Corvus

Authors: Susanne M Hoffmann, Youla Azkarrula, IanRidpath, Doris Vickers

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Corvus star chart (IAU and Sky & Telescope magazine, Roger Sinnott & Rick Fienberg).

Κóραξ (Korax)

Asterism Info
Native	Κóραξ
Romanisation	Korax
Translation	Raven
Position (2000)
Right ascension	182.1034053 to 188.59681219999996
Declination	-24.7288756 to -16.19600517
Area	37.54 sq. deg.
Stars
Bright stars	12
Bayer/Flamsteed stars	8
Stars brighter than 3.00m	4
Brightest star	Gienah (2.58m)
Taxonomy
category of asterism	Almagest constellation
IAU- constellations	Crv

One of the 88 IAU constellations. Since ancient times, it forms a super-constellation with Hydra and (later) Crater.

Etymology and History

Leo and Virgo above the MUŠ-Dragon, two claytablet drawings from the Seleucid era (roughly 2nd century BCE), CC BY SMH based upon the drawings by E. Weidner (1967) and Thureau-Dangin (1922).

Origin of Constellation

The constellation is first found as a standalone constellation in the Greek literature. However, in Babylonian uranography it had existed already for a millennium (at least) at that time.

Babylonian

see

• ^{mul (d)}MUŠ
• ^(mul)MUŠ.ḪUŠ
• UGA^mušen

Constellation Hydra with Crater and Corvus on the Kugel Globe (1st century BCE), detail from drawing by SMH (Hoffmann 2025), Some Results on the Ancient Globes, Globe Studies – The Journal of the International Coronelli Society, 69, 4169.

Greco-Roman

Egyptian

In Ptolemaic times (1st century BCE), when Egypt was ruled by the Romans, new Egyptian temples were built: a Chnum temple in Esna and a Hathor temple Dendera (south and north of Thebes/ Luxor). They display a cultural mixture of Babylonian and Egyptian constellations.

• 
  Leo, Com, Hya - Crv broken; rectangular zodiac of Dendera
• 
  Leo with Com, Hya, Crv, circular zodiac of Dendera (CC BY Musée du Louvre, Département des Antiquités égyptiennes)

Aratos

[448?] Midway on its coiling form is set the Crater, and at the tip the figure of a Raven [Corvus] that seems to peck at the coil.

[520?] the dim-lit Crater and the Crow

(Kidd 1997)

Eratosthenes

see Hydra

erat.Cat.ID	constStarID	starName	ident.Bayer	ident.HIP	certainty
682	1	the Raven on its tail [of the Water Serpent] has a dim star on its beak [facing west]	alpha Crv	59199	2
683	2	the Raven[…] two on the wing	eps Crv	59316	2
684	3	the Raven[…] two on the wing	gam Crv	59803	2
685	4	the Raven[…] two on the tail	delta Crv	60965	2
686	5	the Raven[…] two on the tail	eta Crv	61174	2
687	6	the Raven[…] one on each tip of the foot	beta Crv	61359	2
688	7	the Raven[…] one on each tip of the foot	6 Crv	60425	2

Hipparchus

Rising (Lib III Cap I §3)

The Rising of ...

	east		south
	lam1	lam2	lam1	lam2
	Vir 16	Vir 23	Gem 14	Gem 22
star	the one at the hip (gam)	the one in the feet (beta)
duration	3/5 hours = 36 min = 9 degree

Setting (Lib II Cap VI §10)

	west		south
	lam1	lam2	lam1	lam2
		missing in the text (only the first ten words of the paragrph preserved)
star
duration

Hipparchus's "lost" star Catalogue

The star catalogue of Hipparchus is not preserved. Yet, several scholars have reconstructed it in the past century: Vogt (1925), Grasshoff (1990), Hoffmann (2017) and Glover (2026). Grasshoff's catalogue and computations are not published digitally, Hoffmann published three versions of the Manitius+Hoffmann star lists in the CDS VizieR "catalog of catalogs", and Glover printed the star lists constellationwise in his book.

Hipparchus's star in Aquarius (Glover 2026)

hipp.Cat.ID	constStarID	starName	ident.Bayer	ident.HIP	concordance
223	1		α Crv	59199	CPAE
224	2		β Crv	61359	CPAE
225	3		γ Crv	59803	CPAE
226	4		δ Crv	60965	CPAE
227	5		ε Crv	59316	CPAE
228	6		ζ Crv	60189	CPAE

Almagest Κόραξ.

id	Greek (Heiberg 1898)	English (Toomer 1984)	ident.
	Κόρακος ἀστερισμός	Constellation of Corvus
1	ὁ ἐν τῷ ῥάμφει καὶ κοιφὸς τοῦ Ὕδρου.	The star in the beak, which is [applied in] common to Hydra	alf Crv
2	ὁ ἐν τῷ τραχήλῳ πρὸς τῇ κεφαλῇἡ	The star in the neck, by the head	eps Crv
3	ὁ ἐν τῷ στήθει.	The star in the breast	zet Crv
4	ὁ ἐν τῇ προηγουμένῃ καὶ δεξιᾷ πτέρυγι.	The star in the advance, right wing	gam Crv
5	τῶν ἐν τῇ ἐπομένῃ πτέρογι β’ ὁ ἠγούμενος;	The more advanced of the 2 stars in the rear wing	del Crv
6	ὁ ἐπόμενος αὐτῶ	The rearmost of them	eta Crv
7	ὁ ἐπ’ ἄκρου τοῦ ποδὸς κοιφὸς τοῦ Ὕδρου	The star on the end of the leg, which is [applied in] common to Hydra	bet Crv
all	ὁ ἀστέρες ξ, ὧν γ’ μεγέθους ἔ, δ’ ἂ, ε’ ἄ	{17 stars, 5 of the third magnitude, 1 of the fourth, 1 of the fifth}

Convex Hull for the stars inside Korax (CC BY Youla Azkarrula).

Stars within the Constellation Area

id	Label	IAU design.	description	Vmag
1	Gienah	HIP 59803	Constellation lines (Vertex)	2.58
2	Kraz	HIP 61359	Constellation lines (Vertex)	2.64
3	Algorab	HIP 60965	Constellation lines	2.94
4	ϵ Corvi	HIP 59316	Constellation lines (Vertex)	2.98
5	Alchiba	HIP 59199	Constellation lines (Vertex)	4.01
6	η Corvi	HIP 61174	Constellation lines (Vertex)	4.294
7	ζ Corvi	HIP 60189	Constellation lines	5.21
8	3 Crv	HIP 59394	Inside the hull	5.47
9	-	HIP 59728	Inside the hull	5.807
10	-	HIP 60157	Inside the hull	5.97
11	-	HIP 60809	Inside the hull	6.294
12	-	HIP 61208	Inside the hull	6.39

Transfer and Transformation of the Constellation

• 
  Hydra with Crater and Corvus on the Kugel Globe (-1st c., drawing by SMH)
• 
  Hydra with Corvus and Crater on the Mercator Globe (1551)
• 
  Hydra in the Uranometria (1603), Corvus not drawn but in map
• 
  Corvus in Flamsteed (1776)
• 
  Corvus and Crater in Fortin's Atlas Céleste, 3rd edition (1795).
• 
  Corvus in Hall (1825)
• 
  (1952) H.A. Rey's stick figure of Corvus
• 
  (1988) O. Hlad's stick figure of Corvus

Weblinks

• Warburg Institute Iconographic Database – Corvus
• Ian Ridpath's Star Tales – Corvus

References

• References (general)
• References (Babylonian)
• References (ancient Greco-Roman)
• References (medieval)