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Stars and Sticks| Abbreviation | Vir |
|---|---|
| Meaning | Virgin |
| Pronunciation Guide is based on “Pronouncing Astronomical Names,” published in 1943 by the American Astronomical Society. | VER-go |
| Genitive The genitive is the Latin possessive form used in star names. For example, Alpha Orionis means “the Alpha of Orion.” | VUR-jih-nis |
| Best Month | May |
| Visibility | Global |
| Origin | AncientThese figures are rooted in the classical Greek and Mesopotamian traditions cataloged by Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD. |
| Author | PtolemyPtolemy, a 2nd-century Greco-Egyptian astronomer, cataloged the 48 classical constellations in his landmark work, the Almagest. These form the core of the 88 modern constellations recognized today. |
| Type | constellation |
| Difficulty | Easy |
| Description | The Maiden is the second largest constellation and the largest of the zodiac constellations, stretching across a vast region of sky rich in galaxies. She is identified as Demeter, goddess of the harvest, holding a sheaf of wheat — or as Astraea, the last immortal to abandon the earth at the end of the Golden Age. Her brightest star, Spica, marks the tip of the wheat stalk — a brilliant blue-white binary 250 light-years away and so important historically that Hipparchus used observations of it to discover the precession of the equinoxes around 127 BCE, one of the greatest astronomical discoveries of antiquity. The constellation also contains the Virgo Cluster — home to over 1,300 galaxies about 53 million light-years away. |
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Monthly sky charts courtesy of What's Out Tonight? — Copyright ©2026 Ken Graun. Star charts are optimized for mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. Click a chart to view or download the PDF. For guidance on using the chart, or to purchase a planisphere and astronomy books, visit kenpress.com.
Images: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/E. Slawik · IAU and Sky & Telescope · Stellarium — Full credits →
