Rangifer

Rangifer in Sidney Hall (1825) plate 2 in Urania's Mirror

Rangifer - the reindeer - is an extinct constellation first introduced by Pierre-Charles Le Monnier in 1743 in the book La Théorie des Comètes.

Concordance, Etymology, History

The constellation is discussed at length on Ian Ridpath's Star Tales and John Barentine (2016), Chapter 20 (p.307). Le Monnier was part of the 1736-1737 expeditions by Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis to Lapland which improved the measurement of the length of a degree of latitude and convincingly demonstrated the oblateness of the Earth. The reindeer and placement of the constellation just below the north celestial pole appear to commemorate the expedition and achievement.

Ridpath elaborates:

A faint, far-northern constellation introduced in 1743 on a star chart published by the Frenchman Pierre-Charles Le Monnier (1715–99) in his book La Théorie des Comètes. The chart showed the track of the comet of 1742 through the north polar region of the sky and Le Monnier was inspired to place a new constellation representing a reindeer on the comet’s course, close to the north celestial pole between Cepheus and Camelopardalis. Le Monnier chose a reindeer as a reminder of his trip to Lapland in 1736–37 with the expedition of Pierre Louis de Maupertuis to measure the length of a degree of latitude in the far north. (The Sami people of northern Scandinavia also visualized a reindeer called Sarvvis, or Sarva, among the stars, but theirs was much bigger, incorporating Auriga, Perseus, Cassiopeia, and Cepheus.)

The same chart was republished in 1746 in Le Monnier’s book Institutions astronomiques but with no further explanation of the new constellation that appeared on it. Le Monnier seems never to have published a list of its stars, but Bode in his catalogue Allgemeine Beschreibung und Nachweisung der Gestirne of 1801 assigned it 46 stars of 5th to 7th magnitude plus one deep-sky object, the galaxy NGC 1184. Most of these are now within the borders of northern Cepheus.

On Le Monnier’s chart the constellation was named ‘le Réene’, a spelling that was adopted by his fellow Frenchman Jean Fortin in his Atlas Céleste of 1776 (with the addition of an accent over the first letter e: Réene). However, the name should more accurately have been ‘le Renne’, and Fortin changed it on his revised edition of 1795. Bode Latinized it as Rangifer on his Uranographia of 1801. An alternative name found on some maps was Tarandus from the reindeer’s scientific name, Rangifer tarandus.

As summarized by Ridpath and Barentine, the constellation of the reindeer appeared by several names during its life during the 18th and 19th centuries: "Le Reene" (in Le Monnier 1743), "le Réene" (Le Monnier 1746, Fortin 1776), "le Renne" (Fortin 1795), "Rennthier" (Bode 1876), "Rangifer" (Latin name, Bode 1801 Uranographia), "Tarandus" (Urania's Mirror 1825, Chambers 1877).

Carl Linnaeus (1758) dubbed the reindeer species of the Eurasian tundra "cervus tarandus", and Charles Hamilton Smith (1827) introduced the genus name Rangifer. Species and subspecies of Rangifer are called reindeer in Eurasia and caribou in North America. In a recent review by Lee Harding (2022, ZooKeys (1119): 117–151), 18 species or subspecies are now recognized in North America and 31 in Europe and Asia. "Reindeer" may have its origin from the Old Norse hreindýri.

Rangifer was comprised of very faint stars, indeed Bode's (1801) catalog, Allgemeine Beschreibung und Nachweisung der Gestirne listed 47 stars in the constellation, most of which were magnitudes 6 and 7, and only one of 5th magnitude.

Barentine (2016, Fig. 8.20) overlays the Urania's Mirror version of the constellation over a modern star map. It appears that the brightest stars in Rangifer were 2 UMi (V=4.25 mag), HR 932 (V=4.92), OV Cep (V=5.07), 49 Cas (V=5.22), 40 Cas (V=5.25), and 47 Cas (V=5.38).

The brightest and northernmost (declination 86 deg) of these Rangifer stars is 2 Ursa Minoris, which is actually in modern-day Cepheus.

Weblinks

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangifer_(constellation)

References

• References (general)
• References (Babylonian)
• References (ancient Greco-Roman)
• References (medieval)