Sky & Telescope - April 2024 - 45

Stories in the Stars by Stephen James O'Meara
α
κ
Springs of
the Gazelle
On April evenings, try to
envision this delightful,
animated star pattern.
O
f all the ancient star patterns that
have vanished from the night sky,
one continues to spring into view for
modern stargazers: K. afzah al T. hiba¯,
the Springs of the Gazelle. Early Arab
astronomers created the pattern using
three attractive pairings of 3rd- and
4th-magnitude stars spread out evenly
across 30° of sky. You'll find them on
the center star chart as the three pairings
of stars at the tips of Ursa Major's
paws. But Arab skygazers of old saw
each stellar pairing as one spring of the
gazelle, which is part of a larger visual
story in the stars.
Today it's common to see the Springs
of the Gazelle called Three Leaps of the
Gazelle. However, " leaps " can bring
to mind the long and graceful jumps
of a dancer, which does little to convey
the bouncy up-and-down jumps
that gazelles and other African antelopes
(like the springbok) perform in
the wild. Also called pronking, these
movements are anything but graceful.
The animal launches itself stiffly
upward - lifting off on all four legs
with back arched - before propelling
itself forward through the air, as if on a
pogo stick. This may be a kind of escape
response, one that warns a potential
predator that the animal has enough
power to avoid becoming dinner and
would demand a lot of energy to chase.
The 88 official constellations we recognize
today are all still-life portraits -
figures frozen in time. But the ancient
Springs of the Gazelle are individual
frames of a motion picture. It's the
celestial counterpart of the first movie
ever made - a series of still frames of
η
γ
M51
χ
CANES
VENATICI
β
α
β
LEO
COMA
BERENICES
First
Spring
ν
ξ
a galloping horse and rider displayed in
sequence to create motion. Likewise,
by scanning across the Springs of the
Gazelle, we can see in the mind's eye
the animal pronking across the sky. But
in which direction?
In an 1829 Transactions of the Royal
Asiatic Society of Great Britain and
Ireland, Bernhard Dorn describes a
Persian celestial globe dating from
1275, on which eight stars in the head
of Ursa Major (those indicated on the
chart above) represent a herd of gazelle.
The globe also depicts their young as
five stars between the head of Leo the
Lion and the front paw of Ursa Major,
as shown in our chart. The Springs of
the Gazelle are labelled on the Persian
globe, and we can locate their position
on the chart. The Gazelle is moving
from southeast to northwest: The First
Spring is the Bear's left hind paw; the
Second Spring is the Bear's right hind
paw; and the Third Spring is the Bear's
front paw, between the herd of gazelle
and their young.
While there is no denying the labelling
on the Persian globe, confusion
springs forth in Richard Allen's Star
Names, which introduces a twist to the
ancient Persian story. Allen notes that
some early Arab skywatchers imagined
the celestial Gazelle as Leo Minor,
which sprang eastward into Al Haud,
the Pond (the stars of Coma Berenices),
" for safety at the lashing of the
Lion's tail. " But Allen goes on to tell
us that some skywatchers claimed that
this Pond lay not among the stars of
Coma Berenices but instead among the
stars of the neck, breast, and knees of
the Great Bear.
Situating the Pond in Ursa Major
makes sense. Arab and Persian astronomers
visualized the Lion's tail starting
at Denebola, Beta (β) Leonis, and
extending all the way to Coma Berenices,
whose stars represented the coarse
tuft of hair at the tip of the Lion's
tail. Seen this way, we can understand
how Leo's thrashing tail prompted the
gazelle to flee northwest to the celestial
Pond, marked by the semicircle on the
chart (above; two Pond stars also represent
gazelles in the herd). Not to worry
- these stars can be imagined as the
animals standing at the water's edge,
crouching down for a drink.
¢ Contributing Editor STEPHEN JAMES
O'MEARA has been studying the stars
and their lore for more than 50 years.
sk yand tele scope .o r g * APRIL 2024 45
MINOR
ψ
Second
Spring
λ
µ
Young
Gazelles
LYNX
α
URSA
MAJOR
2
1
3
4
5
DRACO
α
ζ
υ
ε
δ
β
φ
θ
15
ι
κ
Third
Spring
The
Pond
λ
M81
M82
The
Herd
23
τ
ο
Star magnitudes
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Sky & Telescope - April 2024

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