Harry Potter in the Stars

Prepare yourself for Harry Potter Fever!

With the fifth movie and the last book due to arrive in July, I'm starting to get the feeling that Harry Potter Fever is going to be taking hold of us all once again (much to my pleasure!). In an effort to make my Planetarium shows a little more 'cool' with the kids I've been looking into Harry Potter in the stars.

Many of the names in Harry Potter have their origins in ancient Greek or Latin. Several names are taken from ancient stories – Hagrid was the name of the keeper of Mount Olympus and the Watcher of the animals. However, some of the names of Harry characters are also in our skies – as stars, constellations and galaxies.

Sirius Black is Harry’s god-father. He can also turn into a dog.
Sirius is the brightest star in our skies, also nicknamed ‘the Dog Star’ and is part of the constellation ‘Canis Major’ (which means ‘big dog’). During winter Sirius can be very low on the western horizon. We won’t see it again until late Spring.

Draco Malfoy is Harry’s arch-enemy at Hogwarts.
Draco is the constellation of the dragon. It is very close to the Northern Celestial Pole so we don’t see it in the Southern Hemisphere. (There is also a story of a battle between Draco and Minerva – Professor McGonagall’s first name.)

Professor Remus Lupin taught Defence Against the Dark Arts in the book Prisoner of Askaban. In the book it is revealed that he has a special link to wolves…
‘Lupin’ comes from the word ‘Lupus’. Lupus is the constellation of the wolf. ‘Canis Lupus’ is also the scientific name for ‘wolf’.

Bellatrix Lestrange is Sirius’ cousin and is also Draco’s aunt.
Bellatrix is the third brightest star in the constellation Orion (one of his shoulders).

Andromeda Tonks is Bellatrix’s sister (also Sirius’ cousin and Draco’s aunt).
Andromeda is a constellation named for an Ancient Greek story about a princess. It is near Pisces in our night sky. This constellation is also home to the Andromeda Galaxy, which is a spiral galaxy about 2.5million light years away from Earth (you can see it with a pair of binoculars).

Regulus Black is Sirius’ brother.
Regulus is the brightest star in the constellation Leo. Leo looks like an updside down question mark and is in the north west at the moment.

Orion Black is father to Sirius and Regulus.
Orion the hunter is a constellation we don’t see much of during winter, but in spring and summer he will be high in our skies.

Merope Gaunt is the name of Voldemort’s mother.
Merope is one of the seven stars in Pleiades, which is a cluster of stars (sometimes called ‘the Seven Sisters’) which are on the shoulder of Taurus the bull. Pleiades is best seen in Spring and Summer.

There are also constellations of a centaur, a unicorn, a giant snake and a phoenix. Many ancient astronomers are also named as wizards on the Witch and Wizard collector cards.