Amalthea and Pan
Capricorn is sometimes identified with Amalthea, the goat that suckled the infant Zeus.
Another tradition sees Pan: to escape the monster Typhon, he gave himself a fish’s tail and dived into a river. Hence this strange beast, half goat, half fish.
Ea’s goat-fish
The Babylonians called it SUḪUR.MAŠ, ‘the goat-fish’, and used it as a symbol of their god Ea. The Tropic of Capricorn is named after the Sun’s most southerly position; today, at the December solstice, the Sun is in Sagittarius.
Johann Galle discovered Neptune on 23 September 1846 near Delta Capricorni. By modern boundaries, the planet was actually in Aquarius.
The real constellation
Capricornus is the smallest constellation of the zodiac, and only one of its stars is brighter than magnitude 3.
From Brussels, Deneb Algedi climbs to 23 degrees and is highest around 10 pm in mid-October. In 2026 the Sun stood in front of Capricornus from 20 January to 16 February. This week the Moon passed through on Monday and Tuesday evening.
Its stars
Deneb Algedi
Magnitude 2.85, about 39 light years away. An eclipsing binary that dims by about 0.2 magnitudes every 24.5 hours.
Dabih
A yellow giant of magnitude 3.1, about 340 light years away, with a magnitude 6.1 companion.
Algedi
Two stars you can tell apart with the naked eye: a yellow giant of magnitude 3.6 at 109 light years, and a supergiant of magnitude 4.3 at 690 light years.
A globular cluster
Magnitude 7.5, about 30,000 light years away.
In art and history
The goat-fish comes from Babylon.
- BabylonSUḪUR.MAŠ, the goat-fish, symbol of the god Ea.
- Ptolemaic EgyptOn the Dendera zodiac in the Louvre, Capricorn appears in Graeco-Roman form.
- Scientific atlasesIn 1690 Hevelius engraved it with the head of a long-horned goat and a curling fish’s tail.
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