Vertcliff Publishing · the fixed stars

Capulus

NGC 869 and NGC 884, the Double Cluster in Perseus — the hilt of the hero's sword

The constellation Perseus drawn in gold foil, with the star Capulus marked at the hilt of the hero's sword.
Perseus — Capulus marked, the hilt of the hero's sword
Position (J2000)
24°11′ Taurus
Magnitude
3.70 (NGC 869)
Type
Twin open clusters
Colour
Blue-white, with a few red supergiants
Distance
~7,500 light-years
Nature
Mars · Mercury

In the sky

Capulus is not one star but two young open clusters side by side in the sword-hand of Perseus, known together as the Double Cluster. Each is some fourteen million years old and rich in hot blue-white giants, with a few red supergiants scattered among them, and the whole company lies about seven and a half thousand light-years away.

To the naked eye, on a dark night, the pair shows as a single hazy patch between Perseus and Cassiopeia; binoculars divide it into two bright knots spanning twice the width of the full Moon. Hipparchus recorded it around 130 BCE. The position given here is that of the western cluster, NGC 869.

The myth

The name is Latin for the hilt or handle, and it marks the hand in which Perseus grips the harpe, the curved blade that took the Gorgon's head. The Arab astronomers saw the same place as the wrist of an arm reaching toward the Pleiades, in keeping with their reading of Mirfak as the elbow. Ptolemy calls it the cluster in the hilt of the sword and gives it the nature of Mars and Mercury, and Robson gives the same.

Mars gives the stroke and Mercury the judgement that guides it. Robson adds that it troubles the eyesight, as he says of all clusters and nebulae. This book reads that warning as it reads every such warning: a star of misted light teaches another kind of sight, and the hand that struck Medusa could do so only because it had first learned to look at her in a mirror.

What it gives

  • The decisive stroke The native knows the moment for action and takes it cleanly. Matters that others circle for months are settled here in a single well-judged step.
  • A quick and cutting mind Mercury lends the blade its edge. The native separates the essential from the incidental at speed and can put a hard truth into a few exact words.
  • Sight by reflection Like the hero with his polished shield, the native sees difficult matters best at one remove, through study, story or another's account, and finds there what direct looking would have missed.
  • A sure hold on the tool The hilt is where the hand meets the instrument. The native has an aptitude for crafts and tools of every kind.

What to watch for

  • The stroke too soon The readiness to act can outrun the reason for acting, and the native cuts through a knot that patience would have untied. The balance returns when every large decision is given one night before the blade falls.
  • Words that wound The same edge turned on people becomes sharpness of speech, the exact phrase that cannot be taken back. It is brought back into use by keeping the precision for the problem and away from the person.
  • Sight clouded When the indirect way of seeing is neglected, the native can stare straight at trouble until it overwhelms them. It clears when the native returns to the mirror, and when the physical eyes are given ordinary rest.
  • The hand without a cause A good grip looks for something to hold, and without worthy work the native's skill can turn toward quarrels or small cruelties. It is restored by giving the hand a craft or a cause that deserves it.

How to work with it

Keep a short interval between the seeing and the stroke. A single deliberate pause, long enough to ask whether the cut is needed and whom it will touch, keeps sound timing from becoming haste.

Approach the hardest matters by reflection. Writing, conversation with a trusted listener and the study of how others met the same difficulty all serve as the polished shield.

Give the hand a lifelong craft. Whether its instrument is a scalpel, a pen or a chisel, the placement is steadiest where its sharpness has honourable daily work.

In brief

Capulus is the hand on the hilt of the hero's sword: decisive action, a cutting mind, sight gained by reflection, and a sure hold on a craft. Its risks are the blade's — the stroke made too soon, the word that wounds, the sight that clouds when trouble is faced head on, and skill that turns to quarrel for want of worthy work. The placement functions best where the pause before the cut is kept and the hand has honest labour, and worst where the edge is left to find its own targets.

The shared observatory

For thousands of years astrology was built one way: someone watched the sky, watched a life, and wrote down what seemed to answer what. Everything in the tradition — every verdict the old texts hand down about Capulus — began as one person's observation, kept, compared, and corrected across generations. This page continues that work. If Capulus stands close upon a planet in your chart, add your observation to the record: what it has given, and what it has asked of you.

Which planet does Capulus stand upon in your chart, and how close is the orb? How do you experience the conjunction — where does it show in your life, and what has it taught you? The calculator will find your conjunctions if you have not looked yet.

No account needed — a nickname and your words. Observations are reviewed before they appear, which usually takes a day or two.

Read Capulus beside its hundred and twenty-two companions in A Book of Fixed Stars, or raise your own chart to see which stars stood close at your birth.

These stars walk the world in the novel. Our Sidereal World: Selena and Lilith — Anastasia Vertcliff's mythopoetic, philosophical fantasy of souls and free will, where the fixed stars come down wearing faces, eager to help, and not to be trusted.

Meet them in the novel →