The Nautical Almanac # 56 --- Fomalhaut, the Mouth of the Southern Fish

Fomalhaut (Alpha Piscis Austrini) is a very bright First Magnitude star, the 56th in the Nautical Almanac, and the brightest in the constellation of Piscis Austrinus The Southern Fish. It is NOT, despite occasional erroneous references in books and online, the brightest star in the Zodiacal constellation of Pisces The Fishes. In Arabic, this star's name means "the mouth of the fish (or more properly, "whale") referring to its position in the constellation. 

Fomalhaut: "The Watcher in the South"

Although it is a star of the Southern Hemisphere, Fomalhaut can be seen as far north as New York City, where it is low down near the horizon. Since it was close to the ground and very bright, unlike the dimmer stars that got lost in Earth's haze, the ancient Greeks called it "The Lonely Star." There was a Fomalhaut cult at the temple of Demeter at Eleusis, where the star was worshiped as the bringer of the Winter Solstice. Mythologically, the Southern Fish is drinking the water poured out by Aquarius The Water Bringer, and Fomalhaut is either the fish's jaw or the first (or last) trickle in the stream. 

Aquarius The Water Bearer is seen giving Piscis Austrinus The Southern Fish a good long drink while Capricornus The Sea Goat (Capricorn) turns away. This star chart, dated 1822, shows the "retired" constellation of Le Ballon The Balloon, also called Montgolfière, or (in Latin) Globus Aerostaticus.

There is evidence that Fomalhaut was a major star among Native Americans both in the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains. Megalithic structures line up with the Winter Solstice rising of Fomalhaut in both the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming, and at Mounds State Park near Anderson, Indiana. 

To the ancient Persians Fomalhaut was Hastorang, one of the four "Royal Stars" (along with Aldebaran, Regulus, and Antares), and was "The Watcher of The South." In ancient China, it was "The Gateway To The North," and to Australian Aborigines it is still "The White Cockatoo."

Fomalhaut has been described as red (possibly because of light refraction close to Earth's horizon, much as the setting sun can be red) but it is a fierce bluish-white color. Fomalhaut is a member of a triple-star system made up of the Primary Fomalhaut Alpha, TW Piscis Austrinus, or Fomalhaut Beta, and Fomalhaut Gamma (sometimes listed as Fomalhaut C). 

An artist's representation of the world of the Great Eye.

Fomalhaut Gamma (or C) is a 13th Magnitude Main Sequence red dwarf that orbits Fomalhaut Alpha at a distance of nearly four light years (raising the question, relatively, of whether our Sun and the Rigil Kentaurus star system are interwoven at 4 light years' distance). It orbits Fomalhaut A and Fomalhaut TW every 35 million years.

Fomalhaut TW Piscis Austrinus (Fomalhaut Beta) is a 13th Magnitude orange Main Sequence star about 1 light year away from Fomalhaut A. The two orbit each other in a synchronous orbit. 

Fomalhaut Alpha is a Main Sequence star measuring 1.9 times the mass of the Sun and 1.8 times the radius, with a luminosity of 16.7 times that of our Sun. It burns at 15,002 degrees Fahrenheit. 

"The Great Eye of Sauron": Fomalhaut is is the pupil. The ring structures are probably formed by the eccentric gravitational orbit tracks of outlying planets not yet visualized.

Fomalhaut A lies only 25 light years from Earth, and has been very closely observed. It is thought to be a potentially habitable star, though it is still very young (300 million years) to judge from the huge dust and gas cloud around it, a sign of ongoing planetary formation. The oddly-shaped cloud has been referred to as "The Great Eye of Sauron" for obvious reasons. It is believed that its elongated shape is due to the gravitational pull of planets within and without. The Great Eye emits high amounts of infrared radiation. It is made up of several (and two very prominent) boat-shaped rings that seem to lie at right angles to each other. 

Planet Dagon (in the box) was the first exoplanet ever actually seen.

In 2008, an exoplanet, perhaps the size of Saturn, was not only detected but directly visualized in the Great Eye. It can be seen in the photograph below. The planet was named Dagon, after the Philistine god thrown down by the Biblical Samson in his last act, a merman, half-fish and half human.

Dagon was the chief god of the Philistine pantheon. They were originally a people of Greek extraction, (seafaring Mycenaeans) who settled in five powerful city-states along the coast of modern-day Israel in 1200 BCE. The Hebrews called them Peleshtet, "Colonizers," and they were known to others as the "Sea People."

Expansionist and evangelistical, they converted large numbers of Hebrews away from the worship of the One God, and nearly conquered Israel.

Ironmongers, armed with advanced weapons (as opposed to the Israelites less-advanced bronze blades) they were feared for their "magic," and the smoke they produced while smelting was taken as a sign of evil.

According to the Bible, the Judge Samson, taken prisoner and blinded by the Philistines (but probably in fact castrated) brought down Dagon's Temple in a miraculous act that cost him his life. In fact, they appear to have been defeated by the Israelite king, David, and to have assimilated among the remaining Canaanites and the Hebrews themselves.

Dagon was seen as a fish-tailed man who was portrayed wearing a mitre shaped like a fish's open mouth. Hence, Dagon's priesthood dressed in long robes and mitres in order to hide their limbs so as to look like Dagon, and the robes and mitres eventually worked their way into Christianity, since an early symbol of Christianity, and a very Greek one, was the fish (ichthys) as it remains today.

(This post is in memory of Hope and her friend Angie Anderson from Anderson, Indiana. That was a running joke.)