus and Lepus flank his right sides while Gemini, Monoceros and his faithful dog Canis
Major flank his left. With the exception of Canis Major, the other constellations dont stand out
as they dont have stars that are as apparently bright in comparison to Orion and his dog. A
matter of note the brightest visible star in the sky, Sirius, resides in the constellation of Canis
Major [3]. Orion is an easily recognized constellation, but its not just because of his flashy
knees and bedazzled belt.

Objects of Interest
When people think of the Orion constellation, what is it that they remember? Is it really
just his embellished belt or the bright stars that shape out his body? This all could very well be
true, but when you look further into the constellation more features stand out that are not
apparent to the naked eye.
The first object and arguably the most awe
inspiring within the constellation is the Great
Orion Nebula (M42, figure 2). At a right
ascension of 5 hours and 35 minutes, declination
of -5, approximate distance of 1300 light-years
and apparent magnitude of +4 it is almost a
wonder that we can see it from Earth at all [3].
The average human eye is capable of seeing an
apparent magnitude of +6, but throwing in
variables like atmospheric disturbance, light

figure 2
Digital image. Hubble's Sharpest View of
the Orion Nebula. HubbleSite
Organization, n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2015.
http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/nebula/
pr2006001a/warn/.

pollution, and smog it becomes fairly apparent why the nebula is almost more of an apparition
than a real object. Fortunately, on a cold dark night most people can see it unassisted easily
enough even if it just looks like a light smudge on the night sky. Binoculars are sufficient at
helping spot the nebula [3], but to make out the shapes of the shrouds and see more than just
white youll want a large telescope.

Within the Great Orion Nebula lies another

surprise, Theta Orionis. Also known as the Trapezium
Group (figure 3), this cluster of stars is much more that
what they appear to be. They are approximately 1800 ly
away with a collective apparent magnitude of 4.7 and
spectral types of O and B [3]. To the naked eye these
four clusters appear to be only a single star. To a
consumer level telescope, the one bright star appears to
split into four and as the power increases so do the
surprises. It turns out this cluster of seemingly four
stars is made up of at least ten, and is responsible for

figure 3
NASA, and K. L. Luhman.
"Picture Album: Behind the Gas
and Dust of Orion's Trapezium
Cluster." Trapezium Group.
Behind the Gas and Dust of
Orion's Trapezium Cluster, n.d.
Web. 27 Nov. 2015.
http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album
/entire/pr2000019b/web/.

much of the ultraviolet radiation illuminating from the

entire Great Orion Nebula. The largest of the stars is Theta 1C. At 400 times the mass of the
Sun and about 200,000 times the luminosity this is the one star that is seen with the naked eye
when looking at this part of the nebula [3].

Just above the Great Orion Nebula on Orions belt resides another nebula. The aptly

named Horsehead Nebular is a luminous nebula

where stellar dust silhouetted against the nebula
forms the horse-like head. Figure 3 shows a
zoomed in image of the horse. The left side is a
false colored infrared image while the right
side is in visible light. This nebula is fairly
close to the Great Orion Nebula and as such
has a similar address. The right ascension is 5
hours and 28 minutes, declination -2 and it sits

figure 4
Kornmesser, M., and NN. Visible and Infrared
Views of the Horsehead Nebula. Digital image.
Spacetelescope.org. EESA, 19 Apr. 2013. Web.
1 Dec. 2015.
http://cdn.spacetelescope.org/archives/images/scr
een/heic1307b.jpg.

at a distance of approximately 1600 ly. An interesting fact about the Horsehead nebula is the
shape of the head is an extremely dense cloud being projected forward of the ionized gas which
provides the pink backdrop [11]. At almost every other angle this coincidental shape would look
a vertical or lateral protuberance and nothing more. It is nice when the nebula and stars align
just right for images like those above.

Cultures of the past studied Orion endlessly and today the same fervor can be seen across
the planet in todays youths, hobby astronomers and professionals. A hotbed of activity, the
Orion Constellation has yet to reveal all of its secrets in time the number of stars we find it will
likely increase and with that our knowledge of our origins. It is fitting that a man who lived hard
and died young would be given this area of the heavens, where most of the stars will live the
rock star life their namesake did.

table 1
List of top 20 notable stars in the Orion constellation in order of visual magnitude
Name

RA

Declination

vis. mag.

Dist.(ly)

Spectral &
Luminosity Class

Rigel

05h 14m 32.27s

08 12 05.9

0.18

773

B8Ia + B9V + B9V

Betelgeuse

05h 55m 10.29s

+07 24 25.3

0.42

643

M2Ib

Bellatrix

05h 25m 07.87s

+06 20 59.0

1.64

243

B2III

Alnilam

05h 36m 12.81s

01 12 06.9

1.69

1342

B0Ia

Alnitak A

05h 40m 45.52s

01 56 33.3

1.88

817

O9.7Ib

Saiph

05h 47m 45.39s

09 40 10.6

2.07

721

B0.5Ia

Mintaka AB

05h 32m 00.40s

00 17 56.7

2.20

916

B0III+O9V

Ori

05h 35m 25.98s

05 54 35.6

2.75

1325

O9III

3 Ori

04h 49m 50.14s

+06 57 40.5

3.19

26

F6V

Ori

05h 24m 28.62s

02 23 49.7

3.35

901

B1V + B2

Meissa A

05h 35m 08.28s

+09 56 03.0

3.47

1055

O8III

Ori

05h 17m 36.40s

06 50 39.8

3.59

554

B5III

4 Ori

04h 51m 12.37s

+05 36 18.4

3.68

1259

B2III

Alnitak BC

05h 40m 45.60s

01 56 34.0

3.70

817

B0III+B1IV

5 Ori

04h 54m 15.10s

+02 26 26.4

3.71

1342

B2III

 Ori AB

05h 38m 44.77s

02 36 00.2

3.77

1148

O9.5V

2 Ori

04h 56m 22.32s

+13 30 52.5

4.06

169

K2III

2 Ori

05h 36m 54.33s

+09 17 29.1

4.09

116

G8III-IV

Ori

06h 02m 22.99s

+09 38 50.5

4.12

152

Am...

29 Ori

05h 23m 56.84s

07 48 28.6

4.13

174

G8III

Source: List of Stars in Orion. Digital

image. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 3 July 2015.
Web. 11 Nov. 2015.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stars
_in_Orion.

Works Cited

1) Atsma, Aaron J. Orion. Theoi Greek Mythology. Theoi Project, 2000. Web. 21 September
2015. http://www.theoi.com/Gigante/GiganteOrion.html.
2) Digital image. Hubble's Sharpest View of the Orion Nebula. HubbleSite Organization, n.d.
Web. 10 Oct. 2015. http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/nebula/pr2006001a/warn/.
3) Rees, Martin J. "The Constellations." Universe. 1st ed. New York: DK Pub., 2012. 291, 390
91. Print.
4) Rao, Joe. "A Tale of Two Stars: The Inside Story of Orion." Space.com. Purch, 14 Feb. 2012.
Web. 27 Nov. 2015.
http://www.space.com/14566-constellation-orion-rigel-betelgeuse-starsskywatching.html.
5) List of Stars in Orion. Digital image. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc., 3 July 2015. Web. 11 Nov. 2015.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stars_in_Orion.
6) Fujii, Akira. Orion Constellation. Digital image. Hubble Site. Space Telescope Science
Institute, 11 Jan. 2006. Web. 20 Nov. 2015.
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2006/01/image/n/format/web_print/.
7) NASA, and K. L. Luhman. "Picture Album: Behind the Gas and Dust of Orion's Trapezium
Cluster." Trapezium Group. Behind the Gas and Dust of Orion's Trapezium Cluster, n.d.
Web. 27 Nov. 2015. http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/entire/pr2000019b/web/.
8) Howell, Elizabeth. "Orion's Belt: String of Stars & Region of Star Birth." Space.com. Purch,
20 Dec. 2014. Web. 27 Nov. 2015. http://www.space.com/28072-orions-belt.html.

9) "Orion (constellation)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 22 Sept. 2015. Web. 1 Dec. 2015.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(constellation).
10) Kornmesser, M., and NN. Visible and Infrared Views of the Horsehead Nebula. Digital
image. Spacetelescope.org. EESA, 19 Apr. 2013. Web. 1 Dec. 2015.
http://cdn.spacetelescope.org/archives/images/screen/heic1307b.jpg.
11) Sharp, N. A. "National Optical Astronomy Observatory.": Horsehead. Association of
Universities for Research in Astronomy and National Science Foundation, n.d. Web. 01
Dec. 2015. http://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/html/im0057.html.