AURIGA (the " charioteer " or " waggoner ")  , in astronomy, a constellation of the northern hemisphere, found in the catalogues of Eudoxus (4th century B.C.) and Aratus (3rd century B.C.) . It was symbolized by the Greeks as an old man in a more or less sitting posture, with a goat and her kids in his left hand, and a bridle in his right . The ancient Greeks associated this constellation with many myths . Some assume it to be Erichthonius, son of Athena and Hephaestus, who was translated to the skies by Zeus on account of his invention of chariots or coaches . Others assume it to be Myrtilus, a son of Hermes and Clytie, and charioteer to Oenomaus, who was placed in the heavens by Hermes . Another myth has it to be Olenus, a son of Hephaestus, and father of Aega and Helice, two nymphs who nursed Zeus . Ptolemy catalogued fourteen stars, Tycho Brahe twenty-seven, and Hevelius forty in this constellation . Interesting stars are: a Aurigae or Capella (the goat), one of the brightest stars in the heavens, determined by Newall and Campbell to be a spectroscopic binary; (3 Aurigae, a star of the second magnitude also a spectroscopic binary; e Aurigae, an irregularly variable star; and Nova Aurigae, a " new " star discovered by Anderson in 1892, and afterwards found on a photographic plate exposed at Harvard in December 1891 . Several fine star clusters also appear in this constellation .