Fixed Star

Perseus with Medusa's head^[1]

Latin: stellae fixae

Astronomy: a luminous heavenly body, or more accurately a spheroid of plasma.

Groups of fixed stars form constellations.

The term fixed star is distinguished from the term planet (Greek for 'wanderer').

Astrologers tend to put the most emphasis on bright fixed stars of the first Magnitude, such as Regulus, Spica, Sirius, and Algol.

Weblinks

Wikipedia: Fixed stars
Wikipedia: Behenian fixed star
The Fixed Stars in Astrology (Astrotheme, 2017)
Stories from the Stars (Astrodienst - Fixed Star Report, by Bernadette Brady and Darrelyn Gunzburg)
Fixed Stars, why bother? (Bernadette Brady, 2004)
The Horror-Scope of Algol (Nick Kollerstrom, 2005)
The Twenty Brightest Stars (Deborah Houlding, 2006)
Fixed Stars in Various Orders (Constellationsofwords, Homepage of Anne Wright)
- Michael Erlewine's List of 768 Stars
Shelley: A Tragic Romantic (Deborah Houlding)
Fixed Stars and Constellations in Renaissance Astrology and Magic (Christopher Warnock, 2001-2014)
Algol and the British Royal Family (by Alex Trenoweth, 2022)

Bibliography

Kabbalistic sign "Caput Algol"^[4]

Ebertin-Hoffman: Fixed Stars and Their Interpretation, American Federation of Astrologers 2009, 116 pages, ISBN-10 0866900918, ISBN-13 978-0866900911

This book contains 73 major stars and describes their essential nature.

Henry Clay Hodges: Science and Key of Life Volumes 3 and 4, 1902. Kessinger Publishing, 2004 ISBN 0766182312
Vivian Robson: The Fixed Stars and Constellations in Astrology B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia PA 1923. Astrology Classics, 2005 Excerpt online

The classic on fixed stars

Bernadette Brady: Star & Planet Combinations 261 pages. Wessex Astrologer Ltd. ISBN 1902405307
Bernadette Brady: Brady's Book of Fixed Stars 461 pages. Samuel Weiser Inc 1999, ISBN 0877288860; paperback ISBN 157863105X
Geoffrey Cornelius: The Starlore Handbook: An Essential Guide to the Night Sky 176 pages. Chronicle Books, 1997. ISBN 0811816044 (ISBN 13 9780811816045)

Weaving together astronomy, myth, and symbolism

Notes and References

↑ Illustration from Urania’s Mirror, 1825 See Perseus, the Champion, the Rescuer (constellationsofwords.com) and Wikipedia: Urania’s Mirror
↑ The fixed star Algol represents the glowing eye of Medusa the Gorgon, whose severed head Perseus is carrying. That's why this star has the nickname the “Demon Star”. Painted by the Italian Caravaggio in the year 1597
↑ In the large region of the sky between Andromeda, Auriga and the W-shaped Cassiopeia you will find a figure that resembles an upside-down letter Y – this is the constellation of Perseus. It is associated with one of the most famous stories from Greek mythology: in far-away Ethiopia, the beautiful Andromeda, daughter of the royal couple Cepheus and Cassiopeia, was to be sacrificed to a sea monster thanks to her mother’s vanity. But she was saved by Perseus, who produced Medusa’s severed head from a sack. Medusa was a gruesome creature with glowing eyes, long canine teeth, scaly skin, and snakes in place of hair. All living creatures that saw her turned to stone. But Perseus used the image reflected in his shiny shield to behead Medusa. Using Medusa’s head, Perseus turned the sea monster to stone, and it sank to the bottom of the ocean. All the figures from this legend can be seen in the autumn sky: Perseus and Andromeda, Cepheus and Cassiopeia, the sea monster Cetus (the constellation of Cetus) and even Pegasus, the flying horse, who was born from Medusa’s blood. The Demon Star and some meteors The hero Perseus carrying Medusa’s severed head is also depicted in the stars. It is symbolised by the bright star β Per, named Ras al-Ghul (head of the demon) by ancient Arabic astronomers, which became known as Algol over the centuries and millennia that followed. Around 1670, it was discovered that this star does not shine with constant brightness. More than a century after the discovery of Algol's variability, it was childhood friends Edward Pigott and the deaf John Goodricke who observed the changing star over a longer period of time, and were able to determine that the period of variation of its light was around three days. The two amateur astronomers thought it possible that the regular decrease in brightness of the Demon Star could be caused by a circling body or a planet that was half the size of the star itself. Later, however, it turned out to be a stellar eclipse in which two stars occult one another.
↑ Corresponding to Algol (β Perseus), a star in the Perseus' constellation. Originally described in Libri tres de occulta philosophia, 1531 by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

[1] Illustration from Urania’s Mirror, 1825 See Perseus, the Champion, the Rescuer (constellationsofwords.com) and Wikipedia: Urania’s Mirror

[2] The fixed star Algol represents the glowing eye of Medusa the Gorgon, whose severed head Perseus is carrying. That's why this star has the nickname the “Demon Star”. Painted by the Italian Caravaggio in the year 1597

[3] In the large region of the sky between Andromeda, Auriga and the W-shaped Cassiopeia you will find a figure that resembles an upside-down letter Y – this is the constellation of Perseus. It is associated with one of the most famous stories from Greek mythology: in far-away Ethiopia, the beautiful Andromeda, daughter of the royal couple Cepheus and Cassiopeia, was to be sacrificed to a sea monster thanks to her mother’s vanity. But she was saved by Perseus, who produced Medusa’s severed head from a sack. Medusa was a gruesome creature with glowing eyes, long canine teeth, scaly skin, and snakes in place of hair. All living creatures that saw her turned to stone. But Perseus used the image reflected in his shiny shield to behead Medusa. Using Medusa’s head, Perseus turned the sea monster to stone, and it sank to the bottom of the ocean. All the figures from this legend can be seen in the autumn sky: Perseus and Andromeda, Cepheus and Cassiopeia, the sea monster Cetus (the constellation of Cetus) and even Pegasus, the flying horse, who was born from Medusa’s blood. The Demon Star and some meteors The hero Perseus carrying Medusa’s severed head is also depicted in the stars. It is symbolised by the bright star β Per, named Ras al-Ghul (head of the demon) by ancient Arabic astronomers, which became known as Algol over the centuries and millennia that followed. Around 1670, it was discovered that this star does not shine with constant brightness. More than a century after the discovery of Algol's variability, it was childhood friends Edward Pigott and the deaf John Goodricke who observed the changing star over a longer period of time, and were able to determine that the period of variation of its light was around three days. The two amateur astronomers thought it possible that the regular decrease in brightness of the Demon Star could be caused by a circling body or a planet that was half the size of the star itself. Later, however, it turned out to be a stellar eclipse in which two stars occult one another.

[4] Corresponding to Algol (β Perseus), a star in the Perseus' constellation. Originally described in Libri tres de occulta philosophia, 1531 by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

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Fixed Star

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