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| Pisces (constellation) | |
|---|---|
| Name | Pisces |
| Abbreviation | Psc |
| Genitive | Piscium |
| Symbolism | The Fishes |
| Right ascension | 1h |
| Declination | +20° |
| Family | Zodiac |
| Area | 889 |
| Rank | 14th |
| Brightest star | Alpherg (Eta Piscium) |
| Magnitude | 3.62 |
| Stars bright | 10 |
| Nearest star | HD 217107 |
| Nearest distance | 19.7 ly |
| Meteor showers | Piscids, Andromedids (related) |
| Lat max | 90 |
| Lat min | -65 |
| Month | November |
Pisces (constellation) is a zodiacal constellation located in the northern celestial hemisphere, traditionally depicted as two fishes connected by a cord. It lies between Aquarius (constellation), Aries (constellation), and Pegasus (constellation), and forms part of the classical list of 48 constellations catalogued by Ptolemy and retained among the 88 modern constellations defined by the International Astronomical Union. Pisces crosses the ecliptic, making it relevant in astrological systems used by figures such as Claudius Ptolemy, Johannes Kepler, and later popularized in works by Dante Alighieri and William Shakespeare.
Pisces appears in a range of mythic accounts across civilizations: Greco-Roman tales link it to Aphrodite and Eros who escaped the monster Typhon, while Babylonian star catalogs such as the Mul.Apin series associate the fishes with the pair dubbed the "Great Swallow" and "Fish" in neo-Assyrian texts. In Hellenistic astrology discussed by Claudius Ptolemy and transmitted through Al-Battani and Albumasar, Pisces acquired symbolic meanings adopted by Renaissance scholars like Gerolamo Cardano and Marsilio Ficino. Medieval Islamic astronomers including al-Sufi incorporated local star lore, while Johannes Hevelius and John Flamsteed influenced modern star names and charts used by navigators linked to Captain James Cook voyages. Piscean imagery recurs in art by Gustave Doré, iconography in Byzantine Empire mosaics, and devotional literature referenced by Dante Alighieri.
Pisces spans a large but faint region of sky; its principal stars are of modest apparent magnitude and require dark skies away from urban sites mapped by observers such as William Herschel, Caroline Herschel, and later cataloged in the Henry Draper Catalogue and Uppsala General Catalogue editions used by professional observatories like Mount Wilson Observatory and Palomar Observatory. The constellation is best visible in northern late autumn months in hemispheres charted by expeditions like those of James Cook and Charles Messier. Pisces crosses the ecliptic and houses the vernal equinox point in precession-related epochs discussed by Hipparchus and Edmond Halley. Amateur astronomers following observing programs from Royal Astronomical Society chapters use star charts by Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille and modern planetarium software developed by institutions such as European Southern Observatory.
Major stars include Alpherg (Eta Piscium), Fumalsamakah (Beta Piscium), and Alrescha (Alpha Piscium), catalogued in the Bayer designation and Flamsteed designation systems refined by John Flamsteed and compiled in catalogs like the Bright Star Catalogue and Hipparcos Catalogue. Variable and binary systems studied with instruments on Hubble Space Telescope and Keck Observatory include the spectroscopic binaries recorded by Antonia Maury and radial-velocity surveys by Vera Rubin. Deep-sky objects comprise the spiral galaxies Messier 74 (often associated with nearby constellations), planetary nebulae logged by Charles Messier and later imaged by William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse with Leviathan of Parsonstown optics, and dwarf galaxies noted in surveys by Sloan Digital Sky Survey teams. Historical nova and supernova searches in this region were conducted by observers at Royal Greenwich Observatory and in archives referenced by Sir Patrick Moore.
Pisces' official boundaries were defined by the International Astronomical Union in 1930 using the plane-coordinate grid established by Eugène Delporte, situating the constellation between neighboring boundaries with Pegasus (constellation), Cetus (constellation)], Andromeda (constellation), Triangulum (constellation), Aries (constellation), and Aquarius (constellation). The vectorized boundary lines align with equatorial coordinates employed in the Besselian epoch and later adapted for precession corrections by researchers such as Simon Newcomb and observatories like US Naval Observatory. Pisces contains portions of the ecliptic tracked by navigators referenced in logbooks from Ferdinand Magellan and later ephemerides used by Jean-Baptiste Delambre.
Ancient identification derives from Mesopotamian star lore recorded in the Enuma Anu Enlil texts and later Greek mythographic compilations by Hyginus and Hesiod. The Latinized name dates from Roman star charts and was preserved through medieval manuscripts copied by Bede and Islamic astronomers such as al-Sufi, then reintroduced into Renaissance atlases by Johannes Bayer and Johann Hevelius. Modern nomenclature follows conventions codified by the International Astronomical Union drawing on catalogs like Flamsteed, Bayer, and the Henry Draper Catalogue, while historical star names were rendered into star catalogs used at institutions including Cambridge Observatory and Greenwich Observatory.
Pisces contributes to studies in stellar astrophysics, galactic structure, and cosmology through targets observed by facilities including Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory, Spitzer Space Telescope, and ground-based arrays such as Atacama Large Millimeter Array and Very Large Telescope. Surveys like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and missions including Hipparcos and Gaia have provided parallax, proper motion, and spectral data for Piscean stars informing models by researchers such as Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and datasets used by teams at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The region hosts objects used in extragalactic distance-scale work by Edwin Hubble and subsequent measurements relevant to Hubble constant determinations by collaborations including those at Space Telescope Science Institute. Pulsation and binary evolution studies leverage targets cataloged by General Catalogue of Variable Stars maintained by institutions like Sternberg Astronomical Institute.
Category:Constellations