You’ve heard the phrase, “Hey that guy really ate crow?” That’s an idiom that’s used to express and display total humility, especially when someone is shown to be wrong.

Crows really get a bad rap, but in truth they’re one of the smartest birds around. In fact, according to Greek and Roman mythology, crows were once the most respected birds on Earth.

Back then they were exalted, highly intelligent and had beautiful voices that allowed them to sing out glorious songs that delighted all. They had bright white feathers with gold trim on their wings and tail. They served the gods and goddesses as reliable messengers on Mount Olympus with great distinction until Corvus the bungling crow messed it up for all crows — forever.

The constellation Corvus the Crow is one of the 66 or so constellations we see throughout the year in our Butler night skies, but it’s certainly not one of the biggest or brightest. It’s an example of the dull spring constellations out there in the evening right now.

Our little constellation is basically a lopsided diamond in the low south-southeastern sky that comes out as soon as it’s dark enough, a little after 9 p.m. That’s supposed to be a crow.

Corvus is just to the right of the fairly bright star Spica, the brightest star in the large but faint constellation Virgo the Virgin. This year the planet Saturn is also in the same part of the sky, located to the upper left of the low flying disgraced celestial crow. Corvus is one of my favorite little constellations mainly because of its legend.

Apollo, the god of the sun, sent Corvus the crow on a very important mission to fetch water from a far off magical fountain. Apollo dispatched the great bird with one of his favorite cups, or chalices, to collect the magical water. Corvus didn’t know exactly where the fountain was, but he thought he knew which town to fly into. He told Apollo that he should be back by that evening, no problem.

His confidence in finding the magic fountain diminished as the day wore on though. It was a hot Friday afternoon as Corvus flew over town after town looking for the magic fountain. Of course, being a male crow, he was too stubborn to ask for directions. His wings were getting tired and his throat was dry. He had to take a break. In the distance he could see a bar and thought he’d catch the end of happy hour.

He swooped right into one of the open windows and as luck would have it, one of his childhood crow buddies was sitting at the bar with a giant mug of beer and a pile of pull tabs. It was like old times!

Corvus and his old buddies drank and talked for hours, telling each other lies and tall tales. As the night wore on and they emptied one beer after another down their beaks, Corvus decided to be a showoff and had the bartender pour tap beer into Apollo’s chalice. At closing time, Corvus stumbled out of the “crow-bar” and passed out on a park bench clutching Apollo’s cup, still half full of beer.

The next morning, a very hungover Corvus with a nuclear headache dumped the leftover stale beer out of Apollo’s chalice and took to the skies, resuming his search for the elusive magic fountain. After hours of clumsy flying, Corvus gave up. He decided it was time to fly back to Mount Olympus to face the music.

As he got closer to the home of the gods, he swallowed the rest of his breath mints to hide the evidence of his wild night. Corvus could see Apollo standing out on his mountainous decking waiting for him. He could even see Apollos angry glare from a half mile away. All along the way back the wayward crow was cooking up a story about how a crazed water snake bit him while he was getting a drink of water, making him too woozy to find the fountain.

When Corvus made his landing, he almost had Apollo convinced about of his extremely tall water snake tale until he handed over the chalice to the god of the sun. Oops!

Corvus forgot to wash it out and it reeked of rotten beer. Corvus was busted! Apollo went nuclear and fired Corvus on the spot. He didn’t stop there though. Apollo banned all crows from Mount Olympus and used his magical godly powers to turn all crows from their beautiful white and gold colors to the jet-black colors we see today. Continuing his temper tantrum, he waved his finger in anger once again and collectively turned all the crow’s beautiful singing voices into the “caw caw” we hear today.

If only Corvus had stopped at one beer!

As an added bonus, the wonderful planet Saturn is perched just to upper left of Corvus. With even a small telescope you can see its wonderful ring system. Saturn is currently less than 850 million miles away.

A Morning Celestial Hugging

This coming week in the early morning twilight, see if you can spot the planets Venus and Mercury in a close celestial hug in the very low eastern sky. It will be a bit of a challenge because they’re very low in the sky and you’ll need a low flat eastern horizon.

Venus is by far the brighter of the two with the much fainter Mercury to the lower left of the planet named after the Roman god of love. On Friday and Saturday the waning crescent moon will join the planets. Friday morning the moon will be a little to the upper right of the moon and on Saturday morning look for the moon camped right above Venus.

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and is author of the book, “Pennsylvania Starwatch,” available at bookstores and at the following website: www.lynchandthestars.com