β is a double star, one being blue, the other yellow.
The constellation resembles a chapeau, or peaked hat, upside down.
The stars in the head of the Sea Goat, α and β are only 2° apart, and can hardly be mistaken by an observer facing the southwestern sky during the early evening in autumn.
Five degrees east of δ is the point announced by Le Verrier as the position of his predicted new planet, Neptune.
Flammarion claims that the Chinese astronomers noted the five planets in conjunction in Capricornus, in the year 2449 B.C.
The sign of the Goat was called by the ancient Orientalists "The Southern Gate of the Sun."
ARIES (ā´-ri-ēz)--THE RAM. (Face Southeast.)
LOCATION.--The star α in Aries, known as Hamal, and sometimes as Arietis, a star of the second magnitude, is about 7° south of α Trianguli. A line drawn from the Pole Star to γ Andromedæ, and prolonged about 20°, ends at Hamal.
Aries contains three principal stars, forming a characteristic obtuse-angled triangle.
The star γ Arietis was one of the first double stars discovered. A telescope is required to split it. Hamal lies near the path of the moon, and is one of the stars from which longitude is reckoned.
Below Aries may be seen the characteristic pentagon in the head of Cetus, the Whale.
More than two thousand years ago Aries was the leading constellation of the zodiac, and now stands first in the list of zodiacal signs.
The Arabians knew this constellation as Al Hamal, the sheep.
β and γ are one instance out of many where stars of more than ordinary brightness are seen together in pairs, the brightest star being generally on the east.
CETUS (sē´-tus)--THE WHALE. (Face Southeast.)
LOCATION.--A line drawn from Polaris, to δ Cassiopeiæ, and prolonged two and one third times its original length, reaches the centre of this constellation.
It lies just below Aries and the Triangle, and resembles the figure of the prehistoric icthyosaurus, while some see in the outline an easy chair. The head of the beast is characterized by a clearly traced pentagon, about 20° southeast of Aries. The brightest star in the constellation is α of the second magnitude. It is at one apex of the pentagon, about 15° east of Al Rischa in Pisces, and 37° directly south of Algol.