Corvus

Corvus star chart (IAU and Sky & Telescope magazine, Roger Sinnott & Rick Fienberg).

One of the 88 IAU constellations.

Etymology and History

The Greek constellation ...

Leo and Virgo above the MUŠ-Dragon, two claytablet drawings from the Seleucid era (roughly 2nd century BCE), CC BY SMH based upon the drawings by E. Weidner (1967) and Thureau-Dangin (1922).

Origin of Constellation

Babylonian

Constellation Hydra with Crater and Corvus on the Kugel Globe (1st century BCE), detail from drawing by SMH (Hoffmann 2025), Some Results on the Ancient Globes, Globe Studies – The Journal of the International Coronelli Society, 69, 4169.

Greco-Roman

Aratos

[448?] Midway on its coiling form is set the Crater, and at the tip the figure of a Raven [Corvus] that seems to peck at the coil.

[520?] the dim-lit Crater and the Crow

(Kidd 1997)

Almagest Κόραξ.

id	Greek (Heiberg 1898)	English (Toomer 1984)	ident.
	Κόρακος ἀστερισμός
1	ὁ ἐν τῷ ῥάμφει καὶ κοιφὸς τοῦ Ὕδρου.	The star in the beak, which is [applied in] common to Hydra	alf Crv
2	ὁ ἐν τῷ τραχήλῳ πρὸς τῇ κεφαλῇἡ	The star in the neck, by the head	eps Crv
3	ὁ ἐν τῷ στήθει.	The star in the breast	zet Crv
4	ὁ ἐν τῇ προηγουμένῃ καὶ δεξιᾷ πτέρυγι.	The star in the advance, right wing	gam Crv
5	τῶν ἐν τῇ ἐπομένῃ πτέρογι β’ ὁ ἠγούμενος;	The more advanced of the 2 stars in the rear wing	del Crv
6	ὁ ἐπόμενος αὐτῶ	The rearmost of them	ety Crv
7	ὁ ἐπ’ ἄκρου τοῦ ποδὸς κοιφὸς τοῦ Ὕδρου	The star on the end of the leg, which is [applied in] common to Hydra	bet Crv
all	ὁ ἀστέρες ξ, ὧν γ’ μεγέθους ἔ, δ’ ἂ, ε’ ἄ

Transfer and Transformation of the Constellation

• 

  Hydra with Crater and Corvus on the Kugel Globe (-1st c., drawing by SMH)

• 

  Hydra with Corvus and Crater on the Mercator Globe (1551)

• 

  Hydra in the Uranometria (1603), Corvus not drawn but in map

• 

  Corvus in Flamsteed (1776)

• 

  Corvus and Crater in Fortin's Atlas Céleste, 3rd edition (1795).

• 

  Corvus in Hall (1825)

References

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