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Reading the Position: Capricorn 19 Degrees 48 Minutes, and Not a Duplicate

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Reading the Position: Capricorn 19 Degrees 48 Minutes, and Not a Duplicate

The atlas records this star at Capricorn 19 degrees 48 minutes, projected from Aquila.

Three entries in this constellation carry a form of the Arabic dhanab, the tail: Dheneb here, Deneb el Okab and Deneb Okab. It would be reasonable to assume all three are the same star under three spellings, and the assumption would be half right. The other two share a sign, a degree and a minute with each other, Capricorn 23 degrees 38 minutes, and are certainly one object entered twice. This one is three degrees and fifty minutes away from them and is therefore a different star.

That is a small result and it is the kind that only the recorded positions can settle. Names in the fixed-star lists are unreliable as identifiers: the same star acquired several transliterations, and several stars in one figure could all be called its tail. The longitude, whatever else it is, is a number that can be compared.

Precession dates it. At about fifty seconds of arc a year, one degree in roughly seventy two years, and taking the value for epoch 2000, this star entered Capricorn towards the end of the sixth century and will reach Aquarius in about seven hundred and thirty years.

Aquila lies well north of the ecliptic, so as with every star in this group the sign is a projection and not a location.

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