CAPRICORNUS (kap-ri-kôr´-nus)—THE SEA GOAT. (Face Southwest.)
Location.—A line drawn from α Pegasi through ζ and θ in the same constellation, and projected about 25°, strikes α and β in Capricornus.
This constellation contains three principal stars—α and β mentioned above, and δ about 20° east of them.
The water jar of Aquarius is about the same distance northeast of δ Capricorni that Fomalhaut, in the Southern Fish, is southeast of it.
α has a companion which can be seen by the naked eye. It is a fine sight in an opera-glass. These two stars are gradually separating.
β is a double star, one being blue, the other yellow.
The constellation resembles a chapeau, or peaked hat, upside down.
The stars in the head of the Sea Goat, α and β are only 2° apart, and can hardly be mistaken by an observer facing the southwestern sky during the early evening in autumn.
Five degrees east of δ is the point announced by Le Verrier as the position of his predicted new planet, Neptune.