Did the 'indians' call the star Mira "horse and rider"?
Omicron Ceti...Mira 'The Wonderful' has been called many things
by many people. The above photo by the Hubble Space Telescope shows this star and its companion. It is actually a faint star, near +6m, but can be as bright as
+3m or as faint as +9 m in its 330 day cycle. Around 1600, no stars had ever
been know as variable until Mira was discovered by western astronomers. My
reference books do not mention this star in any other Native People's
histories.
You might be thinking of Mizar and Alcor in Ursa Major which have had a long
history, and were used by the Romans as a test for the acuity of
their archers. Mizar has also been called 'Mirza' or 'Mizat'. In Robert
Bernham's Celestial Handbook, vol 3, page 1955 he notes that this pair of
stars is called the Horse and Rider by Arabians, and in Old England they were
called Jack on the Middle Horse.
Copyright 1997 Dr. Sten Odenwald
Return to
Ask the Astronomer.