Cor Caroli

Cor Caroli (α CVn, α Canum Venaticorum, Alpha Canum Venaticorum) is the brightest star in the northern constellation Canes Venatici. It is a binary star consisting of two distantly separated components. The name Cor Caroli means "Charles's Heart", and was named in the 17th century to honour the King Charles I of England who was beheaded in 1649.

Names

In the western world the star had no name until the 17th century, when it was named Cor Caroli, which means "Charles's Heart". There has been some uncertainty whether it was named in honour of King Charles I of England, who was executed in 1649 during the English Civil War, or to his son, Charles II, who restored the English monarchy to the throne in 1660. The name was coined in 1660 by Sir Charles Scarborough, physician to Charles II, who claimed the star seemed to shine exceptionally brightly on the night of Charles II's return to England. In Star Names, R.H. Allen claimed that Scarborough suggested the name to Edmund Halley and intended it to refer to Charles II. However, Robert Burnham Jr. notes that "the attribution of the name to Halley appears in a report published by J. E. Bode at Berlin in 1801, but seems to have no other verification". In Star Tales, Ian Ridpath points out that the name's first appearance on a star map was in the 1673 chart of Francis Lamb, who labelled it Cor Caroli Regis Martyris ("the heart of Charles the martyred king"), clearly indicating that it was seen as referring to Charles I.

CVN

CVN may refer to:

Canes Venatici

Canes Venatici /ˈkeɪniːz vᵻˈnætᵻsaɪ/ is one of the 88 official modern constellations. It is a small northern constellation that was created by Johannes Hevelius in the 17th century. Its name is Latin for "hunting dogs", and the constellation is often depicted in illustrations as representing the dogs of Boötes the Herdsman, a neighboring constellation.

History

The stars of Canes Venatici are not bright. In classical times, they were included by Ptolemy within the constellation Ursa Major in his star catalogue. α CVn was Ptolemy's "28th of Ursa Major", and β CVn was his "29th of Ursa Major".

In medieval times, the identification of these stars with the dogs of Boötes arose through a mistranslation. Some of Boötes's stars were traditionally described as representing the club (Greek, Κολλοροβος) of Boötes. When the Greek astronomer Ptolemy's Almagest was translated from Greek to Arabic, the translator Johannitius (following Alberuni) did not know the Greek word and rendered it as the nearest-looking Arabic word, writing العصى ذات الكلاب in ordinary unvowelled Arabic text "al-`aşā dhāt al-kullāb", which means "the spearshaft having a hook". When the Arabic text was translated into Latin, the translator Gerard of Cremona (probably in Spain) mistook the Arabic word كلاب for kilāb (the plural of كلب kalb), meaning "dogs", writing hastile habens canes ("spearshaft having dogs"). In 1533, the German astronomer Peter Apian depicted Boötes as having two dogs with him.