Crater Constellation

Constellation Crater the Cup, sits south of Constellation Virgo, on the back of the Water Snake, constellation Hydra. Crater spans 15 degrees of the Zodiac, in the Signs of Virgo and Libra, and contains 3 named fixed stars.

Constellation Crater Stars

2000	B	Star Name	Mag.	Orb
23 ♍ 41	α	Alkes	4.08	1°00′
26 ♍ 14	ε		4.81	1°00′
26 ♍ 41	δ	Labrum	3.56	1°30′
28 ♍ 33	β	Al Sharasīf II	4.46	1°00′
28 ♍ 35	θ		4.70	1°00′
29 ♍ 13	γ		4.06	1°00′
29 ♍ 22	λ		5.08	1°00′
04 ♎ 03	ζ		4.71	1°00′
06 ♎ 05	η		5.17	1°10′

(Star positions for year 2000)

Constellation Crater Astrology

Constellation Crater the Cup gives a disordered life full of sudden and unexpected events, and great danger of unhappiness, but usually some eminence. According to Ptolemy, it is like Venus and in some degree like Mercury (idealistic, psychic, handsome, neat, lovable, refined, genteel, intelligent.)

This constellation represents the cup given by Apollo to the raven (Corvus) to fetch water. [1]

The constellation gives good mental abilities, but there can also be sudden changes and unexpected events. [2]

Crater, the Cup.. formed by several 4th and 5th-magnitude stars above the Hydra’s back, just westward from Corvus, and 30° south of Denebola, in a partly annular form opening to the northwest… Astrologically it portended eminence to those born under its influence. [3]

He will join your vines, Bacchus [translator’s note; ‘grapevines for the production of wine’], in wedlock to your elms; or he will arrange them on props, so that the fronds resemble the figures in a dance or, allowing your vine to rely on its own strength, he will lead it to spread out its branches as arms, and entrusting you to yourself will forever protect you from the bridal bed, seeing how you were cut from your mother.

Whoever derives hence his birth and character will be attracted by the well-watered meadows of the countryside, the rivers, and the lakes. He will sow corn among the grapes and will adopt any other of the countless forms of cultivation that exist throughout the world as the conditions of the district will require. He will drink without stint the wine he has produced and enjoy in person the well-earned fruits of his labors; neat wine will incite him to jollity, when he will drown all seriousness in his cups. Nor only on the soil will he stake his hopes for paying his yearly vows he will also go in pursuit of the grain tax, and of those wares especially which are nourished by moisture or to which water clings. Such are the men to be fashioned by the Bowl, lover of all that is wet. [4]

This is no fabled wine-cup of Bacchus; but it is “The cup of His indignation” (Rev 14:10); “The cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath” (Rev 16:19). This is what we see set forth in this constellation. The Cup is wide and deep, and fastened on by the stars to the very body of the writhing serpent. The same stars which are in the foot of the Cup form part of the body of Hydra, and are reckoned as belonging to both constellations.

This Cup has the significant number of thirteen stars (the number of Apostacy). The two — Al Ches (α), which means the Cup, and (β) — determine the bottom of the Cup. [5]

The vessel is sometimes associated with the Chalice of the Last Supper, not unreasonably since the vessel is in the general vicinity of Centaurus, but more traditionally it is the Goblet owned by Apollo, the Sun-God, the latter being very possibly the name of our second sun before that one exploded to become known to us as Phaethon. So perhaps the Chalice does have a not of doom about it, Christian or earlier. [6]

References

1. Fixed Stars and Constellations in Astrology, Vivian E. Robson, 1923, p.41.
2. Fixed Stars and Judicial Astrology, George Noonan, 1990, p.53
3. Star Names, Their Lore and Meaning, Richard Hinckley Allen, 1889, p.182-184.
4. Astronomica, manilius, 1st century AD, book 5, p.318-321
5. The Witness of the Stars, E. W. Bullinger, 40.2. Crater (the Cup).
6. The Living Stars, Dr Eric Morse, p.170.