Visible at latitudes between +84° and −57°. Best visible at 21:00 (9 p.m.) during the month ofNovember.
Pisces is a constellation of thezodiac. Its vast bulk — and main asterism viewed in most European cultures perGreco-Roman antiquity as a distant pair of fishes connected by one cord each that join at an apex — are in theNorthern celestial hemisphere. Its traditional astrological symbol is (♓︎). Its name is Latin for "fishes". It is betweenAquarius, of similar size, to the southwest andAries, which is smaller, to the east. Theecliptic and thecelestial equator intersect within this constellation and inVirgo. The Sunpasses directly overhead of the equator, on average, at approximately this point in the sky, at theMarch equinox.
The constellation Pisces as it can be seen by naked eye
TheMarch equinox is currently situated in Pisces, directly south of ω Psc, and because ofprecession, it is gradually drifting westward, just below the western fish and moving towardAquarius.
Although Pisces is a large constellation, there are only two stars brighter than magnitude 4 in Pisces. It is also the second dimmest of the zodiac constellations.
Note: magnitude, here, means apparent magnitude
Alrescha ("the cord"), otherwiseAlpha Piscium (α Psc), 309.8 lightyears, class A2, magnitude 3.62, variable binary star[1]
Fumalsamakah[2] ("mouth of the fish"), otherwiseBeta Piscium (β Psc), 492 lightyears, class B6Ve, magnitude 4.48
Delta Piscium (δ Psc), 305 lightyears, class K5III, magnitude 4.44. Like other stars near the ecliptic, Delta Piscium is subject to lunar occultations.[3]
Epsilon Piscium (ε Psc), 190 lightyears, class K0III, magnitude 4.27. Has a candidate exoplanet.[4]
Revati[2] ("rich"), otherwiseZeta Piscium (ζ Psc), 148 lightyears, class A7IV, magnitude 5.21. Quintuple star system.[5]
Torcular ("thread"),[2] otherwiseOmicron Piscium (ο Psc), 258 lightyears, class K0III, magnitude 4.2. It is an evolved red giant star on thehorizontal branch.[8]
Gamma Piscium (γ Psc), 138 lightyears, magnitude 3.70. The star hosts anexoplanet which was discovered in 2021.[4] It has a spectral type of G8 III.[11]
Van Maanen's Star is the closest-known solitary white dwarf to us, with a dim apparent magnitude. It is located about 2° to the south of the starDelta Piscium,[12] with a relatively highproper motion of 2.978″ annually along aposition angle of 155.538°.[13] It is closer to the Sun than any other solitary white dwarf. It is too faint to be seen with thenaked eye.[12] Like other white dwarfs, it is a very dense star: its mass has been estimated to be about 67% of theSun's,[14] yet it has only 1% of theSun's radius.[15] Theouter atmosphere has a temperature of approximately 6,110 K,[14] which is relatively cool for a white dwarf. As allwhite dwarfs steadily radiate away their heat over time, this temperature can be used to estimate its age, thought to be around 3 billion years.[16] It was originally thought to be anF-type star before the properties of white dwarfs were known.[17][18]
Due to the dimness of these stars, the constellation is essentially invisible in or near any major city due tolight pollution.
NGC 488 is an isolated face-on prototypical spiral galaxy.[23] Two supernovae have been observed in the galaxy.[24]
NGC 520 is a pair of colliding galaxies located 105 million light-years away.[25]
CL0024+17 is a massivegalaxy cluster thatlenses the galaxy behind it, creating arc-shaped images of the background galaxy. The cluster is primarily made up of yellowelliptical and spiral galaxies, at a distance of 3.6 billion light-years from Earth (redshift 0.4), half as far away as the background galaxy, which is at a distance of 5.7 billion light-years (redshift 1.67).[19][26]
3C 31 is anactive galaxy andradio source in Pisces 237 million light-years from Earth (redshift 0.0173). Its jets, caused by thesupermassive black hole at its center, extend several million light-years in opposing directions, making them some of the largest objects in the universe.
Pisces originates from some composition of theBabylonian constellationsŠinunutu4 "the great swallow" in current western Pisces, andAnunitum the "Lady of the Heaven", at the place of the northern fish. In the first-millennium BC texts known as theAstronomical Diaries, part of the constellation was also calledDU.NU.NU (Rikis-nu.mi, "the fish cord or ribbon").[27]
Pisces is associated with the Greek legend thatAphrodite and her sonEros either shape-shifted into forms of fishes to escape, or were rescued by two fishes.
In the Greek version according toHyginus, Aphrodite and Eros while visitingSyria fled from the monsterTyphon by leaping into theEuphrates River and transforming into fishes (Poeticon astronomicon 2.30, citing Diognetus Erythraeus).[28] The Roman variant of the story hasVenus andCupid (counterparts for Aphrodite and Eros) carried away from this danger on the backs of two fishes (OvidFasti 2.457ff).[29][30]
There is also a different origin tale that Hyginus preserved in another work. According to this, an egg rolled into the Euphrates, and some fishes nudged this to shore, after which the doves sat on the egg until Aphrodite (thereafter called theSyrian Goddess) hatched out of it. The fishes were then rewarded by being placed in the skies as a constellation (Fabulae 197).[31][32] This story is also recorded by theThird Vatican Mythographer.[33]
Pisces in Hevelius's map (1690). As with all Hevelius's figures this one is shown as seen on a globe, so appears a mirror image by comparison with the sky
In 1690, the astronomerJohannes Hevelius in hisFirmamentum Sobiescianum regarded the constellation Pisces as being composed of four subdivisions:[34][35]
"Piscis Austrinus" now refers to a separate constellation in its own right, which Hevelius and Bode called Piscis Notius.
In 1754, the botanist and authorJohn Hill proposed to sever a southern zone of Pisces asTestudo (the Turtle).[36] 24 – 27 – YY(30) – 33 – 29 Psc.,[37] It would host a natural but quite faintasterism in which the star 20 Psc is the head of the turtle. WhileAdmiral Smyth mentioned the proposal,[38] it was largely neglected by other astronomers, and it is nowobsolete.[37]
The Fishes are in the German lore of Antenteh, who owned just a tub and a crude cabin when he met two magical fish. They offered him a wish, which he refused. However, his wife begged him to return to the fish and ask for a beautifully furnished home. This wish was granted, but her desires were not satisfied. She then asked to be a queen and have a palace, but when she asked to become a goddess, the fish became angry and took the palace and home, leaving the couple with the tub and cabin once again. The tub is sometimes recognized as theGreat Square of Pegasus.[39]
The stars of Pisces were incorporated into several constellations inChinese astronomy. Wai-ping ("Outer Enclosure") was a fence that kept a pig farmer from falling into the marshes and kept the pigs where they belonged. It was represented by Alpha, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Mu, Nu, and Xi Piscium. The marshes were represented by the four stars designated Phi Ceti. The northern fish of Pisces was a part of the House of the Sandal, Koui-siou.[40]
^Meyer, C.; et al. (1995), "Observations of lunar occultations at Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur",Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement,110: 107,Bibcode:1995A&AS..110..107M.
^abTeng, Huan-Yu; Sato, Bun'ei; Takarada, Takuya; Omiya, Masashi; Harakawa, Hiroki; Izumiura, Hideyuki; Kambe, Eiji; Takeda, Yoichi; Yoshida, Michitoshi; Itoh, Yoichi; Ando, Hiroyasu; Kokubo, Eiichiro (2022), "Regular radial velocity variations in nine G- and K-type giant stars: Eight planets and one planet candidate",Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan,74:92–127,arXiv:2112.07169,doi:10.1093/pasj/psab112
^Aurière, M.; Konstantinova-Antova, R.; Charbonnel, C.; Wade, G. A.; Tsvetkova, S.; Petit, P.; Dintrans, B.; Drake, N. A.; Decressin, T.; Lagarde, N.; Donati, J. F.; Roudier, T.; Lignières, F.; Schröder, K. P.; Landstreet, J. D.; Lèbre, A.; Weiss, W. W.; Zahn, J. P. (February 2015), "The magnetic fields at the surface of active single G-K giants",Astronomy & Astrophysics,574: 30,arXiv:1411.6230,Bibcode:2015A&A...574A..90A,doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201424579,S2CID118504829, A90.
^Griffin, R. F.; Redman, R. O. (1960), "Photoelectric measurements of the λ4200 A CN band and the G band in G8-K5 spectra",Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,120 (4):287–316,Bibcode:1960MNRAS.120..287G,doi:10.1093/mnras/120.4.287.
^van Maanen, A. (December 1917), "Two Faint Stars with Large Proper Motion",Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific,29 (172):258–259,Bibcode:1917PASP...29..258V,doi:10.1086/122654.
^abWilkins, Jamie; Dunn, Robert (2006).300 Astronomical Objects: A Visual Reference to the Universe (1st ed.). Buffalo, New York: Firefly Books.ISBN978-1-55407-175-3.
^Wilkins, Jamie; Dunn, Robert (2006).300 Astronomical Objects: A Visual Reference to the Universe (1st ed.). Buffalo, New York: Firefly Books.ISBN978-1-55407-175-3.
Richard Hinckley Allen,Star Names, Their Lore and Legend,New York, Dover: various dates.
Staal, Julius D. W. (1988).The New Patterns in the Sky: Myths and Legends of the Stars. The McDonald and Woodward Publishing Company.ISBN978-0-939923-04-5.
Thomas Wm. Hamilton,Useful Star Names, Strategic Books, 2008.
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