Pisces is the last sign of the zodiac, and it is a quiet one, a faint V of stars with a ring at one end. It shows two fish, joined by a cord, and the picture goes back thousands of years.
Aphrodite and Eros
The Greek story is that when the monster Typhon appeared during a feast of the gods, Aphrodite and her son Eros fled to the Euphrates river. To escape they turned themselves into fish and swam away. In some versions they tied themselves together with a cord so that they would not be separated. Zeus placed the pair in the sky. The Romans told the story of Venus and Cupid in the same way, and it is the usual explanation for Pisces being tied to love.
Older than the myth
The Babylonians saw the same stars as two separate figures: the Swallow in the west and the Great Heavenly Lady in the east, joined by a long ribbon of stars called the Cord. The fish picture seems to have developed later, in the first millennium BCE. The knot where the two lines meet is marked by the star Alrescha, from the Arabic for "the cord."
The sign of the equinox
Since about the first century BCE the sun has crossed the celestial equator in the spring, at the vernal equinox, while it is in Pisces. This is why the astrological Age of Pisces is said to cover the era of Christianity, for which the fish was an early secret symbol, the ichthys. In astrology Pisces is ruled by Jupiter in the traditional scheme and by Neptune in the modern one.
How to find it
Pisces is faint, so you need a dark autumn sky. Look just below the Great Square of Pegasus for a small ring of stars, the Circlet, which marks the head of the western fish. A long V of faint stars then runs from it to the knot at Alrescha, and a second line stretches north to the other fish.
On the star chart
The Hall plate paints the two fish in green and gold, one swimming up and one across, with a red ribbon tying their tails together.
Little-known facts
- The vernal equinox will move out of Pisces and into Aquarius around the year 2600.
- Pisces is the 14th largest constellation, but its stars are faint.
- Alrescha is a double star, and Van Maanen's Star, one of the nearest white dwarfs, lies in Pisces.
- The ring of stars called the Circlet, at the head of the western fish, is the easiest part to find.
- The Syrian goddess Atargatis was worshipped in the form of a fish, and the Syrians would not eat fish.
Pisces appears on our:
