Crows often get a bad rap, but in truth they’re one of the smartest birds around. In fact, according to Greek and Roman mythology, crows were once the most respected birds on Earth.
They had beautiful singing voices, and bright white feathers with gold trim on their wings and tail.
They served the gods and goddesses as reliable messengers on Mount Olympus until Corvus, the bungling crow, messed it up forever.
The constellation Corvus the Crow is one of the 66 or so constellations we see throughout the year in the Northwest skies, but it’s certainly not one of the biggest or brightest.
The little constellation is basically a lopsided diamond in the low south-southeastern sky a little after 9 p.m. Corvus is just to the right of the fairly bright star Spica, the brightest star in the large but faint constellation Virgo the Virgin.
This year the planet Saturn is also in the same part of the sky, located to the upper left of the low-flying celestial crow.
Myth has it that Apollo, the god of the sun, sent Corvus to fetch water from a far-off magical fountain. Apollo dispatched the great bird with one of his favorite chalices to collect the magical water.
Corvus didn’t know exactly where the fountain was, but he thought he knew which town to fly into. He told Apollo that he should be back by that evening, no problem.
His confidence in finding the magic fountain diminished as the day wore on. His wings were getting tired and his throat was dry, so he decided to take a break at a bar where he met up with some friends.
Corvus and his old buddies drank and talked for hours, The next morning a very hungover Corvus decided it was time to fly back to Mount Olympus to face the music.
As he got closer to the home of the gods, the wayward crow began cooking up a story about how a crazed water snake bit him while he was getting a drink of water, making him too woozy to find the fountain.
When Corvus made his landing, he almost had Apollo convinced about of his extremely tall water snake tale until he handed over the chalice. Corvus forgot to wash it out and it reeked of beer.
Apollo fired Corvus on the spot and banned all crows from Mount Olympus
Apollo also turned all crows from their beautiful white and gold colors to the jet-black we see today and turned all the crows’ singing voices into a raucous caw-caw.
Also this week look for Saturn perched just to upper left of Corvus. With even a small telescope you can see its wonderful ring system. Saturn is currently under 850 million miles away.
A celestial hugging
In the early morning twilight this week, see if you can spot the planets Venus and Mercury in a close celestial hug in the very low eastern sky. It will be a bit of a challenge because they’re so low in the sky. You’ll need a low, flat eastern horizon. Venus is by far the brighter of the two with the much fainter Mercury to the lower left.
On Friday and Saturday the waning crescent moon will join the planets. Friday morning the moon will be a little to the upper right of the moon and on Saturday morning look for the moon camped right above Venus.
Mike Lynch is an astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and is author of the book, “Washington Starwatch,” available at bookstores. Check his website, www.lynchandthestars.com.
The Everett Astronomical Society: www.everettastro.org.
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