Caput Draconis, WAS: Re: Fate of HANDSOME guys in the Harry Potter series

[bohcoo]

No: HPFGUIDX 84547

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)" 
<catlady at w...> wrote in message #84459:
> 
> Caput Draconis means 'the head of the dragon'. I've always felt it 
> was somehow related to 'pig snout', another Gryffindor password, 
but 
> I can't work 'fairy lights' or any of the others into a pattern.
> 
> I thought there was a star named Caput Draconis, but what I have 
> found between http://www.r-clarke.org.uk/propernames1.htm and 
> http://www.ras.ucalgary.ca/~gibson/starnames/starnames.html?o=0 and
> http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/sowlist.html is:
> 
> Thuban (alpha Draconis) 
> Rastaban (beta Draconis)
> Eltanin (gamma Draconis)
> Altais (delta Draconis)
> 
> "Thuban is one of the fainter stars that carries a proper name, 
almost
> certainly because of its immense historical role as [a previous Pole
> Star]. Its importance is further highlighted in that it is the Alpha
> star of Draco (the Dragon) even though it not close to being the
> brightest of this long and rambling constellation, easily exceeded 
in
> visibility by Gamma, Beta, and even Eta Draconis. .... Even though 
the
> star is in the Dragon's tail, its name confusingly derives from an
> Arabic phrase meaning "the Serpent's head," having been borrowed 
from
> the name for another star."
> 
> "The great northern serpent's neck points southward, Draco the
> Dragon's two leading stars looking like two eyes staring at 
Hercules.
> The names of both come from the same Arabic root, which means "the
> serpent." Eltanin (Gamma, the eastern star) means just that, "the
> serpent," while Rastaban (Beta, the western one) comes from a longer
> phrase that means "the serpent's head," and in fact was once applied
> to the star now known as Eltanin. Shining at the bright end of third
> magnitude (2.79), Rastaban is the just barely the third brightest 
star
> in the constellation, beat out by Eltanin and by Eta Draconis, 
though
> it still masters Thuban, the fainter Alpha star (whose name shares 
the
> same root)."
> 
> "DELTA Dra : Nodus Secundus or Altais : second knot" or ?? 
(misreading
> of same word as in Gamma Dra)"
> 
> btw, let me quite irrelevantly note the names of 3 stars in Libra:
> Zubenelgenubi "southern claw" (alpha)
> Zubenelschamali "northern claw (beta)
> Zubenelschamali "northern claw (gamma)



Bohcoo responds:
Wow. Thank you for that impressive and interesting interpretation.

And Geoff, too, made an interesting point about the Latin meaning of 
the phrase in his post #84472.

I merely thought JKR might be having a little light-hearted fun with 
a play on words.

Bohcoo