The Diamond Cross is an asterism in the southern constellation Carina. The Diamond Cross is composed of four bright stars: Beta, Theta, Upsilon and Omega Carinae. These four bright stars create an almost perfect diamond shape, hence the name "Diamond Cross". The entire asterism is visible to all observers south of 20°N latitude. It bears a striking resemblance to Crux (The Southern Cross) and the False Cross, and, like them, it lacks a central star in its cross pattern, creating a diamond-shaped or kite-like appearance. Both the Diamond Cross and the False Cross are sometimes mistaken for the true cross Crux, although the False Cross has always been a worse deceiver than the Diamond Cross, because most of its stars have approximately the same declinations as the stars of Crux.
Famous quotes containing the words diamond and/or cross:
“The lover never sees personal resemblances in his mistress to her kindred or to others. His friends find in her a likeness to her mother, or her sisters, or to persons not of her blood. The lover sees no resemblance except to summer evenings and diamond mornings, to rainbows and the song of birds.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“How have I been able to live so long outside Nature without identifying myself with it? Everything lives, moves, everything corresponds; the magnetic rays, emanating either from myself or from others, cross the limitless chain of created things unimpeded; it is a transparent network that covers the world, and its slender threads communicate themselves by degrees to the planets and stars. Captive now upon earth, I commune with the chorus of the stars who share in my joys and sorrows.”
—Gérard De Nerval (1808–1855)