Ever since the dawn of human history, people, looking up, watched the movement of celestial bodies and tried to unravel their secrets. Exploring the space above them, they seemed to divide it into small sectors, separating one from the other with invisible borders. The resulting sections, which contained within themselves a cluster of a kind of group of observed objects, in a certain way folding into a semblance of a pattern, astronomers of antiquity called constellations and gave them the names of their gods or sacred objects.
Astronomical characteristic
The altar (the Latin name - Ara) is located in the southern part of the celestial sphere, approximately it is located above the South Pole. Its area is about 237 square degrees. The altar is in 63rd place out of 88 in the ranking of constellations in terms of size and occupies 0.575% of the entire sky. The constellation refers to non-ascending, that is, to those that do not rise above the horizon.
Onin the north, the constellation Altar is adjacent to the Southern Crown and Scorpio. On the east side - next to the Telescope. To the west it borders the Southern Triangle and Corner, and to the south it is close to Peacock and Bird of Paradise.
Altar Objects
Under good weather conditions, without special instruments, about thirty stars of this group can be seen in the sky. Most of them are located in the Milky Way. If you use binoculars, you can even see a number of nebulae and the globular cluster NGC 6397.
The seven brightest stars (including β and α) make up its geometric pattern. Pictured is the constellation Altar. These are, as a rule, two curved lines - one is larger, the other is smaller. They are connected to each other by another line in the middle. Such a figure, shaped like the letter "H", vaguely resembles an altar or a stone for sacrifices.
Ancient Greek myth about the constellation Altar
It so happened that in ancient times, almost every nation or tribe had its own gods, deities, idols, who expected gifts from the people. Favorable weather, a rich harvest, or victory in military operations depended on sacrifices. Not surprisingly, many countries have their own legend associated with the constellation Altar, which is so similar to the sacred sacrificial stone.
In ancient Greece, the constellation was called "The Altar of Centauri". The legend of the constellation Altar dates back to the time of Eratosthenes. It says that this is the same altar on whichthe gods of Olympus, led by Zeus, swore before a ten-year battle with their father Kronos.
Kronos was the younger brother of the twelve titans, born from the marriage of the goddess of the earth and the god of the sky. He succumbed to persuasion and took pity on his mother, the goddess Gaia, who endlessly gave birth to children. He struck down his father, the god Uranus, with the sword, and stopped the never-ending fertility of the firmament.
To avoid the fate of his father, Kronos consumed all his newborn children from his wife, the goddess Rhea. In the end, Rhea could not bear the monstrous death of her offspring. She hid the son of Zeus by slipping a stone to Kronos. Raised on the island of Crete and fed by a sacred goat, he went to war with his father. Zeus forced Kronos to release his brothers and sisters, who also turned against their parent. Having won the battle, Zeus threw his father into Tartarus and placed the Altar in the sky in memory of the victory over him.
There is a myth about the constellation Altar, which is associated with the beginning of the Trojan War. The Mycenaean king Agamemnon accidentally killed the doe of Artemis, which angered the goddess. Because of its winds, the king, along with the Greek troops, was locked up on the island of Aulis. To earn the forgiveness of the goddess, Agamemnon killed his daughter Iphigenia on a sacrificial stone. At the last moment, Artemis had mercy and replaced the girl with a doe, and raised the altar to heaven.
Bible tales
A similar story is told in the Bible. God decided to test the faith of Abraham and demanded to sacrifice his sonIsaac. Abraham obeyed. He tied his son, laid him on the altar and raised a dagger over him. But God, seeing that the strength of Abraham's faith is great, sent an Angel to replace the young man with a lamb.
In Scripture, the altar is also mentioned in connection with the Great Flood. Coming out of the ark and stepping on the ground, Noah first of all made a sacrifice to God on the sacred stone, glorifying him and thanking him for this miraculous salvation.
