Fomalhaut

Meaning

Fomalhaut is the lone bright star of the Southern Fish, Piscis Austrinus, low in the southern sky of autumn evenings. Its name comes from the Arabic fam al-ḥūt, “the mouth of the fish”. In the old star maps, the fish drinks the stream of water poured by the Water-bearer, Aquarius.

It is a white star about 25 light-years away, one of the nearest bright stars, circled by a wide ring of dust. It shines at about magnitude 1.2. Its degree was 3°51′ Pisces in 2000, and it moves forward about a degree in 72 years.

It lies about 21° south of the ecliptic, far below the planets’ path. A planet on its degree shares its ecliptic longitude but is not beside it in the sky. Some astrologers give such a contact less weight for that reason.

Ptolemy likens the star at the fish’s mouth to Venus and Mercury: beauty joined to words and ideas. Tradition reads Fomalhaut as imagination, idealism and refinement, a gift for art, music or a vision worth sharing. Its difficult side is a dream that drifts away from what can be done.

In practice

• On the Sun or the Ascendant, Fomalhaut is read as an idealist’s presence: a person moved by a vision and keen to give it form.
• On Venus, the two voices agree: tradition reads grace, artistic feeling and a love of beauty.
• On Mercury, it is read as a poetic or inspired way with words.
• On the Midheaven, it is read as a public role built around an ideal, in which patience keeps the vision grounded.
• By sign, it stands in early Pisces in the tropical zodiac; the constellation it belongs to lies south of Aquarius.

Across traditions

• Chinese astronomy calls it 北落师门 Běiluò Shīmén, the northern gate of the army camp.
• Indian astrology does not count it among the stars that mark the nakshatras.
• The four royal stars. Modern books often call Fomalhaut, Aldebaran, Regulus and Antares the four royal stars, or watchers of the sky. They credit the idea to ancient Persia. The grouping is popular, but its ancient basis is debated. The four do lie roughly a quarter of the zodiac apart. Around 3000 BC, Aldebaran and Antares stood close to the equinoxes, Regulus and Fomalhaut within about ten degrees of the solstices.

Origin and history

Ptolemy’s Almagest lists Fomalhaut as the star at the mouth of the Southern Fish. In the Tetrabiblos he gives the bright star at the fish’s mouth the nature of Venus and Mercury. Unlike the other royal stars, it is not one of the fifteen Behenian stars of medieval magic. Vivian Robson, in 1923, gathered readings that count it among the fortunate stars.

How Ulune calculates it

Ulune places Fomalhaut from the Swiss Ephemeris star catalogue, sefstars.txt, where it is Alpha Piscis Austrini. Its position is the apparent one at the chart’s moment, with precession, nutation, aberration and the star’s own motion applied.

A body within 1° of Fomalhaut’s longitude counts as on it. Latitude is not compared, so its 21° below the ecliptic does not change the contact. The Stars part of the chart table lists every body, point and angle on the star except the lots, closest first. Without a birth time, a contact that may not hold all day is marked ~. On the wheel, Fomalhaut is an overlay turned on in the Bodies panel. Its mark names the closest of the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars or the four angles within 1°.

Correspondences