Home ConstellationCanis Major

Canis Major



Canis Major is best known for the star Sirius, the brightest in the whole sky. It was included in Ptolemy’s 48 constellations

This, together with several other bright stars, make it a prominent resident in the southern January sky.

The Milky Way also runs through the area, and so it is littered with deep sky offerings, including the open cluster M41.

Canis Major is commonly represented as the larger of two dogs which run at the heels of Orion, and because of this, Sirius is sometimes called ‘the dog star’.

In ancient Mesopotamia, Sirius, named KAK.SI.DI by the Babylonians, was seen as an arrow aiming towards Orion, while the southern stars of Canis Major and a part of Puppis were viewed as a bow, named BAN. In MUL.APIN, the arrow, Sirius, was also linked with the warrior Ninurta, and the bow with Ishtar, daughter of Enlil. Ninurta was linked to the later deity Marduk, who was said to have slain the ocean goddess Tiamat with a great bow, and worshipped as the principal deity in Babylon. The Ancient Greeks replaced the bow and arrow depiction with that of a dog.

In Greek Mythology, Canis Major represented the dog Laelaps, a gift from Zeus to Europa; or sometimes the hound of Procris, Diana’s nymph; or the one given by Aurora to Cephalus, so famed for its speed that Zeus elevated it to the sky.It was also considered to represent one of Orion’s hunting dogs, pursuing Lepus the Hare or helping Orion fight Taurus the Bull;

The Tharumba people of the Shoalhaven River saw three stars of Canis Major as Wunbula (Bat) and his two wives Murrumbool (Mrs Brown Snake) and Moodtha (Mrs Black Snake); bored of following their husband around, the women try to bury him while he is hunting a wombat down its hole. He spears them and all three are placed in the sky as the constellation Munowra

The Indian name for Canis Major is ಮಹಾಶ್ವಾನ (Maha Shwana).

Canis Major contains

View Canis Major in 3D


Source: Wikipedia, in-the-sky.org
Image Courtesy: Sky&Telescope & IAU, Illustration Images linked from Urania's Mirror on Wikmedia Commons by Sidney Hall

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