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This webpage reproduces a section of Star Names Their Lore and Meaning by Richard Hinckley Allen as reprinted in the Dover edition, 1963 The text is in the public domain. This page has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know!

 p360  Sceptrum Brandenburgicum, the Brandenburg Sceptre.

was charted in 1688 by Gottfried Kirch, the first astronomer of the Prussian Royal Society of Sciences, and, more than a century thereafter, was published by Bode, who thus rescued it for a time from the oblivion into which, however, it seems to have lapsed again. It contains but four stars, of the 4th and 5th magnitudes, standing in a straight line north and south, below the first bend in the River, west from Lepus.

The Chinese here had an asterism, Kew Yew, the nine Scallops of a Pennon, but in this they included μ, ω, and b of Eridanus.

There was, in the sky, still another Sceptre held by the Hand of Justice introduced by Royer in 1679 in honor of King Louis XIV, in the place of Lacerta; but this also has been forgotten.

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