Figures / Noxsibbeth
Noxsibbeth
“dark-sister, of the”
nox “dark” + sibb “sister” + -eth “of the”
Noxsibbeth (“dark-sister, of the”) is a 9-star constellation of The Other Sky, spanning 20° of the northern sky. Its brightest star is Thirorphanis, magnitude 0.69.
The story
The Mouren hold that Noxsibbeth was a surveyor of borders who carried water uphill for forty years without spilling it, and was set turning and has not been released. It is a figure of the autumn, and its setting is the older marker for the end of that season. Thirorphanis, the amber eye, is the hand; the remaining 8 stars are counted from the ground up. Those who keep the old year settle debts on the night it first clears the roofline.
Where to look
- Right ascension
- 1.35 h
- Declination
- +11.67°
- Angular span
- 20.2°
- Stars in the figure
- 9
- Best season
- autumn (northern hemisphere)
- Circumpolar
- nowhere — it rises and sets at every inhabited latitude
Its stars
| Letter | Name | Mag | Type | Distance | Temp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| aiv | Thirorphanis“iron-orphan, little” | 0.69 | K4 III | 65 pc | 4,574 K |
| bhor | Braesylis“bridge-wind, little” | 2.71 | B9 V | 31 pc | 10,608 K |
| ciel | Nuncethira“now-iron, she who is” | 2.85 | K7 III | 155 pc | 4,007 K |
| dor | Aelen“light, the many” | 3.20 | G2 III | 154 pc | 5,830 K |
| enn | Vesrisaeth“burning-morning, of the” | 3.68 | A5 V | 26 pc | 8,488 K |
| fael | Agramornar“field-tomorrow, one who” | 3.74 | K5 III | 68 pc | 4,374 K |
| gyre | Mereaureth“still-water-gold, of the” | 3.95 | B6 V | 124 pc | 15,586 K |
| hesp | Ansasarrys“knot-ember, the last” | 4.12 | G2 III | 39 pc | 5,831 K |
| ir | KS 1577 | 4.24 | F7 III | 203 pc | 6,330 K |
How this was made
Noxsibbeth was not designed. It was grown outward from Thirorphanis, the brightest star in this part of the sky that had not already been claimed by another figure, absorbing near neighbours until it ran out of them — which is, near enough, how the constellations of the real sky came about. Its name is Ilmenic, an invented agglutinative language: every name on this site decomposes into morphemes and can be translated.