Orion

Named after The Hunter in Greek myth, the constellation Orion can be seen (in the northern hemisphere) from November until April. It contains some of the brightest stars in the sky, including Rigel and Betelgeuse. It also contains the Orion nebula and the Horsehead nebula.

(Moved from "constellation Orion" to here. )

This is what the constellation looks like. (the small dots are just to connect it...Meissa is the head) Do the star names sound familiar ? Well, most of these stars appeared in the classic game for Mac; Spaceward Ho!.

                        o
                             .
                                  . 
                                       o
                                         .
 o  .   o                          .       o
 .     .                         .          o
                            
 .    .                      .                 .  
                                                o
 .   .                   .

 .  .     Meissa   o  .    .
   .               .         . O Bellatrix
 .                         .     .
 . o              .      .
o   .                  .            .
 ' . .           .  .
      .          .                     .
        o  .    . 
             ' O Betelgeuse
                 .                        .
                    .    Mintaka   O . . . O
                       .           .           .
                        Alnilam   O                .
                              .   .                    .
                                O Alnitak                O Rigel

                                    .                 .


                                         .        .

                                             .  .
                                              O Saiph

To add to the excellent writeups above (especially bigmouth strike's ASCII drawing), Orion is one of the most recognizable constellations of all.

This is because most can easily identify the three brightest stars of Orion's belt, consisting of Mintaka (m2.23), Alnilam (m1.70) and Alnitak(m2.05) as they form a relatively straight line and are relatively bright.

The brightest star in Orion is Rigel with a magnitude of 0.12, followed by Betelgeuse at 0.50.

Most people can identify these three stars of Orion's belt together with Rigel and Saiph forming Orion's feet and Betelgeuse and Bellatrix forming Orion's shoulders.

After ninety minutes or so we started to get ready to go. As the others folded up the mat and collected items, Pui and I sat on the barrier at the side of the road. We looked at the stars together and she asked me if I knew anything about them. I pointed to Orion

There was once a young man and woman who were very much in love. Their names were Cohn-sawn-law and Nahn-ooh-bean. They lived in the same village and spent as much time with each other as possible. But Cohn-sawn-law's stepmother didn't like them together and tried to drive them apart. Talking with her was fruitless so in the end Cohn-sawn-law and Nahn-ooh-bean thought it best to move together to another village.

Nahn-ooh-bean soon became pregnant and, although the two were not yet married, they were very happy and looked forward to raising a child together.

Shortly thereafter, Cohn-sawn-law received a message from his stepmother. It seemed that she had had a change of heart—please come back, his stepmother pleaded. The couple returned, but the stepmother hadn't changed at all. Still determined to separate the two, she sent Cohn-sawn-law off on a long business journey.

Cohn-sawn-law was gone for several months and Nahn-ooh-bean missed him terribly. As the months dragged on she become very sad and weak. Sadly, she miscarried their baby and this proved too much for her—she died of a broken heart.

Cohn-sawn-law returned to the village the next morning and heard of the deaths. He rushed to Nahn-ooh-beans parent's house and held her lifeless body to his. Through tears he said to her

"I love you... I love you so much that I will follow you so we can be together..."

As the words finish leaving his mouth he, too, died of heartbreak.

Friends of the couple built a funeral pyre and lay the two next to each other on it. As the smoke from their bodies rose into the blue-black sky two groups of stars started to appear. Cohn-sawn-law and Nahn-ooh-bean—together at last, in the night sky, forever.

While their friends weren't looking Cohn-sawn-law's stepmother quickly approached the pyre. Taking a three-segmented piece of bamboo she placed it between the couple. As the smoke from the bamboo rose, it's three segments become three stars that to this day separate the two lovers.

"Unlike other Gods, I am compassionate! But Buddha I ain't!"

Orion is a single-volume manga written and drawn by Masamune Shirow. Set roughly 200 million years ago, the Yamata People's Empire seeks to use its psychoscience to destroy all the negative karma in the universe. Unfortunately, as anyone how knows even a bit about Buddhism can tell you, the desire to rid oneself of a disease is a disease itself; this is bad news for our intrepid scientists. Essentially, the idea is that the princess, a woman of extraordinary spiritual power, will sacrifice herself to summon the 9-headed naga, who will consume all that nasty negative karma. Unfortunately, it will actually eat everything, and the only thing standing in its way is Susano, a proud, upstart, and rather homicidal deity, who turns out not to be that bad a guy, once you get to know him.

Essentially everything, from spaceships to weapons, are powered by mental energies. In one scene, it is shown that a spaceship is powered by a vast array of tanks, holding disembodied brains. The so-called 'boosters' hold artificial brains which enable the user to increase his own mental energy. Weapons, entertainment, everything is based on psychoscience and the Tendai Naga rituals.

The artwork has the familiar Shirow style, quite similar to Ghost in the Shell, and significantly more polished than his earlier work, Black Magic M-66. I would say that Orion is good, without being great. If you like Shirow, and are willing to wade through some rather confusing discussions about yin and yang, nagas, and gods, it's a pretty decent read. It will be very helpful if you know a bit about Buddhism, at least to the extent of knowing what an arahat and bodhisattva are; Orion goes way beyond most of his other works in terms of strange philosophical musings, and a reader who doesn't understand the terms and backgrounds he uses will most likely end up frustrated, bored and confused.

O*ri"on (?), n. [L., fr. Gr. , orig., a celebrated hunter in the oldest Greek mythology, after whom this constellation was named.] Astron.

A large and bright constellation on the equator, between the stars Aldebaran and Sirius. It contains a remarkable nebula visible to the naked eye.

The flaming glories of Orion's belt. E. Everett.

© Webster 1913.