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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Canopus

Canopus \Ca*no"pus\, n. [L. Canopus, fr. Gr. ?, town of Egypt.] (Astron.) A star of the first magnitude in the southern constellation Argo.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Canopus

bright southern star, 1550s, ultimately from Greek Kanopos, Kanobos perhaps from Egyptian Kahi Nub "golden earth." The association with "weight" found in the name of the star in some northern tongues may reflect the fact that it never rises far above the horizon in those latitudes. Also the name of a town in ancient lower Egypt (famous for its temple of Serapis), hence canopic jar, canopic vase, which often held the entrails of embalmed bodies (1878).

Wikipedia
Canopus (disambiguation)

Canopus may refer to:

  • Canopus (or Alpha Carinae), the brightest star in the southern constellation of Carina
  • Canopus, Egypt, an ancient Egyptian city in the Nile Delta
  • Canopus (mythology), in Homeric myth, the pilot of King Menelaus's ship
  • Canopus (rocket), an Argentine sounding rocket
  • Canopus Corporation, a manufacturer of video editing cards and video editing software
  • HMS Canopus, two ships of the Royal Navy
  • USS Canopus, a ship of the United States Navy
  • Canopus (nuclear test) was the name given to the first test of the French hydrogen bomb, in 1968, with a yield of 2.8 megatons
  • Canopus Lake, a lake in Clarence Fahnestock State Park in New York State, USA
  • Canopus in Argos, a series of space fiction by Doris Lessing
  • Canopus G-ADHL, a Short Empire flying boat
  • Canopic jar, ancient Egyptian vessel for storing organs removed by mummification procedure
Canopus

Canopus (; α Car, α Carinae, Alpha Carinae) is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Carina, and the second brightest star in the night-time sky, after Sirius. Canopus's visual magnitude is −0.72, and it has an absolute magnitude of −5.71.

Canopus is a bright giant of spectral type A9, so it is essentially white when seen with the naked eye. It is located in the far southern sky, at a year 2000 declination of and a right ascension of .

Its name is generally considered to originate from the mythological Canopus, who was a navigator for Menelaus, king of Sparta.

Canopus (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Canopus (or Canobus) was the pilot of the ship of King Menelaus of Sparta during the Trojan War. He is described as a young handsome man, who was loved by Theonoe, the Egyptian prophetess, but never answered her feelings. According to legend, while visiting the coasts of Egypt, he was bitten by a serpent and died. His master erected a monument to him at the mouth of the River Nile, around which the town of Canopus later developed.

Canopus, the brightest star in the southern constellation of Carina took his name after him.

Canopus (nuclear test)

Canopus (also Opération Canopus in French) was the code name for France's first two-stage thermonuclear test, conducted on August 24, 1968 at Fangataufa atoll. The test made France the fifth country to test a thermonuclear device after the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and China.

Usage examples of "canopus".

Overhead glimmered those stars yet surviving including Achernar, Algol, Canopus and Cansaspara.

With all their telescopes, the astronomers living in the golden light of Arcturus or the diamond blaze of Canopus would be unable to detect the least glimmer of the conflagration that had destroyed the seat of Adam and his descendents, just as now they are totally ignorant of its existence.

Upon exiting back into normal space, one squadron found itself at Sirius, another at Aldebaran, and another near Canopus, while the rest reappeared strewn in ones and twos across Arcturus, Procyon, Castor, Polaris, Rigel, and assorted other stars in between.

To Throon, the royal planet of the sun Canopus which lay nearly halfway across the galaxy?

Pinnacles and terraces took the light of Canopus and flashed it back in a glory of quivering effulgence.

The enormous white disk of Canopus was sinking toward the horizon, flashing a supernal brilliance across the scene.

To their astonishment, the distant spark of Canopus lay out of sight far on their left.

HUGE, glaring white Canopus flared in the star-sown heavens in blinding splendor, as the five great battleships rushed toward it at rapidly decreasing speed.

If the Barons and the Kingdoms are not going to join us, I'll have to fall far back westward to cover Canopus from that flank thrust.

I recall that pure habit made me take a sight on what seemed to be Canopus, which should be over Cozumel.

Likewise there was comment because here in the Villa, around that chapel of Canopus where his cult is celebrated in Egyptian fashion, I have encouraged the establishment of various pleasure pavilions like those of the suburb of Alexandria which bears that name, and have offered their facilities and distractions to my guests, sometimes participating in them myself.

Egyptian papyri on magic, but the incidents of the evening in Canopus are invented.

The two sorceresses, of the Island of Britain and of Canopus respectively, are created to suggest the world of fortune tellers and dealers in occult sciences with whom Hadrian liked to surround himself.

One of them, a View of Hadrian's Villa which I had not known before, is an interior of the chapel of Canopus, from which were taken in the Seventeenth Century the Antinous in Egyptian style and the accompanying basalt statues of priestesses, all to be seen today in the Vatican.

One day, while the main body of our fleet was out of sight of land, Rear Admiral Campbell, reconnoitering with the Canopus, Donegal, and Amazon, stood in close to the port.