Canes Venatici, the Hunting Dogs

The story

Canes Venatici — the Hunting Dogs, Asterion and Chara, straining on a leash held by the herdsman Boötes — has no ancient pedigree at all: Johannes Hevelius introduced it himself in this 1690 atlas, filling empty sky between Ursa Major and Boötes that older constellation catalogues had simply left blank. It is one of several constellations Hevelius invented wholesale, and one of the few still in official use today, a rare case of a single 17th-century astronomer's naming choice outliving every rival system proposed since. What to notice: the dense field of stars marking Ursa Major's haunch at left is the same Great Bear that anchors this room's al-Sufi plates, drawn eight centuries and one visual convention apart — a chance to see how differently two astronomical traditions rendered the identical patch of sky.