The

88

Modern

Constellations

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe#Large-scale_structure]

Prologue
For the ancients, the night sky had always been the playground of fantastic stories, related to gods
and heroes. According to Wikipedia, the earliest direct evidence for the constellations comes from
inscribed stones and clay writing tablets dug up in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) dating back to 3000
BCE. But it seems that the bulk of the Mesopotamian constellations were created within a
relatively short interval from around 1300 to 1000 BCE.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation]

This does not mean that humans were acquainted with the night sky at such a relatively late date.
Archaeological studies have identified possible astronomical markings painted on the walls in the
cave system at Lascaux in southern France. Our ancestors may have recorded their view of the
night sky on the walls of their cave some 17300 years ago. It is thought that the Pleiades star cluster
is represented alongside the nearby cluster of the Hyades.
[http://www.iau.org/public/themes/constellations/]

Certainly the appearance and the motion of the sun, the moon, the planets and the rest of the stars
would have puzzled prehistoric people, who would have tried to figure out ways to depict and
predict planetary aspects. However, the first systematic attempt to describe and list the
constellations was done by Ptolemy, in later antiquity. He identified 48 constellations in his
Almagest in the 2nd century. Later on, during the Renaissance, new constellations were added,
mostly those visible from the southern hemisphere, while others have been omitted. For example,
12 constellations were created by Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman between
1595 and 1597, and were introduced by Johann Bayer in Uranometria, in 1603. This was the first
atlas to cover the entire celestial sphere.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranometria]

The rest constellations were added later on, by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in his star catalogue,
published in 1756, Petrus Plancius (1592- 1613), and Johannes Hevelius in his Uranographia
(1690). Some modern proposals for new constellations were not successful; an example is
Quadrans, eponymous of the Quadrantid meteors, now divided between Botes and Draco in the

northern sky. The large classical constellation of Argo Navis was broken up into three separate
parts (Carina, Puppis and Vela), for the convenience of stellar cartographers.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Former_constellations]

The current list of 88 constellations is recognized by the International Astronomical Union (IAU)
since 1922.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation#IAU_constellations]

This paper is just a collection from internet sources of relevant information, including astronomical
characteristics and historical aspects about the 88 modern constellations.

Constellations

Andromeda

Andromeda is one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century Greco-Roman astronomer

Ptolemy and remains one of the 88 modern constellations. Located north of the celestial equator,
it is named for Andromeda, daughter of Cassiopeia, in the Greek myth, who was chained to a rock
to be eaten by the sea monster Cetus. Andromeda is most prominent during autumn evenings in
the Northern Hemisphere, along with several other constellations named for characters in the
Perseus myth. Because of its northern declination, Andromeda is visible only north of 40 south
latitude; for observers farther south it lies below the horizon. It is one of the largest constellations,
with an area of 722 square degrees. This is over 1,400 times the size of the full moon, 55% of the
size of the largest constellation, Hydra, and over 10 times the size of the smallest constellation,
Crux.

Johannes Heveliuss depiction of Andromeda, from the 1690 edition of his Uranographia. As was
conventional for celestial atlases of the time, the constellation is a mirror image of modern maps
as it was drawn from a perspective outside the celestial sphere.

The uranography of Andromeda has its roots most firmly in the Greek tradition, though a female
figure in Andromedas location had appeared earlier in Babylonian astronomy. The stars that make
up Pisces and the middle portion of modern Andromeda formed a constellation representing a
fertility goddess, sometimes named as Anunitum or the Lady of the Heavens. Andromeda is known
as the Chained Lady or the Chained Woman in English. It was known as Mulier Catenata
(chained woman) in Latin and al-Marat al Musalsalah in Arabic. It has also been called Persea
(Perseuss wife) or Cepheis (Cepheuss daughter).

All the names refer to Andromedas role in the Greco-Roman myth of Perseus, in which
Cassiopeia, the queen of Ethiopia, bragged that her daughter (Andromeda) was more beautiful than
the Nereids, sea nymphs blessed with incredible beauty. Offended at her remark, the nymphs
petitioned Poseidon to punish Cassiopeia for her insolence, which he did by commanding the sea
monster Cetus to attack Ethiopia. Andromedas panicked father, Cepheus, was told by the Oracle
of Ammon that the only way to save his kingdom was to sacrifice his daughter to Cetus. She was
chained to a rock by the sea but was saved by the hero Perseus, who used the head of Medusa to
turn the monster Cetus into stone; Perseus and Andromeda then married; the myth recounts that
the couple had nine children together- seven sons and two daughters- and founded Mycenae and
its Persideae dynasty. After Andromedas death Athena placed her in the sky as a constellation, to
honor her. Several of the neighboring constellations (Perseus, Cassiopeia, Cetus, and Cepheus)
also represent characters in the Perseus myth.

In traditional Chinese astronomy, nine stars from Andromeda (including Beta Andromedae, Mu
Andromedae, and Nu Andromedae), along with seven stars from Pisces, formed an elliptical
constellation called Legs. This constellation either represented the foot of a walking person or a
wild boar. Gamma Andromedae and its neighbors were called Teen Ta Tseang Keun (heavens
great general), representing honor in astrology and a great general in mythology. Alpha
Andromedae and Gamma Pegasi together made Wall, representing the eastern wall of the
imperial palace and/or the emperors personal library. For the Chinese, the northern swath of
Andromeda formed a stable for changing horses (tianjiu, stable on sky) and the far western part,
along with most of Lacerta, became Tengshe, a flying snake.
An Arab constellation called al-Hut (the fish) was composed of several stars in Andromeda, M31,
and several stars in Pisces. And, And, And, And, And, And, And, And, and 32 And
were all included from Andromeda; Psc, Psc, Psc, and Psc were included from Pisces.

Hindu legends surrounding Andromeda are similar to the Greek myths. Ancient Sanskrit texts
depict Antarmada chained to a rock, as in the Greek myth. Scholars believe that the Hindu and
Greek astrological myths were closely linked; one piece of evidence cited is the similarity between
the names Antarmada and Andromeda.

Andromeda is also associated with the Mesopotamian creation story of Tiamat, the goddess of
Chaos. She bore many demons for her husband, Apsu, but eventually decided to destroy them in a
war that ended when Marduk killed her. He used her body to create the constellations as markers
of time for humans.

In the Marshall Islands, Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Triangulum, and Aries are incorporated into a
constellation representing a porpoise. Andromedas bright stars are mostly in the body of the
porpoise; Cassiopeia represents its tail and Aries its head. In the Tuamotu islands, Alpha
Andromedae was called Takurua-e-te-tuki-hanga-ruki, meaning Star of the wearisome toil, and
Beta Andromedae was called Piringa-o-Tautu.

Andromedae (Alpheratz, Sirrah) is the brightest star in this constellation. It is a binary star with
an overall apparent visual magnitude of 2.1 and a luminosity of 96 suns. It is 97 light-years from
Earth. It represents Andromedas head in Western mythology, however, the stars traditional
Arabic names- Alpheratz and Sirrah, from the phrase surrat al-faras, sometimes translated as

navel of the steed- are a reference to the fact that Andromedae forms an asterism known as the
Great Square of Pegasus with three stars in Pegasus: , , and Peg. As such, the star was
formerly considered to belong to both Andromeda and Pegasus, and was co-designated as Delta
Pegasi ( Peg), although this name is no longer formally used.
And (Mirach) is a red-hued giant star located in an asterism known as the girdle. It is 198 lightyears away, has a magnitude of 2.06, and a luminosity of 115 suns. Its name comes from the Arabic
phrase al-Maraqq meaning the loins or the loincloth, a phrase translated from Ptolemys
writing. However, And was mostly considered by the Arabs to be a part of al-Hut, a constellation
representing a larger fish than Pisces at Andromedas feet.
And (Almach) is an orange-hued bright giant star found at the southern tip of the constellation
with an overall magnitude of 2.14. Almach is a multiple star with a yellow primary of magnitude
2.3 and a blue-green secondary of magnitude 5.0, separated by 9.7 arcseconds. The secondary star
is itself a double star, with a secondary of magnitude 6.3 and a period of 61 years. The system is
358 light-years away. Almach was named for the Arabic phrase Anaq al-Ard, which means the
earth-kid, an obtuse reference to an animal that aids a lion in finding prey.
And is a magnitude 4.1 binary system that consists of one F-type dwarf and an M-type dwarf.
The primary star has a planetary system with four confirmed planets, 0.96 times, 14.57 times,
10.19 times and 1.06 the mass of Jupiter. The system is 44 light-years from Earth.

M31, the Great Galaxy of Andromeda

Location of M31 in the Andromeda constellation

The constellation of Andromeda lies well away from the galactic plane, so it does not contain any
of the open clusters or bright nebulae of the Milky Way. Because of its distance in the sky from
the band of obscuring dust, gas, and abundant stars of our home galaxy, Andromedas borders
contain many visible distant galaxies. The most famous deep-sky object in Andromeda is the spiral
galaxy cataloged as Messier 31 (M31) or NGC 224 but known colloquially as the Andromeda
Galaxy for the constellation. M31 is one of the most distant objects visible to the naked eye, 2.2
million light-years from Earth (estimates range up to 2.5 million light-years); it is seen under a
dark, transparent sky as a hazy patch in the north of the constellation. M31 is the largest
neighboring galaxy to the Milky Way and the largest member of the Local Group of galaxies. In
absolute terms, M31 is approximately 200,000 light-years in diameter, twice the size of the Milky
Way. It is an enormous- 192.4 by 62.2 arcminutes in apparent size- barred spiral galaxy similar in
form to the Milky Way and at an approximate magnitude of 3.5, is one of the brightest deep-sky
objects in the northern sky. Despite being visible to the naked eye, the little cloud near
Andromedas figure was not recorded until AD 964, when the Arab astronomer al-Sufi wrote his
Book of Fixed Stars. M31 was first observed telescopically shortly after its invention, by Simon
Marius in 1612.
The Andromeda Galaxys two main companions, M32 and M110 (also known as NGC 221 and
NGC 205, respectively) are faint elliptical galaxies that lie near it. M32, visible with a far smaller
size of 8.7 by 6.4 arcminutes, compared to M110, appears superimposed on the larger galaxy in a
telescopic view as a hazy smudge, M110 also appears slightly larger and distinct from the larger
galaxy; M32 was discovered in 1749 by French astronomer Guillaume Le Gentil and has since
been found to lie closer to Earth than the Andromeda Galaxy itself. It is viewable in binoculars
from a dark site owing to its high surface brightness of 10.1 and overall magnitude of 9.0. M110
is classified as either a dwarf spheroidal galaxy or simply a generic elliptical galaxy. It is far fainter
than M31 and M32, with a surface brightness of 13.2, magnitude of 8.9, and size of 21.9 by 10.9
arcminutes.

The Andromeda Galaxy has a total of 15 satellite galaxies, including M32 and M110. Nine of these
lie in a plane, which has caused astronomers to infer that they have a common origin. These
satellite galaxies, like the satellites of the Milky Way, tend to be older, gas-poor dwarf elliptical

and dwarf spheroidal galaxies. M31 is often referred to as a twin sister to the Milky Way, but it
has only half the mass of the Milky Way despite being twice its diameter. The futures of the
Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies may be interlinked: in about five billion years, the two could
potentially begin an AndromedaMilky Way collision that would spark extensive new star
formation.

The Blue Snowball Nebula (NGC 7662) in Andromeda

[http://www.deepskyccd.com/planetary_ngc7662.html]

There is one prominent planetary nebula in Andromeda: NGC 7662 (Caldwell 22). Lying
approximately three degrees southwest of Iota Andromedae at a distance of about 4,000 light-years
from Earth, the Blue Snowball Nebula is a popular target for amateur astronomers. It earned its
popular name because it appears as a faint, round, blue-green object in a telescope, with an overall
magnitude of 9.2. Upon further magnification, it is visible as a slightly elliptical annular disk that
gets darker towards the center, with a magnitude 13.2 central star. The nebula has an overall
magnitude of 9.2 and is 20 by 130 arcseconds in size.

Andromeda is also the location of the radiant for the Andromedids, a weak meteor shower that
occurs in November.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_%28constellation%29]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_Galaxy]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_%28mythology%29]

Antlia

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antlia]
Antlia is a constellation in the southern sky. Its name means pump, and it specifically represents
an air pump. Located close to the stars forming the old constellation of the ship Argo Navis
(contemporary constellations Carina, Puppis and Vela), Antlia is completely visible from latitudes
south of 49 degrees north. Covering 238.9 square degrees and hence 0.579% of the sky, Antlia
ranks 62nd of the 88 modern constellations by area. Hydra the sea snake runs along the length of
its northern border, while Pyxis the compass, Vela the sails, and Centaurus the centaur line it to
the west, south and east respectively. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension

coordinates of Antlia lie between 09h 26.5m and 11h 05.6m, while the declination coordinates are
between 24.54 and 40.42.

Johann Bodes depiction of Antlia as a double-cylinder air pump

The French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille first described the constellation in French as la
Machine Pneumatique (the Pneumatic Pump) in 1751-52, commemorating the air pump invented
by the French physicist Denis Papin. Lacaille Latinised the name to Antlia pneumatica on his 1763
chart. John Herschel proposed shrinking the name to one word, which was universally adopted.

There is no mythology attached to Antlia as Lacaille discontinued the tradition of giving names
from mythology to constellations and instead chose names mostly from scientific instruments.
Though Antlia was technically visible to Classical Greek astronomers, its stars were too faint to
have been included in any ancient constellations. According to some, the most prominent stars that
now comprise Antlia were once included within the ancient constellation Argo Navis, the Ship of
the Argonauts, which due to its immense size was split into several smaller constellations by

Lacaille in 1763. However, given the faintness and obscurity of its stars, most authorities do not
believe that the ancient Greeks included Antlia as part of their classical depiction of Argo Navis.

Chinese astronomers were able to view what is modern Antlia from their latitudes, and
incorporated its stars into two different constellations. Several stars in the southern part of Antlia
were a portion of Dongou, which represented an area in southern China. Furthermore, Epsilon,
Eta, and Theta Antliae were incorporated into the celestial temple, which also contained stars from
modern Pyxis.

Lacaille gave nine stars Bayer designations, labelling them Alpha through to Theta, including two
stars next to each other as Zeta. Gould later added a tenth, Iota Antliae. Beta and Gamma Antliae
(now HR 4339 and HD 90156) ended up in the neighbouring constellation Hydra once the
constellation boundaries were delineated in 1930. Within the constellations borders, there are 42
stars brighter than or equal to apparent magnitude 6.5.
The constellations two brightest stars- Alpha and Epsilon Antliae- shine with a reddish tinge.
Alpha is an orange giant that is a suspected variable star, ranging between apparent magnitudes
4.22 and 4.29. It is located 370 20 light-years away from Earth. Estimated to be shining with
around 480 to 555 times the luminosity of the Sun, it is most likely an ageing star that is brightening
and on its way to becoming a Mira variable star, having converted all its core fuel into carbon.

Located 710 40 light-years from Earth, Epsilon Antliae is an evolved orange giant star that has
swollen to have a diameter about 69 times that of the Sun, and a luminosity of around 1279 Suns.
It is slightly variable.

HD 93083 is an orange dwarf star of spectral type K3V that is smaller and cooler than the Sun. It
has a planet that was discovered by the radial velocity method with the HARPS spectrograph in
2005. About as massive as Saturn, the planet orbits its star with a period of 143 days at a mean
distance of 0.477 AU. WASP-66 is a sun-like star of spectral type F4V. A planet with 2.3 times
the mass of Jupiter orbits it every 4 days, discovered by the transit method in 2012.

A
A composite image of NGC 2997

Antlia contains many faint galaxies, the brightest of which is NGC 2997 at magnitude 10.6. It is a
loose face-on spiral galaxy of type Sc. Though nondescript in most amateur telescopes, it presents
bright clusters of young stars and many dark dust lanes in photographs. Discovered in 1997, the
Antlia Dwarf is a 14.8m dwarf spheroidal galaxy that belongs to the Local Group of galaxies. The
Antlia Cluster, also known as Abell S0636, is a cluster of galaxies located in the Hydra-Centaurus
Supercluster. It is the third nearest to the Local Group after the Virgo Cluster and the Fornax

Cluster. The clusters distance from earth is 40.5 Mpc (132.1 Mly) to 40.9 Mpc (133.4 Mly)
Located in the southeastern corner of the constellation, it boasts the giant elliptical galaxies NGC
3268 and NGC 3258 as the main members of a southern and northern subgroup respectively, and
contains around 234 galaxies in total.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argo_Navis]

Apus

Apus is a small constellation in the southern sky. Covering 206.3 square degrees, and hence
0.500% of the sky, it ranks 67th of the 88 modern constellations by area. Its position in the Southern
Celestial Hemisphere means that the whole constellation is visible to observers south of 7N. It is
bordered by Ara, Triangulum Australe and Circinus to the north, Musca and Chamaeleon to the
west, Octans to the south, and Pavo to the east. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right
ascension coordinates of Apus lie between 13h 49.5m and 18h 27.3m, while the declination
coordinates are between -67.48 and -83.12.

Apus seen in the Uranographia of Johann Bode (1801), where it was given the alternative title of
Avis Indica, the Indian bird, referring to its habitat of the East Indies. The birds tail originally
extended closer to the south celestial pole at lower left, as shown on Johann Bayers southern star
chart of 1603, but was clipped by Lacaille in the 1750s to make room for Octans.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/apus.htm]

Apus was first defined by Petrus Plancius, in the late 16th century, who called the constellation
Paradysvogel Apis Indica. The first word is Dutch for bird of paradise but the others are Latin
for Indian Bee. Apis (Latin for bee) is presumably an error for avis (bird).The name Apus
means no feet in Greek, and this referred to the Western misconception that the bird-of-paradise

had no feet, which arose because the only specimens available in the West had their feet and wings
removed.

When the Ming Dynasty Chinese astronomer Xu Guangqi adapted the European southern
hemisphere constellations to the Chinese system in The Southern Asterisms, he combined Apus
with some of the stars in Octans to form the Exotic Bird (Yqu).
Within the constellations borders, there are 39 stars brighter than or equal to apparent magnitude
6.5. Alpha Apodis is an orange giant 447 8 light years away from Earth, with a magnitude of
3.8. It spent much of its life as a blue-white main sequence star before expanding, cooling and
brightening as it used up its core hydrogen, now shining with a luminosity approximately 928 suns,
with a surface temperature of 4312 K.

Beta Apodis is an orange giant 157 2 light years away, with a magnitude of 4.2. It is around 1.84
times as massive as the Sun, with a surface temperature of 4677 K.

Gamma Apodis is a yellow giant of spectral type G8III located 156 1 light-years away, with a
magnitude of 3.87. It is approximately 63 times as luminous the Sun, with a surface temperature
of 5279 K.

Delta Apodis is a double star with a separation of 103 arcseconds. Delta1 is a red giant star located
760 30 light years away. It is a semiregular variable that varies from magnitude +4.66 to +4.87,
with pulsations of multiple periods of 68.0, 94.9 and 101.7 days. Delta2 is an orange giant star
located 610 30 light years away, with a magnitude of 5.3. The separate components can be
resolved with binoculars, a telescope, or the naked eye.

Hubble Space Telescope image of the central region of NGC 6101

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_6101]

The most prominent deep-sky objects in Apus include the globular clusters NGC 6101 and IC
4499 as well as the spiral galaxy IC 4633. NGC 6101 is a 14th magnitude globular cluster, located
seven degrees north of Gamma Apodis. IC 4499 is a loose globular cluster in the medium-far
galactic halo. Its apparent magnitude is 10.6, and it is unique because it is younger than most other
globular clusters in the same region as determined by its metallicity.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apus]

Aquarius

Aquarius is a summer constellation, situated between Capricornus and Pisces in the zodiac. Under
the Tropical Zodiac, the sun is in Aquarius typically between January 20 and February 18, while
under the Sidereal Zodiac, the sun is in Aquarius from approximately February 15 to March 14,
depending on leap year. Its name is Latin for water-carrier, and its symbol, , is a representation
of water. Aquarius covers an area 980 sq. deg., ranking tenth of the 88 constellations in size. It is
found in a region often called the Sea due to its profusion of constellations with watery associations
such as Cetus the whale, Pisces the fish, and Eridanus the river.
Aquarius is identified as GU.LA The Great One in the Babylonian star catalogues and represents
the god Ea himself, who is commonly depicted holding an overflowing vase. The Babylonian starfigure appears on entitlement stones and cylinder seals from the second millennium. It contained

the winter solstice in the Early Bronze Age. In the Greek tradition, the constellation became
represented as simply a single vase from which a stream poured down to Piscis Austrinus. The
name in the Hindu zodiac is likewise kumbha water-pitcher.

Aquarius was also associated with the destructive floods that the Babylonians regularly
experienced, and thus was negatively connoted. In Ancient Egypt, Aquarius was associated with
the annual flood of the Nile; the banks were said to flood when Aquarius put his jar into the river,
beginning spring. In Greek mythology, Aquarius is sometimes associated with Deucalion, the son
of Prometheus who built a ship with his wife Pyrrha to survive an imminent flood. They sailed for
nine days before washing ashore on Mount Parnassus. Aquarius is also sometimes identified with
beautiful Ganymede, a youth in Greek mythology and the son of Trojan king Tros, who was taken
to Mount Olympus by Zeus to act as cup-carrier to the gods.
In Chinese astronomy, the stream of water flowing from the Water Jar was depicted as the Army
of Yu-Lin (Yu-lin-kiun or Yulinjun). The name Yu-lin means feathers and forests, referring
to the numerous light-footed soldiers from the northern reaches of the empire represented by these
faint stars. The constellations stars were the most numerous of any Chinese constellation,
numbering 45, the majority of which were located in modern Aquarius.

A representation of Aquarius printed in 1825 as part of Uranias Mirror, (including a now-obsolete

constellation, Ballon Aerostatique south of it).
In the first century CE, Ptolemys Almagest established the common Western depiction of
Aquarius. His water jar, an asterism itself, consists of Gamma, Pi, Eta, and Zeta Aquarii; it pours
water in a stream of more than 20 stars terminating with Fomalhaut, now assigned solely to Piscis
Austrinus. The water bearers head is represented by 5th magnitude 25 Aquarii while his left
shoulder is Beta Aquarii; his right shoulder and forearm are represented by Alpha and Gamma
Aquarii respectively.

Despite both its prominent position on the zodiac and its large size, Aquarius has no particularly
bright stars, with its 4 brightest stars less than magnitude 2. Aquarii, also known as Sadalmelik,
is a G2 spectral type star (yellow supergiant) named in Arabic for the phrase the lucky stars of the
king. It is the second brightest star in Aquarius with a magnitude of 2.94 and is 523 light-years
from Earth. Aquarii, sometimes called Sadalsuud, is a G0 spectral type star (yellow supergiant)

named for the Arabic phrase meaning luckiest of the lucky stars. It is the brightest star in
Aquarius with an apparent magnitude of 2.89 and is 537 light-years from Earth.

Twelve exoplanet systems have been found in Aquarius as of 2013. Gliese 876, one of the nearest
stars to Earth at a distance of 15 light-years, was the first red dwarf star to be found to possess a
planetary system. It is orbited by four planets, including one terrestrial planet 6.6 times the mass
of Earth. The planets vary in orbital period from 2 days to 124 days. 91 Aquarii is an orange giant
star orbited by one planet, 91 Aquarii b. The planets mass is 2.9 times the mass of Jupiter, and its
orbital period is 182 days. Gliese 849 is a red dwarf star orbited by the first known long-period
Jupiter-like planet, Gliese 849 b. The planets mass is 0.99 times that of Jupiter and its orbital
period is 1,852 days.

Helix Nebula taken by the Spitzer space telescope

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helix_Nebula]

Because of its position away from the galactic plane, the majority of deep-sky objects in Aquarius
are galaxies, globular clusters, and planetary nebulae. Aquarius contains three deep sky objects
that are in the Messier catalog: the globular clusters M2, M72, and the open cluster M73. Two
well-known planetary nebulae are also located in Aquarius: the Saturn Nebula (NGC 7009), to the
southeast of Aquarii; and the famous Helix Nebula (NGC 7293), southwest of Aquarii.

M2, also catalogued as NGC 7089, is an incredibly rich globular cluster located approximately
37,000 light-years from Earth. At magnitude 6.5, it is viewable in small-aperture instruments, but
a 100 mm aperture telescope is needed to resolve any stars. M72, also catalogued as NGC 6981,
is a small 9th magnitude globular cluster located approximately 56,000 light-years from Earth.
M73, also catalogued as NGC 6994, is an open cluster with highly disputed status.

NGC 7009 is one of the brightest planetary nebulae and a relatively easy object to find in the
constellation Aquarius. At magnitude 8 it is observable in small telescopes and responds well to
high magnification. A series of 20 and 30 second exposures were all that was required to capture
this curiously shaped puffed up star. It is nicknamed Saturn Nebula perhaps because it has
bipolar symmetrical elongations that mimic the rings of Saturn.
[http://stardustobservatory.org/images.php?page=details&id=357]

Aquarius is also home to several planetary nebulae. NGC 7009, also known as the Saturn Nebula,
is an 8th magnitude planetary nebula located 3,000 light-years from Earth. It was given its moniker
by the 19th century astronomer Lord Rosse for its resemblance to the planet Saturn in a telescope;
it has faint protrusions on either side that resemble Saturns rings. It appears blue-green in a
telescope and has a central star of magnitude 11.3. Compared to the Helix Nebula, another
planetary nebula in Aquarius, it is quite small. NGC 7293, also known as the Helix Nebula, is the
closest planetary nebula to Earth at a distance of 650 light-years. It covers 0.25 square degrees,
making it also the largest planetary nebula as seen from Earth. However, because it is so large, it
is only viewable as a very faint object, though it has a fairly high integrated magnitude of 6.0.

NGC 7727 is two separate (likely spiral) galaxies that are nearing the final process of merging into
one larger galaxy after a billions year clash. You can even trace the path the galactic nuclei took
starting from lower left and circling each other five to six countable times in this image. The image
also shows two bright points of light near the center. The bringer one is certainly the center of the
larger original galaxy. The fainter may well be the second nuclei or merely a foreground star. At
the center of each these two nuclei is a super massive black hole containing millions of stellar
masses each compressed into an infinitesimally small point. These black holes will circle each
other for many millions of years before combining masses. The final appearance of the galaxy is
still not well predicted but it is likely to be an elliptical galaxy mostly devoid of spiral arms or dust
lanes necessary for new star formation.
[http://www.kentbiggs.com/images/galaxies/N7727.htm]

One of the visible galaxies in Aquarius is NGC 7727, of particular interest for amateur astronomers
who wish to discover or observe supernovae. A spiral galaxy (type S), it has an integrated
magnitude of 10.7 and is 3 by 3 arcseconds. NGC 7252 is a tangle of stars resulting from the

collision of two large galaxies and is known as the Atoms-for-Peace galaxy because of its
resemblance to a cartoon atom.

Comet 96P Machholz, the possible parent of the Delta Aquarid meteor shower, was discoverd on
May 12, 1986, by Donald Machholz.
[http://earthsky.org/?p=159138]

Aquarius is especially notable as the radiant for four meteor showers, the largest of which is the
Delta Aquarid meteor shower in late July and early August.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquarius_%28constellation%29]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquarius_%28astrology%29]

Aquila

Aquila is a constellation in the northern sky, and it lies astride the celestial equator. The
constellation is best seen in the summer as it is located along the Milky Way. Because of this
location along the line of our galaxy, many clusters and nebulae are found within its borders, but
they are dim and there are few galaxies. The alpha star, Altair, is a vertex of the Summer Triangle
asterism. It is the brightest star in this constellation with a magnitude of 0.76, and it is one of the
closest naked-eye stars to Earth at a distance of 17 light-years. Its name comes from the Arabic
phrase al-nasr al-tair, meaning the flying eagle.

[http://www.abc.net.au/science/starhunt/tour/virtual/aquila/]

In illustrations of Aquila that represent it as an eagle, a nearly straight line of three stars symbolizes
part of the wings. The center and brightest of these three stars is Altair. The tips of the wings
extend further to the southeast and northwest. The head of the eagle stretches off to the southwest.

[http://www.abc.net.au/science/starhunt/tour/virtual/aquila/]
The name of the constellation is Latin for eagle, and it was also known as Vultur volans (the
flying vulture) to the Romans, not to be confused with Vultur cadens which was their name for
Lyra. It is often held to represent the eagle who held Zeuss/Jupiters thunderbolts in Greco-Roman
mythology. Aquila is also associated with the eagle who kidnapped Ganymede, a son of one of the
kings of Troy (associated with Aquarius), to Mount Olympus to serve as cup-bearer to the gods.
According to Gavin White, in Babylonian mythology, the Eagle carried the constellation called

the Dead Man (LU.USH) in its talons. The author also draws a comparison to the Classical stories
of Antinous and Ganymede. In the Chinese love story of Qi Xi, Niu Lang (Altair) and his two
children ( and Aquilae) are separated forever from their wife and mother Zhi Nu (Vega) who is
on the far side of the river, the Milky Way. In Hinduism, the constellation Aquila is identified with
the half-eagle half-human deity Garuda. Also, there were several different Polynesian equivalents
to Aquila as a whole. The Maori people named Altair Poutu-te-rangi, Pillar of the Sky, because
of its important position in their cosmology. It was used differently in different Maori calendars,
being the star of February and March in one version and March and April in the other. Altair was
also the star that ruled the annual sweet potato harvest.

Altair in the constellation of Aquila

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair]

Aquila, which lies in the Milky Way, contains many rich starfields and has been the location of
many novae. Aql (Altair) is the brightest star in this constellation and one of the closest nakedeye stars to Earth at a distance of 17 light-years. Its name comes from the Arabic phrase al-nasr
al-tair, meaning the flying eagle. Altair has a magnitude of 0.76.
Aql (Alshain) is a yellow-hued star of magnitude 3.7, 45 light-years from Earth. Its name comes
from the Arabic phrase shahin-i tarazu, meaning the balance; this name referred to Altair,
Alshain, and Tarazed.
Aql (Tarazed) is an orange-hued giant star of magnitude 2.7, 460 light-years from Earth. Its
name, like that of Alshain, comes from the Arabic for the balance, shahin-i tarazu.

CoRoT-2a: Star Blasts Planet With X-rays

This graphic contains an image and illustration of a nearby star, named CoRoT-2a, which has a
planet in close orbit around it. The separation between the star and planet is only about 3 percent
of the distance between the Earth and the Sun, causing some exotic effects not seen in our solar
system.

The planet-hosting star is located in the center of the image. Data from NASAs Chandra X-ray
Observatory are shown in purple, along with optical and infrared data from the Panchromatic
Robotic Optical Monitoring and Polarimetry Telescopes (PROMPT) and the Two Micron All Sky
Survey (2MASS). CoRoT-2a is surrounded by a purple glow showing that it is an X-ray source.

This star is pummeling its companion planet- not visible in this image- with a barrage of X-rays a
hundred thousand times more intense than the Earth receives from the Sun. Data from Chandra
suggest that high-energy radiation from CoRoT-2a is evaporating about 5 million tons of matter
from the nearby planet every second, giving insight into the difficult survival path for some planets.
The artist's representation shows the material, in blue, being stripped off the planet.

The Chandra observations provide evidence that CoRoT-2a is a very active star, with bright X-ray
emission produced by powerful, turbulent magnetic fields. This magnetic activity is represented
by the prominences and eruptions on the surface of the star in the illustration.

Such strong activity is usually found in much younger stars and may be caused by the proximity
of the planet. The planet may be speeding up the star's rotation, causing its magnetic fields to
remain active longer than expected. Support for this idea comes from observations of a likely
companion star to CoRoT-2a that orbits at a distance about a thousand times greater than the
distance between the Earth and the Sun. This star is visible in the image as the faint, nearby star
located below and to the right of CoRoT-2a. It is also shown as the bright background star in the
illustration. This star is not detected in X-rays, perhaps because it does not have a close-in planet
like CoRoT-2b to cause it to stay active.
The planet, CoRoT-2b, was discovered by the French Space Agencys Convection, Rotation and
planetary Transits (CoRoT) satellite in 2008. It is located about 880 light years from Earth and has
a mass about 3 time that of Jupiter.
[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2011/corot/]

A Hubble Space Telescope (HST) image of NGC 6751

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_6751]

Three interesting planetary nebulae lie in Aquila: NGC 6804 shows a small but bright ring; NGC
6781 which bears some resemblance with the Owl Nebula in Ursa Major; and NGC 6751: also
known as the Glowing Eye.

Two major novae have been observed in Aquila: the first one was in 389 BCE and was recorded
as being as bright as Venus; the other (Nova Aquilae 1918) briefly shone brighter than Altair,
brightest star in Aquila.

Aquila also holds some extragalactic objects. One of them is what may be the largest single mass
concentration of galaxies in the Universe known, the Hercules- Corona Borealis Great Wall. It was

discovered in November 2013 and has the size of 10 billion light years. It is the biggest and the
most massive structure in the Universe known.
NASAs Pioneer 11 space probe, which flew by Jupiter and Saturn in the 1970s, is expected to
pass near the star Lambda () Aquilae in about 4 million years.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquila_%28constellation%29]

Ara

Ara is a southern constellation situated between Scorpius and Triangulum Australe. Its Latin name
is Latin for altar. It covers an area of 237 sq. deg., ranking 63rd of the 88 constellations in size.

Johann Elert Bodes illustration of Ara, from his Uranographia (1801)

In illustrations, Ara is usually depicted as an altar with its smoke rising southward. However,
depictions of Ara often vary in their details. In ancient Greek mythology, Ara was identified as the
altar where the gods first made offerings and formed an alliance before defeating the Titans. The
nearby Milky Way represents the smoke rising from the offerings on the altar. In Chinese
astronomy, the stars of the constellation Ara lie within The Azure Dragon of the East (Dng Fng
Qng Lng). Five stars of Ara formed Gu, a tortoise, while another three formed Ch, a pestle.
Stars of Ara: Ara is a blue-white hued star of magnitude 2.8, 242 light-years from Earth; Ara
is an orange-hued supergiant of magnitude 2.8, 600 light-years from Earth; Ara is a blue-hued
supergiant of magnitude 3.3, 1140 light-years from Earth; Ara is a blue-white hued star of
magnitude 3.6, 187 light-years from Earth; Ara is an orange-hued giant of magnitude 3.1, 574
light-years from Earth.

NGC 6188 is a large emission nebula located some 4000 light years distant in the Southern
constellation Ara. This giant molecular cloud is being illuminated by the young star cluster NGC
6193 which in this image appears in the center almost as if suspended in front of a blanket of
nebulosity littered with thousands of other dimmer stars in a multitude of colors.

At the center of this cluster lies an intensely bright pair of stars; the O-type giants HD 150135 and
HD 150136. The latter is in fact itself an extremely close binary with a confirmed third component
in an outer eccentric orbit of between 2950 and 5500 days. This triple star system is one of the
most massive in our galaxy with the three components containing 64, 40 and 35 solar masses
respectively. The cluster is very young, not older than 3 million years, and the intense radiation
from the massive stars is slowly eroding the surrounding gas and dust away, sculpting it into the
striking forms seen in this image. Within these clouds new stars are currently being born and in
places some have already begun to light up the nebula from within.
[http://www.pbase.com/rolfolsen/image/144166552/original]

The northwest corner of Ara is crossed by the galactic plane of the Milky Way and contains several
open clusters and diffuse nebulae. NGC 6193 contains approximately 30 stars with an overall
magnitude of 5.0 and a size of 0.25 square degrees, about half the size of the full Moon. NGC 6193
is surrounded by NGC 6188, a faint nebula only normally visible in long-exposure photographs.

(including the bright cluster/nebula pair NGC 6188 and NGC 6193). The brightest of the globular
clusters, sixth magnitude NGC 6397, lies at a distance of just 6,500 light-years (6.11016 km),
making it one of the closest globular cluster to the solar system.

NGC 6397 is a globular cluster with an overall magnitude of 6.0; it is visible to the naked eye
under exceptionally dark skies and is normally visible in binoculars. It is a fairly close globular
cluster, at a distance of 10,500 light-years.

The Stingray Nebula

[http://pics-about-space.com/stingray-nebula?p=1#]

Two spiral galaxies NGC 6215 and NGC 6221) are visible near star Arae. Ara contains the
Stingray Nebula (Hen 3-1357), the youngest known planetary nebula as of 2010. Ara also contains
Westerlund 1, a super star cluster that contains the red supergiant Westerlund 1-26, one of the
largest stars known.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ara_%28constellation%29]

Aries

Aries is one of the constellations of the zodiac. It is located in the northern celestial hemisphere
between Pisces to the west and Taurus to the east. The name Aries is Latin for ram, and its symbol
is , representing a rams horns. It is a mid-sized constellation, ranking 39th overall size, with an
area of 441 square degrees (1.1% of the celestial sphere).

Astrologically, Aries has been associated with the head and its humors. It was strongly associated
with Mars, both the planet and the god. It was considered to govern Western Europe and Syria,
and to indicate a strong temper in a person.

The First Point of Aries, the location of the vernal equinox, is named for the constellation. This is
because the Sun crossed the celestial equator from south to north in Aries more than two millennia
ago. Hipparchus defined it in 130 BCE as a point south of Gamma Arietis. Because of the
precession of the equinoxes, the First Point of Aries has since moved into Pisces and will move
into Aquarius by around 2600 AD. The Sun now appears in Aries from late April through midMay, though the constellation is still associated with the beginning of spring.

Aries and Musca Borealis as depicted in Urania's Mirror, a set of constellation cards published in
London c.1825

Historically, Aries has been depicted as a crouched, wingless ram with its head turned towards
Taurus. Ptolemy asserted in his Almagest that Hipparchus depicted Alpha Arietis as the rams
muzzle, though Ptolemy did not include it in his constellation figure.

In the description of the Babylonian zodiac given in the clay tablets known as the MUL.APIN, the
constellation now known as Aries was the final station along the ecliptic, and was known as
MULL.UN.G, The Agrarian Worker or The Hired Man. Although likely compiled in the
12th or 11th century BCE, the MUL.APIN reflects a tradition which marks the Pleiades as the
vernal equinox, which was the case with some precision at the beginning of the Middle Bronze
Age. The earliest identifiable reference to Aries as a distinct constellation comes from the
boundary stones that date from 1350 to 1000 BCE. On several boundary stones, a zodiacal ram
figure is distinct from the other characters present. The shift in identification from the constellation
as the Agrarian Worker to the Ram likely occurred in later Babylonian tradition because of its
growing association with Dumuzi the Shepherd. By the time the MUL.APIN was created- by 1000
BCE- modern Aries was identified with both Dumuzis ram and a hired laborer. The exact timing
of this shift is difficult to determine due to the lack of images of Aries or other ram figures.

In ancient Egyptian astronomy, Aries was associated with the god Amon-Ra, who was depicted as
a man with a rams head and represented fertility and creativity. Because it was the location of the
vernal equinox, it was called the Indicator of the Reborn Sun. During the times of the year when
Aries was prominent, priests would process statues of Amon-Ra to temples, a practice that was
modified by Persian astronomers centuries later. Aries acquired the title of Lord of the Head in
Egypt, referring to its symbolic and mythological importance.

In Hellenistic astrology, the constellation of Aries is associated with the golden ram of Greek
mythology that rescued Phrixos and Helle on orders from Hermes, taking him to the land of
Colchis. Helle fell off of Ariess back in flight and drowned in the Dardanelles, also called the
Hellespont in her honor. After arriving to Colhis, Phrixos sacrificed the ram to Zeus and gave the
Fleece to king Aetes of Colchis, who hung its skin in a sacred place where it became known as
the Golden Fleece and was guarded by a dragon. In a later myth, this Golden Fleece was stolen by
Jason and the Argonauts.

Medieval Muslim astronomers depicted Aries in various ways. Astronomers like al-Sufi saw the
constellation as a ram, modeled on the precedent of Ptolemy. However, some Islamic celestial
globes depicted Aries as a nondescript four-legged animal with what may be antlers instead of

horns. Some early Bedouin observers saw a ram elsewhere in the sky; this constellation featured
the Pleiades as the rams tail. The generally accepted Arabic formation of Aries consisted of
thirteen stars in a figure along with five unformed stars, four of which were over the animals
hindquarters and one of which was the disputed star over Ariess head. Al-Sufis depiction differed
from other Arab astronomers, in that his Aries was running and looking behind itself.

In traditional Chinese astronomy, stars from Aries were used in several constellations. The
brightest stars- Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Arietis- formed a constellation called Lou, variously
translated as bond, lasso, and sickle, which was associated with the ritual sacrifice of cattle.
This name was shared by the 16th lunar mansion, the location of the full moon closest to the
autumnal equinox. The lunar mansion represented the area where animals were gathered before
sacrifice around that time. This constellation has also been associated with harvest-time as it could
represent a woman carrying a basket of food on her head.
In a similar system to the Chinese, the first lunar mansion in Hindu astronomy was called Aswini,
after the traditional names for Beta and Gamma Arietis, the Aswins. Because the Hindu new year
began with the vernal equinox, the Rig Veda contains over 50 new-years related hymns to the
twins, making them some of the most prominent characters in the work. Aries itself was known as
Aja and Mesha.
In Hebrew astronomy Aries was named Teli; it signified either Simeon or Gad, and generally
symbolizes the Lamb of the World. The neighboring Syrians named the constellation Amru,
and the bordering Turks named it Kuzi.

Half a world away, in the Marshall Islands, several stars from Aries were incorporated into a
constellation depicting a porpoise, along with stars from Cassiopeia, Andromeda, and Triangulum.
Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Arietis formed the head of the porpoise, while stars from Andromeda
formed the body and the bright stars of Cassiopeia formed the tail. Other Polynesian peoples
recognized Aries as a constellation. The Marquesas islanders called it Na-pai-ka; the Maori
constellation Pipiri may correspond to modern Aries as well.

In indigenous Peruvian astronomy, a constellation with most of the same stars as Aries existed. It
was called the Market Moon and the Kneeling Terrace, as a reminder for when to hold the
annual harvest festival, Ayri Huay.

The Aries constellation and nearby Deep Sky Objects

[http://www.universetoday.com/19603/aries/]

Aries is a relatively dim constellation, possessing only four bright stars, of which three are the
most prominent:
Arietis, called Hamal, is the brightest star in Aries. Its traditional name is derived from the Arabic
word for lamb or head of the ram (ras al-hamal), which references Ariess mythological
background. It is an orange giant with an apparent visual magnitude of 2.00, which lies 66 lightyears from Earth.
Arietis, also known as Sheratan, is a blue-white star with an apparent visual magnitude of 2.64,
59 light-years from Earth. Its traditional name is derived from sharatayn, the Arabic word for

the two signs, referring to both Beta and Gamma Arietis in their position as heralds of the vernal
equinox. The two stars were known to the Bedouin as qarna al-hamal, horns of the ram. It is a
spectroscopic binary star (one in which the companion star is only known through analysis of the
spectra).
Arietis, with a common name of Mesarthim, is a binary star with two white-hued components,
located in a rich field of magnitude 8-12 stars. Its traditional name has conflicting derivations. It
may be derived from a corruption of al-sharatan, the Arabic word meaning pair or a word for
fat ram. However, it may also come from the Sanskrit for first star of Aries or the Hebrew for
ministerial servants, both of which are unusual languages of origin for star names. The primary
star is of magnitude 4.59 and the secondary is of magnitude 4.68. The system is 164 light-years
from Earth. The two components are separated by 7.8 arcseconds, and the system as a whole has
an apparent magnitude of 3.9.
41 Arietis, known both as c Arietis and Nair al Butain, the Brillant of the Little Belly,
([http://www.uranos.fr/PDF/SOM_EN_03_C01.pdf]) is a brighter star of magnitude 3.63, 165
light-years away. Its spectral class is B8 and it has a luminosity of 105 suns. Its absolute magnitude
is 0.2.

Aries contains several stars with extrasolar planets. HIP 14810, a G5 type star, is orbited by three
giant planets (those more than ten times the mass of Earth). HD 12661, like HIP 14810, is a Gtype main sequence star, slightly larger than the Sun, with two orbiting planets. One planet is 2.3
times the mass of Jupiter, and the other is 1.57 times the mass of Jupiter. HD 20367 is a G0 type
star, approximately the size of the Sun, with one orbiting planet. The planet, discovered in 2002,
has a mass 1.07 times that of Jupiter and orbits every 500 days.

NGC 772 (also called Arp 78) is an unbarred spiral galaxy over 100 thousand light-years across
(about the same size as our Milky Way Galaxy), located some 130 million light-years away in the
constellation Aries. It is moving away from us at 2472 kilometers per second. It has with a small,
very bright, diffuse nucleus, probably powered by young, massive stars. Most notable is a
prominent elongated outer spiral arm, which has likely arisen due to tidal interactions with the
nearby dwarf elliptical galaxy NGC 770 (seen toward the upper right). This unusual long arm
shows lots of young blue star clusters. But NGC 772 also possesses many weak, tightly coiled
arms which, although well formed, are relatively smooth, indicating only a small current rate of
star formation. The relatively smooth multiple arms on the opposite side from the prominent arm
are defined primarily by spiral dust lanes. NGC 772 is surrounded by several satellite galaxies.

Faint streams of material seem to connect NGC 772 with these nearby companions. This image
includes numerous faint galaxies in addition to NGC 772 and NGC 770.
[http://annesastronomynews.com/photo-gallery-ii/galaxies-clusters/ngc-772/]

The few deep-sky objects in Aries are very dim. Nevertheless, several scientifically interesting
galaxies lie within its borders; NGC 772 is a spiral galaxy with an integrated magnitude of 10.3,
located southeast of Arietis. It is a relatively bright galaxy and shows obvious nebulosity and
ellipticity in an amateur telescope. The main arm, on the northwest side of the galaxy, is home to
many star forming regions. The companion galaxy, NGC 770, is about 113,000 light-years away
from the larger galaxy. NGC 772 has a diameter of 240,000 light-years, and the system is 114
million light-years from Earth.

Appearance of the eastern sky at 5:00 am on June 7, 2000 from a mid-northern latitude observing
site.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arietids]

Aries is home to several meteor showers. The Daytime Arietid meteor shower is one of the
strongest meteor showers that occurs during the day, lasting from 22 May to 2 July. It is an annual
shower associated with the Marsden group of comets that peaks on 7 June with a maximum
zenithal hourly rate of 54 meteors. Its parent body may be the asteroid Icarus. The meteors are
sometimes visible before dawn, because the radiant is 32 degrees away from the Sun. They usually

appear at a rate of 1-2 per hour as earthgrazers, meteors that last several seconds and often begin
at the horizon. The Delta Arietids are another meteor shower radiating from Aries. Peaking on 9
December with a low peak rate, the shower lasts from 8 December to 14 January, with the highest
rates visible from 8 to 14 December. The average Delta Aquarid meteor is very slow, with an
average velocity of 13.2 kilometres (8.2 mi) per second. However, this shower sometimes produces
bright fireballs. This meteor shower has northern and southern components, both of which are
likely associated with 1990 HA, a near-Earth asteroid.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aries_%28constellation%29]

Auriga

Auriga is one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy and remains
one of the 88 modern constellations. Located north of the celestial equator, its name is the Latin
word for charioteer, associating it with various mythological charioteers, including Erichthonius
and Myrtilus. Auriga is most prominent during winter evenings in the Northern Hemisphere, along
with the five other constellations that have stars in the Winter Hexagon asterism. Because of its
northern declination, Auriga is only visible in its entirety as far as 34 south; for observers farther
south it lies partially or fully below the horizon. A large constellation, with an area of 657 square
degrees, it is half the size of the largest constellation, Hydra.

Auriga carrying the goat and kids as depicted in Urania's Mirror, a set of constellation cards
illustrated by Sidney Hall, London circa 1825.

Traditionally, illustrations of Auriga represent it as a chariot and its driver. The charioteer holds a
goat over his left shoulder and has two kids under his left arm; he holds the reins to the chariot in
his right hand. However, depictions of Auriga have been inconsistent over the years.
The first record of Aurigas stars was in Mesopotamia as a constellation called GAM, representing
a scimitar or crook. However, this may have represented just Capella (Alpha Aurigae) or the

modern constellation as a whole; this figure was alternatively called Gamlum or MUL.GAM in
the MUL.APIN. The crook of Auriga stood for a goat-herd or shepherd. It was formed from most
of the stars of the modern constellation; all of the bright stars were included except for Elnath,
traditionally assigned to both Taurus and Auriga. Later, Bedouin astronomers created
constellations that were groups of animals, where each star represented one animal. The stars of
Auriga comprised a herd of goats, an association also present in Greek mythology. The association
with goats carried into the Greek astronomical tradition, though it later became associated with a
charioteer along with the shepherd.

In Greek mythology, Auriga is often identified as the mythological Greek hero Erichthonius of
Athens, the chthonic son of Hephaestus who was raised by the goddess Athena. Erichthonius was
generally credited to be the inventor of the quadriga, the four-horse chariot, which he used in the
battle against the usurper Amphictyon, the event that made Erichthonius the king of Athens. His
chariot was created in the image of the Suns chariot, the reason Zeus placed him in the heavens.
The Athenian hero then dedicated himself to Athena and soon after, Zeus raised him into the night
sky in honor of his ingenuity and heroic deeds. Auriga, however, is sometimes described as
Myrtilus, who was Hermess son and the charioteer of Oenomaus. Capella ( Aurigae) is
associated with the mythological she-goat Amalthea, who breast-fed the infant Zeus, or with
Amaltheas owner, a nymph. Ptolemy merged the Charioteer and the Goats in the 2nd century
Almagest. Before that, Capella was sometimes seen as its own constellation.

In Chinese astronomy the stars of Auriga were incorporated into several Chinese constellations.
Wuche, the five chariots of the celestial emperors and the representation of the grain harvest, was
a constellation formed by Alpha Aurigae, Beta Aurigae, Beta Tauri, Theta Aurigae, and Iota
Aurigae. Sanzhu or Zhu was one of three constellations which represented poles for horses to be
tethered. They were formed by the triplets of Epsilon, Zeta, and Eta Aurigae; Nu, Tau, and Upsilon
Aurigae; and Chi and 26 Aurigae, with one other undetermined star. Xianchi, the pond where the
sun set and Tianhuang, a pond, bridge, or pier, were other constellations in Auriga, though the
stars that composed them are undetermined. Zuoqi, representing chairs for the emperor and other
officials, was made up of nine stars in the east of the constellation. Bagu, a constellation mostly

formed from stars in Camelopardalis representing different types of crops, included the northern
stars of Delta and Xi Aurigae.

In ancient Hindu astronomy, Capella represented the heart of Brahma and was important
religiously.

Ancient Peruvian peoples saw Capella, called Colca, as a star intimately connected to the affairs
of shepherds. In Brazil, the Bororo people incorporate the stars of Auriga into a massive
constellation representing a caiman; its southern stars represent the end of the animals tail. The
eastern portion of Taurus is the rest of the tail, while Orion is its body and Lepus is the head. This
constellation arose because of the prominence of caymans in daily Amazonian life. There is
evidence that Capella was significant to the Aztec people, as the Late Classic site Monte Albn
has a marker for the stars heliacal rising. Indigenous peoples of California and Nevada also
noticed the bright pattern of Aurigas stars. To them, the constellations bright stars formed a curve
that was represented in crescent-shaped petroglyphs. The indigenous Pawnee of North America
recognized a constellation with the same major stars as modern Auriga: Alpha, Beta, Gamma (Beta
Tauri), Theta, and Iota Aurigae.

The people of the Marshall Islands featured Auriga in the myth of Dmur, which tells the story of
the creation of the sky. Antares in Scorpius represents Dmur, the oldest son of the stars mother,
and the Pleiades represent her youngest son. The mother of the stars, Ligedaner, is represented by
Capella; she lived on the island of Alinablab. She told her sons that the first to reach an eastern
island would become the King of the Stars, and asked Dmur to let her come in his canoe. He
refused, as did each of her sons in turn, except for Pleiades. Pleiades won the race with the help of
Ligedaner, and became the King of the Stars. Elsewhere in the central Caroline Islands, Capella
was called Jefegen uun (variations include efang alul, evang-el-ul, and iefangel uul), meaning
north of Aldebaran. Different names were noted for Auriga and Capella in Eastern Pacific
societies. On Pukapuka, the figure of modern Auriga was called Te Wale-o-Tutakaiolo (The house
of Tutakaiolo); in the Society Islands, it was called Faa-nui (Great Valley). Capella itself was
called Tahi-anii (Unique Sovereign) in the Societies. Hoku-lei was the name for Capella but may

have been the name for the whole constellation; the name means Star-wreath and refers to one
of the wives of the Pleiades, called Makalii.
The stars of Auriga also feature in Inuit constellations. Quturjuuk, meaning collar-bones, was a
constellation that included Capella (Alpha Aurigae), Menkalinan (Beta Aurigae), Pollux (Beta
Geminorum), and Castor (Alpha Geminorum). Its rising signaled that the constellation Aagjuuk,
made up of Altair (Alpha Aquilae), Tarazed (Gamma Aquilae), and sometimes Alshain (Beta
Aquilae), would rise soon. Aagjuuk, which represented the dawn following the winter solstice,
was an incredibly important constellation in the Inuit mythos. It was also used for navigation and
time-keeping at night.

The northern constellation Auriga, showing the brightest stars of Capella, Menkalinan, and
proximate Deep Sky Objects.
[http://www.universetoday.com/19527/auriga/]

The brightest star in Auriga is Alpha Aurigae (Capella), a G-type giant 43 light-years away, and
the sixth brightest star in the night sky at magnitude 0.08. Its traditional name is a reference to its
mythological position as Amalthea (the goat); it is sometimes called the Goat Star. Capellas
names all point to this mythology. In Arabic, Capella was called al-'Ayyuq, meaning the goat,
and in Sumerian it was called mul..KAR, the goat star. Capella is a spectroscopic binary with
a period of 104 days; the components are both yellow giants. The primary has a radius of 11.87
solar radii and a mass of 2.47 solar masses; the secondary has a radius of 8.75 and a mass of 2.44.
They are separated by 110 million kilometers, almost 75% of the distance between the Earth and
the Sun. Capella has one more companion, Capella H, which is a pair of red dwarf stars located
11,000 astronomical units (0.17 light-years) from the main pair. Capella has an absolute magnitude
of 0.3 and a luminosity of 160 suns. It appears with a golden-yellow hue, though Ptolemy and
Giovanni Battista Riccioli both described its color as red, a phenomenon attributed not to a change
in Capellas color but to the idiosyncrasies of their color sensitivities.

New pictures confirm that a dark disk is responsible for the star Epsilon Aurigaes regular, 18month-long eclipses.

[http://www.universetoday.com/49443/epsilon-aurigae-eclipse-mystery-solved-with-your-help/]

The most prominent variable star in Auriga is Epsilon Aurigae (Al Maz, Almaaz), an F0 class
eclipsing binary star with an unusually long period of 27 years; its last minima occurred from
1982-1984 and 2009-2011. The distance to the system is disputed, variously cited as 4600 and
2170 light-years. The primary is a white supergiant, and the secondary may be itself a binary star
within a large dusty disk. Its maximum magnitude is 3.0, but it stays at a minimum magnitude of
3.8 for around a year; its most recent eclipse began in 2009. The primary has an absolute magnitude
of 8.5 and an unusually high luminosity of 200,000 suns, the reason it appears so bright at such
a great distance. Epsilon Aurigae is the longest-period eclipsing binary currently known. The first
observed eclipse of Epsilon Aurigae occurred in 1821, though its variable status was not confirmed
until the eclipse of 1847-1848. From that time forward, many theories were put forth as to the
nature of the eclipsing component. Epsilon Aurigae has a noneclipsing component, which is visible
as a 14th magnitude companion separated from the primary by 28.6 arcseconds. It was discovered
by Sherburne Wesley Burnham in 1891 at the Dearborn Observatory, and is about 0.5 light-years
from the primary.

There are five stars with confirmed planetary systems in Auriga. HD 40979 has one planet, HD
40979 b. It was discovered in 2002 through radial velocity measurements on the parent star. HD
40979 is 33.3 parsecs from Earth, a spectral class F8V star of magnitude 6.74- just past the limit
of visibility to the naked eye. It is of similar size to the Sun, at 1.1 solar masses and 1.21 solar
radii. The planet, with a mass of 3.83 Jupiter masses, orbits with a semi-major axis of 0.83 AU and
a period of 263.1 days. HD 45350 has one planet as well. HD 45350 b was discovered through
radial velocity measurements in 2004. It has a mass of 1.79 Jupiter masses and orbits every 890.76
days at a distance of 1.92 AU. Its parent star is faint, at an apparent magnitude of 7.88, 49 parsecs
away. It has a mass of 1.02 solar masses and a radius of 1.27 solar radii. HD 43691 b is a
significantly larger planet, with a mass of 2.49 Jupiter masses; it is also far closer to its parent star,
HD 43691. Discovered in 2007 from radial velocity measurements, it orbits at a distance of 0.24
AU with a period of 36.96 days. HD 43691 has a radius identical to the Suns, though it is more
dense- its mass is 1.38 solar masses. It is a G0IV type star of magnitude 8.03, 93.2 parsecs from
Earth.

AE Aurigae and the Flaming Star Nebula

Is star AE Aurigae on fire? No. Even though AE Aurigae is named the flaming star, the
surrounding nebula IC 405 is named the Flaming Star Nebula, and the region appears to harbor
red smoke, there is no fire. Fire, typically defined as the rapid molecular acquisition of oxygen,
happens only when sufficient oxygen is present and is not important in such high-energy, lowoxygen environments such as stars. The material that appears as smoke is mostly interstellar
hydrogen, but does contain smoke-like dark filaments of carbon-rich dust grains. The bright star
AE Aurigae, visible near the nebula center, is so hot it is blue, emitting light so energetic it knocks
electrons away from surrounding gas. When a proton recaptures an electron, red light is frequently
emitted, as seen in the surrounding emission nebula. Pictured above, the Flaming Star nebula lies
about 1,500 light years distant, spans about 5 light years, and is visible with a small telescope
toward the constellation of the Charioteer (Auriga).
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090126.html]

Auriga has many open clusters and other objects because the Milky Way runs through it. The three
brightest open clusters are M36, M37 and M38, all of which are visible in binoculars or a small
telescope in suburban skies. A larger telescope resolves individual stars. Three other open clusters
are NGC 2281, lying close to 7 Aurigae, NGC 1664, which is close to Aurigae, and IC 410
(surrounding NGC 1893), a cluster with nebulosity next to IC 405, the Flaming Star Nebula, found
about mid-way between M38 and Aurigae. AE Aurigae, a runaway star, is a bright variable star
currently located within the Flaming Star Nebula.

The galactic anticenter is located about 3.5 to the east of Beta Aurigae. This marks the point on
the celestial sphere opposite the location of the Galactic Center; hence, this region marks a less
extensive and less luminous part of the dust band that forms the spiral arms of the Milky Way.

The Aurigids outburst (2007) from 47,000 ft. in a still image composite by Jeremie Vaubaillon,
NASA, Caltech.
[http://aurigid.seti.org/]

Auriga is home to the meteor shower of the Aurigids, named for the entire constellation and
formerly called the Alpha Aurigids, are renowned for their intermittent outbursts, such as those
in 1935, 1986, 1994, and 2007. They are associated with the comet Kiess (C/1911 N1), discovered
in 1911 by Carl Clarence Kiess. The 2007 outburst of the Aurigids was predicted by Peter
Jenniskens and was observed by astronomers worldwide. Despite some predictions that there
would be no Alpha Aurigid outburst, many bright meteors were observed throughout the shower,
which peaked on September 1 as predicted. Much like in the 1994 outburst, the 2007 Aurigids
were very bright and often colored blue and green. The maximum zenithal hourly rate was 100
meteors per hour, observed at 4:15 am, California time (12:15 UTC) by a team of astronomers
flying on NASA planes.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auriga_%28constellation%29]

Botes

Botes is a constellation in the northern sky, located between 0 and +60 declination, and 13 and
16 hours of right ascension on the celestial sphere. It is bordered by Virgo to the south, Coma
Berenices and Canes Venatici to the west, Ursa Major to the northwest, Draco to the northeast,
and Hercules, Corona Borealis and Serpens Caput to the east. The name comes from the Greek,
meaning herdsman or plowman (literally, ox-driver). Botes contains the fourth brightest star in
the night sky, the orange-hued Arcturus, and is home to many other bright stars, including eight
above the fourth magnitude and an additional 21 above the fifth magnitude, making a total of 29

stars easily visible to the naked eye. Covering 907 square degrees, Botes culminates at midnight
around 2 May and ranks 13th in area.

Bootes may be either hunting the bear (Big Deeper) or driving it away from his flocks.
[http://www.norumbega.net/tna/getnaked/getnaked4.html]

Botes as depicted in Uranias Mirror, a set of constellation cards published in London c.1825. In
his left hand he holds his hunting dogs, Canes Venatici. Below them is the constellation Coma
Berenices. Above the head of Botes is Quadrans Muralis, now obsolete, but which lives on as the
name of the early January Quadrantid meteor shower. Mons Mnalus can be seen at his feet.

Colloquially, its pattern of stars has been likened to a kite or ice cream cone. However, depictions
of Botes have varied historically. Aratus described him circling the North Pole, herding the two
bears. The name Botes was first used by Homer in his Odyssey as a celestial reference point for
navigation, described as late-setting or slow to set, translated as the Plowman. A myth
associated with Botes tells that he invented the plow and was memorialized for his ingenuity as
a constellation.

Later ancient Greek depictions, described by Ptolemy, have him holding the reins of his hunting
dogs (Canes Venatici) in his left hand, with a spear, club, or staff in his right hand. After Hevelius
introduced Mons Maenalus in 1681, Botes was often depicted standing on the Peloponnese

mountain. By 1801, when Johann Bode published his Uranographia, Botes had acquired a sickle,
which was also held in his left hand.

In ancient Babylon the stars of Botes were known as SHU.PA. They were apparently depicted as
the god Enlil, who was the leader of the Babylonian pantheon and special patron of farmers.

The stars of Botes were incorporated into many different Chinese constellations. Arcturus was
part of the most prominent of these, variously designated as the celestial king's throne (Tian Wang)
or the Blue Dragons horn (Daijiao); the name Daijiao, meaning great horn, is more common.
Arcturus was given such importance in Chinese celestial mythology because of its status marking
the beginning of the lunar calendar, as well as its status as the brightest star in the northern night
sky.

Celestial photograph depicting many of Botes double and multiple stars. Arcturus is the bright
white star in the lower right. The semicircle of stars near the bottom left is the neighboring
constellation Corona Borealis.

Arcturus, or Alpha Botis, is the brightest star in Botes and the fourth brightest star in the sky at
an apparent magnitude of 0.05; It is also the brightest star north of the celestial equator, just
shading out Vega and Capella. Its name comes from the Greek for bear-keeper (literary at the
tail of the bear, because it is located below Ursus Major). Arcturus is an orange giant located 36.7
light-years from Earth. It is an ageing star that has exhausted its core supply of hydrogen and
cooled and expanded to a diameter of 27 solar diameters. Though its mass is approximately one
solar mass, it shines with 133 times the luminosity of the Sun.
Marking the herdsmans head is Beta Botis, or Nekkar, a yellow giant of magnitude 3.5. Like
Arcturus, it has expanded and cooled off the main sequence- likely to have lived most of its stellar
life as a blue-white B-type main sequence star. Its common name comes from the Arabic phrase
for ox-driver. It is 219 light-years away and has a luminosity of 58 suns.

A digital rendering of Tau Botis b

Extrasolar planets have been discovered encircling ten stars in Botes as of 2012. Tau Botis is
orbited by a large planet, discovered in 1999. The host star itself is a magnitude 4.5 star, 15.6
parsecs from Earth. It has a mass of 1.3 solar masses and a radius of 1.331 solar radii; a companion,
GJ527B, orbits at a distance of 240 AU. Tau Botis b, the sole planet discovered in the system,
orbits at a distance of 0.046 AU every 3.31 days. Discovered through radial velocity
measurements, it has a mass of 5.95 Jupiter masses. This makes it a hot Jupiter. The host star and
planet are tidally locked, meaning that the planets orbit and the stars particularly high rotation
are synchronized. Carbon monoxide is present in the planets atmosphere.

Botes is also home to multiple-planet systems. HD 128311 is the host star for a two-planet system,
consisting of HD 128311 b and HD 128311 c, discovered in 2002 and 2005, respectively. HD
128311 b is the smaller planet, with a mass of 2.18 times that of Jupiter. It orbits at almost the
same distance as Earth, at 1.099 AU; however, its orbital period is significantly longer at 448.6
days. The larger of the two, HD 128311 c, has a mass of 3.21 Jupiter masses and was discovered
in the same manner. It orbits every 919 days inclined at 50, and is 1.76 AU from the host star.
The host star, HD 128311, is a K0V-type star located 16.6 parsecs from Earth. It is smaller than
the Sun, with a mass of 0.84 solar masses and a radius of 0.73 solar radii; it also appears below the
threshold of naked-eye visibility at an apparent magnitude of 7.51.

WASP-14 b is one of the most massive and dense exoplanets known, with a mass of 7.341 Jupiter
masses and a radius of 1.281 Jupiter radii. Discovered via the transit method, it orbits 0.036 AU
from its host star with a period of 2.24 days. WASP-14 b has a density of 4.6 grams per cubic
centimeter, making it one of the densest exoplanets known. Its host star, WASP-14, is an F5Vtype star of magnitude 9.75, 160 parsecs from Earth. It has a radius of 1.306 solar radii and a mass
of 1.211 solar masses. It also has a very high proportion of lithium.

Botes is in a part of the celestial sphere facing away from the plane of our home Milky Way
galaxy, and so does not have open clusters or nebulae. Instead, it has one bright globular cluster
and many faint galaxies. The globular cluster NGC 5466 has an overall magnitude of 9.1 and a
diameter of 11 arcminutes. It is a very loose globular cluster with fairly few stars and may appear

as a rich, concentrated open cluster in a telescope. Its fairly large diameter means that it has a low
surface brightness, so it requires a large amateur telescope to view. Only approximately 12 stars
are resolved by an amateur instrument.

The Botes void: The stars you see in the circle are actually in front of the void!

The Botes Void (or the Great Void) was discovered in 1981 and located in the vicinity of the
constellation of the same name. At 250 to 330 million light years across, the Botes Void is one
of the largest voids out there that weve discovered. So far 60 galaxies have been discovered in the
Botes Void and all of those are found in a tube shape running through the void. For a fun thought
experiment consider the distance between us and our closest galactic neighbor, Andromeda. At
about 2.5 million light years, this would only cover about 1% of the Botes Void. If we are to use
a rough estimate of about 1 galaxy every 10 million light years (4 times farther than Andromeda)
there should be approximately 2,000 galaxies in the Botes Void. Its thought that this void might
have been created by the merging of smaller voids. Expressing the vastness that is the Botes Void,

astronomer Greg Aldering said, If the Milky Way had been in the center of the Botes void, we
wouldnt have known there were other galaxies until the 1960s.
[http://asd.gsfc.nasa.gov/blueshift/index.php/2013/07/30/jasons-blog-next-stop-voids/]

The Botes void is roughly 700 million light years from Earth. Beyond it and within the bounds
of the constellation, lie two superclusters at around 830 million and 1 billion light years distant.

Also, the Hercules- Corona Borealis Great Wall, the largest known structure in the Universe,
covers a significant part of Botes.

A Quadrantid captured by an all-sky camera during a 4-second exposure

Botes is home to the Quadrantid meteor shower, the most prolific annual meteor shower. It was
discovered in January 1835 and named in 1864 by Alexander Hershell. The radiant is located in
northern Botes near Kappa Botis, in its namesake former constellation of Quadrans Muralis.
Quadrantid meteors are dim, but have a peak visible hourly rate of approximately 100 per hour on

January 3- 4. The zenithal hourly rate of the Quadrantids is approximately 130 meteors per hour
at their peak; it is also a very narrow shower. The Quadrantids are notoriously difficult to observe
because of a low radiant and often inclement weather. The parent body of the meteor shower has
been disputed for decades; however, Peter Jenniskens has proposed 2003 EH1, a minor planet, as
the parent. 2003 EH1 may be linked to C/1490 Y1, a comet previously thought to be a potential
parent body for the Quadrantids. 2003 EH1 is a short-period comet of the Jupiter family; 500 years
ago, it experienced a catastrophic breakup event. It is now dormant. The Quadrantids had notable
displays in 1982, 1985, and 2004. Meteors from this shower often appear to have a blue hue and
travel at a moderate speed of 41.5- 43 kilometers per second.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes]

Caelum

Caelum is a faint constellation in the southern sky. Its name means chisel in Latin, unconnected
with the far more common Latin caelum, meaning sky, heaven, atmosphere. It is the eighthsmallest constellation, and subtends a solid angle of around 0.038 steradians, just less than that of
Corona Australis.

The constellation is bordered by Dorado and Pictor to the south, Horologium and Eridanus to the
east, Lepus to the north, and Columba to the west. Covering 125 square degrees, it ranks 81st of
the 88 modern constellations in size. It appears prominently in the southern sky during the Southern
Hemispheres summer, and the whole constellation is visible for at least part of the year to

observers south of latitude 41N. Its main asterism consists of four stars, and twenty stars in total
are brighter than magnitude 6.5. The constellations boundaries, as set by Eugne Delporte in 1930,
are defined by a 12-sided polygon. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension
coordinates of these borders lie between 04h 19.5m and 05h 05.1m, while the declination
coordinates are between 27.02 and 48.74.

Seen as Cela Sculptoris in the lower right of this 1825 star chart from Uranias Mirror

Caelum was first introduced in the eighteenth century by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, a French
astronomer who introduced thirteen other southern constellations at the same time. The French
name Lacaille gave the constellation, Burin, was originally Latinized to Caelum Scalptorium (The
Engravers' Chisel), and Francis Baily shortened this name to Caelum after a suggestion by John
Herschel. In Lacailles original chart, the constellation was shown both as a burin and an choppe,
although it has come to be recognized simply as a chisel.

Quasar HE0450-2958

Left: The Hubble Space Telescope captured this view, just 7 arcseconds wide, of HE04502958,
a quasar 5 billion light-years distant in the constellation Caelum. Right: Mathematically removing
most of the quasars star-like glow enhanced the view of a neighboring galaxy (A), and it should
have revealed a host galaxy surrounding the quasar (B). But it only revealed a lopsided blob of gas
(C) that is entirely devoid of stars.
[http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/a-galaxy-free-galaxy-nucleus/]

Due to its small size and location away from the plane of the Milky Way, Caelum is a rather barren
constellation, with few objects of interest. The constellations brightest star, Alpha Caeli, is a
double star, containing an F-type main-sequence star of magnitude 4.45 and a red dwarf of
magnitude 12.5, 20.17 parsecs (65.8 ly) from Earth. Beta Caeli, another F-type star of magnitude
5.05, is further away, being located 28.67 parsecs (93.5 ly) from Earth. Unlike Alpha, Beta Caeli
is a subgiant star, slightly evolved from the main sequence. RR Caeli is a binary star with one
known planet approximately 20.13 parsecs (65.7 ly) away.

The only deep-sky object in Caelum to receive much attention is quasar HE0450-2958, that at first
appeared as just a jet with no host galaxy visible. Originally, the jets host galaxy proved elusive
to find, and this jet appeared to be emanating from nothing. Although it has been suggested that
the object is an ejected supermassive black hole, the host is now agreed to be a small galaxy that
is difficult to see due to light from the jet and a nearby starburst galaxy.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caelum]

Camelopardalis

Camelopardalis or the Giraffe constellation is a large, faint grouping of stars in the northern sky.
First attested in English in 1785, the word camelopardalis comes from Latin, and it is the
romanisation of the Greek meaning giraffe, due to its having a long neck like
a camel and spots like a leopard.

Camelopardalis as depicted in Uranias Mirror, a set of constellation cards published in London

c.1825. Above it are shown the now-abandoned constellations of Tarandus and Custos Messium.

Camelopardalis was created by Petrus Plancius in 1613 to represent the animal Rebecca rode to
marry Isaac in the Bible. One year later, Jakob Bartsch featured it in his atlas. Johannes Hevelius
gave it the official name of Camelopardus or Camelopardalis because he saw the constellations
many faint stars as the spots of a giraffe.

In Chinese astronomy, the stars of Camelopardalis are located within a group of circumpolar stars
called the Purple Forbidden Enclosure.

Diagram of H. A. Reys method of connecting the stars of the constellation Camelopardalis, in

order to show a giraffe.

Although Camelopardalis is the 18th largest constellation, it is not a particularly bright

constellation, as the brightest stars are only of fourth magnitude. In fact, it only contains four stars
below magnitude 5.0. Cam is a blue-hued supergiant star of magnitude 4.3, 5000 light-years
from Earth. It is one of the most distant stars easily visible with the naked eye. Cam is the
brightest star in Camelopardalis with an apparent magnitude of 4.03. This star is a double star,
with components of magnitudes 4.0 and 8.6. The primary is a yellow-hued supergiant 1000 lightyears from Earth.

Camelopardalis is in the part of the celestial sphere facing away from the galactic plane.
Accordingly, many distant galaxies are visible within its borders. NGC 2403 is a galaxy in the
M81 group of galaxies, located approximately 12 million light-years from Earth with a redshift of
0.00043. It is classified as being between an elliptical and a spiral galaxy because it has faint arms
and a large central bulge. NGC 2403 was first discovered by the 18th century astronomer William
Herschel, who was working in England at the time. It has an integrated magnitude of 8.0 and is
approximately 0.25 long.

NGC 1502

NGC 1502 is a magnitude 6.9 open cluster about 3,000 light years from Earth. It has about 45
bright members, and features a double star of magnitude 7.0 at its center. NGC 1502 is also
associated with Kembles Cascade, a simple but beautiful asterism appearing in the sky as a chain
of stars 2.5 long that is parallel to the Milky Way and is pointed towards Cassiopeia. NGC 1501
is a planetary nebula located roughly 1.4 south of NGC 1502.

In 2011 a supernova was discovered in the constellation.

The annual May meteor shower Camelopardalids from comet 209P/LINEAR have a radiant in
Camelopardalis.

The space probe Voyager 1 is moving in the direction of this constellation, though it will not be
nearing any of the stars in this constellation for many thousands of years, by which time its power
source will be long dead.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camelopardalis]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_1502]

Cancer

Cancer is one of the twelve constellations of the zodiac. Its name is Latin for crab and it is
commonly represented as one. Cancer is a medium-sized constellation that is bordered by Gemini
to the west, Lynx to the north, Leo Minor to the northeast, Leo to the east, Hydra to the south, and
Canis Minor to the southwest. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates
lie between 07h 55m 19.7973s and 09h 22m 35.0364s, while the declination coordinates are
between 33.1415138 and 6.4700689. Covering 506 square degrees or 0.921% of the sky, it ranks
31st of the 88 constellations in size. It can be seen at latitudes between +90 and -60 and is best
visible at 9 p.m. during the month of March. The Sun appears in the constellation Cancer from

July 21 to August 9. In tropical astrology, the Sun is considered to be in the sign Cancer from June
21 to July 22, and in sidereal astrology, from July 16 to August 15.

Cancer as depicted in Uranias Mirror, a set of constellation cards published in London c.1825.

The modern symbol for Cancer represents the pincers of a crab, but Cancer has been represented
as many types of creatures, usually those living in the water, and always those with an exoskeleton.
It was the location of the Suns most northerly position in the sky (the summer solstice) in ancient
times, though this position now occurs in Taurus due to the precession of the equinoxes, around

June 21. This is also the time that the Sun is directly overhead at 23.5N, a parallel now known as
the Tropic of Cancer.

The constellation is said to have been the place for the Akkadian Sun of the South, perhaps from
its position at the summer solstice in very remote antiquity. But afterwards it was associated with
the fourth month Duzu (June- July in the modern western calendar), and was known as the
Northern Gate of Sun.

In the Egyptian records of about 2000 BCE it was described as Scarabaeus (Scarab), the sacred
emblem of immortality.

In Babylonia the constellation was known as MUL.AL.LUL, a name which can refer to both a crab
and a snapping turtle. On boundary stones, the image of a turtle or tortoise appears quite regularly
and it is believed that this represents Cancer as a conventional crab has not so far been discovered
on any of these monuments. There also appears to be a strong connection between the Babylonian
constellation and ideas of death and a passage to the underworld, which may be the origin of these
ideas in later Greek myths associated with Hercules and the Hydra. In the 12th century, an
illustrated astronomical manuscript shows it as a water beetle. Albumasar writes of this sign in
Flowers of Abu Mashar. A 1488 Latin translation depicts cancer as a large crayfish, which also
is the constellations name in most Germanic languages. Jakob Bartsch and Stanislaus Lubienitzki,
in the 17th century, described it as a lobster.

Heracles attacked by Karkinos (bottom) and the Lernaean Hydra, under the aid of Athena. Whiteground Ancient Greek Attic lekythos, ca. 500- 475 BCE. Louvre Museum, Paris.

In Greek mythology, Cancer is identified with the crab that appeared while Hercules was fighting
the many-headed Hydra. The crab bit Hercules on the foot, Hercules crushed it and then the
goddess Hera, a sworn enemy of Hercules, placed the crab among the stars.

In Chinese astronomy, the stars of Cancer lie within The Vermillion Bird of the South.

[http://www.space.com/16970-cancer-constellation.html]

Cancer, although the dimmest of the zodiacal constellations, having only two stars above the fourth
magnitude, is rich in open clusters and double stars. Beta Cancri, also known as Altarf, is the
brightest star in Cancer at apparent magnitude 3.5 and located 290 light-years from Earth. It is a
binary star system, its main component an orange giant that varies slightly from a baseline
magnitude of 3.53 An aging star, it has expanded to around 50 times the Suns diameter and shines
with 660 times its luminosity. It has a faint magnitude 14 red dwarf companion located 29 seconds
away that takes 76,000 years to complete an orbit. Altarf represents a part of Cancers body.

Ten star systems have been found to have planets. Rho-1 Cancri or 55 Cancri is a binary star
approximately 40.9 light-years distant from Earth. 55 Cancri consists of a yellow dwarf and a
smaller red dwarf, with five planets orbiting the primary star; one low-mass planet that may be
either a hot, water-rich world or a carbon planet and four gas giants. 55 Cancri A, classified as a
rare super metal-rich star, is one of the top 100 target stars for NASAs Terrestrial Planet Finder

mission, ranked 63rd on the list. The red dwarf 55 Cancri B, a suspected binary, appears to be
gravitationally bound to the primary star, as the two share common proper motion.

M44, the Beehive Cluster or Praesepe (Latin for manger) is an open cluster in Cancer just visible
to the naked eye.

Cancer is best known among stargazers as the home of Praesepe (M44), an open cluster also called
the Beehive Cluster, located right in the center of the constellation. 577 light-years from Earth, it
is one of the nearest open clusters to our Solar System. M 44 contains about 50 stars, the brightest
of which are of the sixth magnitude. Epsilon Cancri is the brightest member at magnitude 6.3.
Praesepe is also one of the larger open clusters visible; it has an area of 1.5 square degrees, or three
times the size of the full Moon. It is most easily observed when Cancer is high in the sky. North
of the Equator, this period stretches from February to May. Ptolemy described the Beehive Cluster
as the nebulous mass in the breast of Cancer. It was one of the first objects Galileo observed with

his telescope in 1609, spotting 40 stars in the cluster. Today, there are about 1010 high-probability
members, most of them (68 percent) red dwarfs. The Greeks and Romans identified the nebulous
object as a manger from which two donkeys, represented by the neighboring stars, Asellus Borealis
and Asellus Australis, were eating. The stars represent the donkeys that the god Dionysus and his
tutor Silenus rode in the war against the Titans. The ancient Chinese interpreted the object as a
ghost or demon riding in a carriage, calling it a cloud of pollen blown from under willow catkins.

M67 star cluster (image center) is considered one of the older Milky Way star clusters. The Star
cluster database WEBDA summarizes the age at about 2.6 billion years. Other estimates range up
to 4 billion years. This put the clusters age about the same as our solar system. This cluster is also
known by the common name of the King Cobra cluster. There are a few very small background
galaxies in this field. M67 is about 2,900 light years distant from Earth.
[http://www.jthommes.com/Astro/M67.htm]

[http://quasar.square7.ch/fqm/0851+202.html]

An international group of astronomers lead by Mauri Valtonen (Tuorla Observatory) has verified
General Relativity as the correct theory of gravitation in strong gravitational field using results

from a distant quasar called OJ287. Continuous monitoring of OJ287 over the last few years has
proven correct a decade old model of this quasar as a precessing binary black hole system which
produces two major outburst peaks per 12 year orbital period. The occurrence of the latest outburst
on 13 September 2007, within a day of the predicted time, finally clinched the model.
[http://www.astro.utu.fi/news/080419.shtml]

Cancer contains quasars QSO J0842+1835 and OJ 287. QSO J0842+1835 is located 8.4 billion
light-years from Earth, and it was used to measure the speed of gravity in VLBI experiment
conducted by Edward Fomalont and Sergei Kopeikin in September 2002. OJ 287 is located 3.5
billion light years away that has produced quasi-periodic optical outbursts going back
approximately 120 years, as first apparent on photographic plates from 1891. It was first detected
at radio wavelengths during the course of the Ohio Sky Survey. Its central supermassive black hole
of about 18 billion solar masses is among the largest known, more than six times the value
calculated for the previous largest object.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_%28constellation%29]

Canes Venatici

Canes Venatici is a small northern constellation that was created by Johannes Hevelius in the 17th
century. Its name is Latin for hunting dogs, and the constellation is often depicted in illustrations
as representing the dogs of Botes, the Herdsman, a neighboring constellation. The constellation
is bordered by Ursa Major to the north and west, Coma Berenices to the south, and Botes to the
east. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of these borders lie
between 12h 06.2m and 14h 07.3m, while the declination coordinates are between +27.84 and
+52.36. Covering 465 square degrees, it ranks 38th of the 88 constellations in size.

Canes Venatici depicted in Heveliuss star atlas. Note that, per the conventions of the time, the
image is mirrored.

The stars of Canes Venatici are not bright. In classical times, they were included by Ptolemy within
the constellation Ursa Major in his star catalogue.

In medieval times, the identification of these stars with the dogs of Botes arose through a
mistranslation. Some of Botess stars were traditionally described as representing the club of
Botes. When Ptolemys Almagest was translated from Greek to Arabic, the translator Hunayn
ibn Ishaq did not know the Greek word and rendered it as the nearest-looking Arabic word, writing
al-`a dht al-kullb, which means the spearshaft having a hook. When the Arabic text was
later translated into Latin, the translator Gerard of Cremona mistook the Arabic word kullb for
kilb, meaning dogs, writing hastile habens canes (spearshaft having dogs). In 1533, the
German astronomer Peter Apian depicted Botes as having two dogs with him.

These spurious dogs floated about the astronomical literature until Hevelius decided to specify
their presence in the sky by making them a separate constellation in 1687. Hevelius chose the name

Asterion (from the Greek , meaning little star) for the northern dog, and Chara (from
the Greek , meaning joy) for the southern dog, as Canes Venatici, the Hunting Dogs, in his
star atlas. In his star catalogue, the Czech astronomer Bev assigned Asterion to CVn (Canes
Venatici) and Chara to CVn.
Canes Venatici contains no bright stars, and CVn being only of 3rd and 4th magnitude
respectively. CVn (named also Cor Caroli by Sir Charles Scarborough in memory of King
Charles I of Britain) is the constellations brightest star. Cor Caroli is a wide double star, with a
primary of magnitude 2.9 and a secondary of magnitude 5.6; the primary is 110 light-years from
Earth. CVn (Chara) is a yellow-hued main sequence star of magnitude 4.2, 27 light-years from
Earth.

The Canes Venatici Supervoid (also known simply as the Giant Void) is an immensely vast region
of space with an extreme under-density of galaxies. It is the largest confirmed void to date, with
an estimated diameter of 1 to 1.3 billion light years, and is approximately 1.5 billion light years

away. It was discovered in 1988, and continues to be the largest void ever detected. Even the
hypothetical Eridanus Supervoid is utterly dwarfed by this void. The voids location in the sky
is close to the Botes void. To compare, the Botes void is 5 times nearer to us, but is one-fourth
of the size of the Giant Void.
[http://imgur.com/gallery/IwutU7o]

M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy taken by the Hubble Space Telescope

Canes Venatici contains five Messier objects, including four galaxies. One of the more significant
galaxies in Canes Venatici is the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51, NGC 5194) and NGC 5195, a small
barred spiral galaxy that is seen face on. This was the first galaxy recognised as having a spiral
structure, this structure being first observed by Lord Rosse in 1845. It is a face-on spiral galaxy 37
million light-years from Earth. Widely considered to be one of the most beautiful galaxies visible,
M51 has many star-forming regions and nebulae in its arms, coloring them pink and blue in
contrast to the older yellow core. M51s smaller companion, NGC 5195, has very few star-forming

regions and thus appears yellow. It is passing behind M51 and may be the cause of the larger
galaxys prodigious star formation.

M63: A bright spiral galaxy of the northern sky, Messier 63 is about 25 million light-years distant
in the loyal constellation Canes Venatici. Also cataloged as NGC 5055, the majestic island
universe is nearly 100,000 light-years across. Thats about the size of our own Milky Way Galaxy.
Known by the popular moniker, The Sunflower Galaxy, M63 sports a bright yellowish core in this
sharp, colorful galaxy portrait. Its sweeping blue spiral arms are streaked with cosmic dust lanes
and dotted with pink star forming regions. A dominant member of a known galaxy group, M63
has faint, extended features that could be the result of gravitational interactions with nearby
galaxies. In fact, M63 shines across the electromagnetic spectrum and is thought to have undergone
bursts of intense star formation.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140313.html]

Other notable spiral galaxies in Canes Venatici are the Sunflower Galaxy (M63, NGC 5055), M94
(NGC 4736), and M106 (NGC 4258). M63, the Sunflower Galaxy, was named for its appearance
in large amateur telescopes. It is a spiral galaxy with an integrated magnitude of 9.0. M94 is a
small face-on spiral galaxy with an approximate magnitude of 8.0, about 15 million light-years
from Earth. NGC 4631 is a barred spiral galaxy, which is one of the largest and brightest edge-on
galaxies in the sky. M3 (NGC 5272) is a globular cluster 32,000 light-years from Earth. It is 18' in
diameter, and at magnitude 6.3 is bright enough to be seen with binoculars. It can even be seen
with the naked eye under particularly dark skies. M94, also classified as NGC 4736, is a face-on
spiral galaxy 15 million light-years from Earth. It has very tight spiral arms and a bright core. The
outskirts of the galaxy are incredibly luminous in the ultraviolet because of a ring of new stars
surrounding the core, 7,000 light-years in diameter. Though astronomers are not sure what has
caused this ring of new stars, some hypothesize that it is from shock waves caused by a bar that is
thus far invisible.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canes_Venatici]

Canis Major

[https://prezi.com/_i2_rnxjlnwf/canis-major/]

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/Canis_Major_IAU.svg]
Canis Major is a constellation in the southern celestial hemisphere. Its name is Latin for greater
dog in contrast to Canis Minor, the lesser dog; both figures are commonly represented as
following the constellation of Orion the hunter through the sky. Canis Major is a constellation in
the Southern Hemispheres summer (or northern hemispheres winter) sky, bordered by
Monoceros (which lies between it and Canis Minor) to the north, Puppis to the east and southeast,
Columba to the southwest, and Lepus to the west. Covering 380 square degrees or 0.921% of the
sky, it ranks 43rd of the 88 currently-recognized constellations in size.

[https://www.spacepage.be/nieuws/waarnemen-hemelverschijnselen/wat-valt-er-aan-desterrenhemel-te-zien-in-februari-2016]

The Winter Triangle: Procyon (top left), Betelgeuse (top right), Sirius (base). Image: Hubble
European Space Agency, credit: Akira Fujii.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/sirius-the-dog-star/]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Hexagon]

The star Sirius of Canis Major together with Procyon of Canis Minor and Betelgeuse of Orion
form the Winter Triangle, as seen in the northern hemisphere. An extension of the Winter Triangle
is the Winter Hexagon, with vertices at Rigel of Orion, Aldebaran of Taurus, Capella of Auriga,
Pollux of Gemini, Procyon of Canis Minor, and Sirius of Canis Major. The Winter Triangle in the
tropics and southern hemisphere, can be extended with the bright star Canopus in the south (then
called Summer Hexagon).

Canis Major on Chart XVIII of Johann Bodes Uranographia (1801). Bode depicted the dog with
Sirius marking its snout. Classical Greek descriptions, though, placed Sirius in the dogs jaws.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/canismajor.htm]

Commonly, Canis Major and Canis Minor represent the two dogs of Orion. The ancient Greeks
refer only to one dog, but by Roman times, Canis Minor appears as Orions second dog.

The ancient Greeks observed that the appearance of Sirius heralded the hot and dry summer, and
feared that it caused plants to wilt, men to weaken, and women to become aroused. Due to its
brightness, Sirius would have been noted to twinkle more in the unsettled weather conditions of
early summer. To Greek observers, this signified certain emanations which caused its malignant
influence. Anyone suffering its effects was said to be astroboletos () or star-struck.
It was described as burning or flaming in literature. The season following the stars heliacal
rising (i.e. rising with the Sun) came to be known as the Dog Days of summer.

The Romans knew these days as dies caniculares (Dog Days) and the star Sirius was called
Canicula (little dog). The excessive panting of dogs in hot weather was thought to place them at
risk of desiccation and disease. In extreme cases, a foaming dog might have rabies, which could
infect and kill humans whom they had bitten. The Romans celebrated the heliacal setting of Sirius
around April 25, sacrificing a dog, along with incense, wine, and a sheep, to the goddess Robigo
so that the stars emanations would not cause wheat rust on wheat crops that year.
In ancient Egypt, Sirius was known as Sopdet (Greek: Sothis), is recorded in the earliest
astronomical records. During the era of the Middle Kingdom, Egyptians based their calendar on
the heliacal rising of Sirius, namely the day it becomes visible just before sunrise after moving far
enough away from the glare of the Sun. This occurred just before the annual flooding of the Nile
and the summer solstice, after a 70-day absence from the skies. The hieroglyph for Sothis features
a star and a triangle. Sothis was identified with the great goddess Isis, who formed a part of a triad
with her husband Osiris and their son Horus, while the 70-day period symbolized the passing of
Isis and Osiris through the duat (Egyptian underworld).

In ancient Mesopotamia, Sirius, named KAK.SI.DI by the Babylonians, was seen as an arrow
aiming towards Orion, while the southern stars of Canis Major and a part of Puppis were viewed
as a bow, named BAN in the Three Stars Each tablets, dating to around 1100 BCE. In the later
compendium of Babylonian astronomy and astrology titled MUL.APIN, the arrow, Sirius, was
also linked with the warrior Ninurta, and the bow with Ishtar, daughter of Enlil. Ninurta was linked
to the later deity Marduk, who was said to have slain the ocean goddess Tiamat with a great bow,
and worshipped as the principal deity in Babylon.

In Iranian mythology, especially in Persian mythology and in Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion
of Persia, Sirius appears as Tishtrya and is revered as the rain-maker divinity (Tishtar of New
Persian poetry). Beside passages in the sacred texts of the Avesta, the Avestan language Tishtrya
followed by the version Tir in Middle and New Persian is also depicted in the Persian epic
Shahnameh of Ferdowsi. Due to the concept of the yazatas, powers which are worthy of worship,
Tishtrya is a divinity of rain and fertility and an antagonist of apaosha, the demon of drought. In
this struggle, Tishtrya is beautifully depicted as a white horse.

Many nations among the indigenous peoples of North America also associated Sirius with canines;
the Seri and Tohono Oodham of the southwest note the star as a dog that follows mountain sheep,
while the Blackfoot called it Dog-face. The Cherokee paired Sirius with Antares as a dog-star
guardian of either end of the Path of Souls. The Pawnee of Nebraska had several associations;
the Wolf (Skidi) tribe knew it as the "Wolf Star", while other branches knew it as the "Coyote
Star". Further north, the Alaskan Inuit of the Bering Strait called it "Moon Dog".[
Sirius is mentioned in Surah, An-Najm (The Star), of the Quran, where it is given the name air or ash-shira; the leader). Ibn Kathir said in his commentary that it is the bright star, named
Mirzam Al-Jawza (Sirius), which a group of Arabs used to worship. The alternate name Aschere,
used by Johann Bayer, is derived from this.

In Chinese astronomy, the modern constellation of Canis Major lies in the Vermilion Bird (Nn
Fng Zh Qu), where the stars were classified in several separate asterisms of stars. Sirius was
Tinlng, the Celestial Wolf, denoting invasion and plunder. Southeast of the Wolf was the
asterism Hsh, the celestial Bow and Arrow, which was interpreted as containing Delta, Epsilon,
Eta and Kappa Canis Majoris and Delta Velorum. Alternatively, the arrow was depicted by
Omicron2 and Eta and aiming at Sirius (the Wolf), while the bow comprised Kappa, Epsilon,
Sigma, Delta and 164 Canis Majoris, and Pi and Omicron Puppis.
Both the Mori people and the people of the Tuamotus (Polynesia) recognized the figure of Canis
Major as a distinct entity, though it was sometimes absorbed into other constellations. Te Huingao-Rehua, also called Te Putahi-nui-o-Rehua and Te Kahui-Takurua, (The Assembly of Rehua or
The Assembly of Sirius) was a Maori constellation that included both Canis Minor and Canis
Major, along with some surrounding stars. They called Sirius Rehua and Takarua, corresponding
to two of the names for the constellation, though Rehua was a name applied to other stars in various
Maori groups and other Polynesian cosmologies. The Tuamotu people called Canis Major
Muihanga-hetika-o-Takurua, the abiding assemblage of Takurua.

The Tharumba people of the Shoalhaven River (Australia) saw three stars of Canis Major as
Wunbula (Bat) and his two wives Murrumbool (Mrs Brown Snake) and Moodtha (Mrs Black
Snake); bored of following their husband around, the women try to bury him while he is hunting
a wombat down its hole. He spears them and all three are placed in the sky as the constellation
Munowra. To the Boorong people of Victoria, Sigma Canis Majoris was Unurgunite, and its
flanking stars Delta and Epsilon were his two wives. The moon (Mityan, native cat) sought to
lure the further wife (Epsilon) away, but Unurgunite assaulted him and he has been wandering the
sky ever since.

In the religion of the Serer people of Senegal, The Gambia and Mauritania, Sirius is called Yoonir
from the Serer language (and some of the Cangin language speakers, who are all ethnically Serers).
The star Sirius is one of the most important and sacred stars in Serer religious cosmology and
symbolism. The Serer high priests and priestesses, (Saltigues, the hereditary rain priests) chart
Yoonir in order to forecast rain fall and enable Serer farmers to start planting seeds. In Serer
religious cosmology, it is the symbol of the universe.

In Theosophy, it is believed the Seven Stars of the Pleiades transmit the spiritual energy of the
Seven Rays from the Galactic Logos to the Seven Stars of the Great Bear, then to Sirius. From
there is it sent via the Sun to the god of Earth (Sanat Kumara), and finally through the seven
Masters of the Seven Rays to the human race.

Another story related to Sirius is that of the Dogon people of Mali, West Africa, reported by some
researchers to have traditional astronomical knowledge about Sirius that would normally be
considered impossible without the use of telescopes. According to Marcel Griaule, who had
studied the Dogon people, they knew about the fifty-year orbital period of Sirius and its companion
prior to western astronomers. They also refered to a third star accompanying Sirius A and B. Robert
Temple, who popularized the story with his 1976 book The Sirius Mystery, credits the Dogon
people with knowledge of the four Galilean moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn. This has
been the subject of controversy and speculation. Noah Brosch explained in his book Sirius
Matters that the cultural transfer of relatively modern astronomical information could have taken

place in 1893, when a French expedition arrived in Central West Africa to observe the total eclipse
on April 16.

[https://bestdoubles.wordpress.com/category/4-choose-a-constellation/canis-major/]

An artists impression of Sirius A and Sirius B. Sirius A is the larger of the two stars

The Sirius system contains two of the eight nearest stars to the Solar System (not including the
Sun), and is the fifth closest stellar system to ours (again not including the Sun). This proximity is
the main reason for its brightness, as with other near stars such as Alpha Centauri and in stark
contrast to distant, highly luminous super-giants such as Canopus, Rigel or Betelgeuse. However,
it is still around 25 times more luminous than the Sun. The closest large neighboring star to Sirius
is Procyon, 1.61 parsecs (5.24 ly) away. The Voyager 2 spacecraft, launched in 1977 to study the
four Jovian planets in the Solar System, is expected to pass within 4.3 light-years (1.3 pc) of Sirius
in approximately 296,000 years.
Sirius is the brightest star in the Earths night sky. With a visual apparent magnitude of 1.46, it
is almost twice as bright as Canopus, the next brightest star. The name is derived from the Ancient
Greek (Seirios), meaning glowing or scorcher (because it marked the season of greatest

heat). What the naked eye perceives as a single star is actually a binary star system, consisting of
a white main-sequence star of spectral type A1V, termed Sirius A, and a faint white dwarf
companion of spectral type DA2, called Sirius B. The distance separating Sirius A from its
companion varies between 8.2 and 31.5 AU.

Sirius can even be observed in daylight with the naked eye under the right conditions. Ideally, the
sky should be very clear, with the observer at a high altitude, the star passing overhead, and the
Sun low down on the horizon. These observing conditions are more easily met in the southern
hemisphere, due to the southerly declination of Sirius.

Sirius appears bright because of both its intrinsic luminosity and its proximity to Earth. At a
distance of 2.6 parsecs (8.6 ly), as determined by the Hipparcos astrometry satellite, the Sirius
system is one of Earths near neighbors. Sirius is gradually moving closer to the Solar System, so
it will slightly increase in brightness over the next 60,000 years. After that time its distance will
begin to increase and it will become fainter, but it will continue to be the brightest star in the
Earths sky for the next 210,000 years.

Sirius A is about twice as massive as the Sun, and has an absolute visual magnitude of 1.42. It is
25 times more luminous than the Sun but has a significantly lower luminosity than other bright
stars such as Canopus or Rigel. The system is between 200 and 300 million years old. It was
originally composed of two bright bluish stars. The more massive of these, Sirius B, consumed its
resources and became a red giant before shedding its outer layers and collapsing into its current
state as a white dwarf around 120 million years ago.

Sirius B, is a star that has already evolved off the main sequence and become a white dwarf.
Currently 10,000 times less luminous in the visual spectrum, Sirius B was once the more massive
of the two. With a mass nearly equal to the Suns, Sirius B is one of the more massive white
dwarfs known. Yet that same mass is packed into a volume roughly equal to the Earths. The
current surface temperature is 25,200 K. However, because there is no internal heat source, Sirius
B will steadily cool as the remaining heat is radiated into space over a period of more than two
billion years. The age of the system has been estimated at around 230 million years. Early in its

lifespan it was thought to have been two bluish white stars orbiting each other in an elliptical orbit
every 9.1 years.
Canis Majoris, also called Mirzam or Murzim, is a blue-white variable star of magnitude 2.0,
which varies by a few hundredths of a magnitude over a period of six hours. Mirzam is 500 lightyears from Earth, and its traditional name means the announcer, referring to its position as the
announcer of Sirius, as it rises a few minutes before Sirius does.

Gamma, also known as Muliphein, is a fainter star of magnitude 4.12, in reality a blue-white bright
giant located 441 light-years from earth.
Epsilon, Omicron2, Delta and Eta Canis Majoris were called Al Adzari the virgins in medieval
Arabic tradition. Marking the dogs right thigh on Bayers atlas is Epsilon Canis Majoris, also
known as Adhara. At magnitude 1.5, it is the second-brightest star in Canis Major and the 23rdbrightest star in the sky. It is a blue-white supergiant, around 404 light-years from Earth. This star
is one of the brightest known extreme ultraviolet sources in the sky. It is a binary star; the
secondary is of magnitude 7.4. Its traditional name means the virgins, having been transferred
from the group of stars to Epsilon alone.

Nearby is Delta Canis Majoris, also called Wezen. It is a yellow-white supergiant of magnitude
1.84, around 1605 light-years from Earth. With a traditional name meaning the weight, Wezen
is 17 times as massive and 50,000 times as luminous as the Sun. If located in the centre of the
Solar System, it would extend out to Earth as its diameter is 200 times that of the Sun. Only around
10 million years old, Wezen has stopped fusing hydrogen in its core. Its outer envelope is
beginning to expand and cool, and in the next 100,000 years it will become a red supergiant as its
core fuses heavier and heavier elements. Once it has a core of iron, it will collapse and explode as
a supernova.

Also called Aludra, Eta Canis Majoris is a blue-white supergiant of spectral type B5Ia with a
luminosity 176,000 times and diameter around 80 times that of the Sun. Aludra varies in brightness
from magnitude 2.38 to 2.48 over a period of 4.7 days. It is located 1120 light-years away.

Seven star systems have been found to have planets. Nu2 Canis Majoris is an ageing orange giant
of apparent magnitude 3.91 located around 64 light-years distant. Around 1.5 times as massive and
11 times as luminous as the Sun, it is orbited over a period of 763 days by a planet 2.6 times as
massive as Jupiter. HD 47536 is likewise an ageing orange giant found to have a planetary systemechoing the fate of the Solar System in a few billion years as the Sun ages and becomes a giant.
Conversely, HD 45364 is a star 107 light-years distant that is a little smaller and cooler than the
Sun which has two planets discovered in 2008. With orbital periods of 228 and 342 days, the
planets have a 3:2 orbital resonance, which helps stabilize the system. HD 47186 is another sunlike
star with two planets; the inner- HD 47186 b- takes four days to complete an orbit and has been
classified as a Hot Neptune, while the outer- HD 47186 c- has an eccentric 3.7-year period orbit
and has a similar mass to Saturn. HD 43197 is a sunlike star around 183 light-years distant that
has a Jupiter-size planet with an eccentric orbit.

M41

Messier 41 (M41) is a bright open star cluster located in Canis Major constellation. It lies near
Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. Messier 41 has an apparent magnitude of 4.5 and lies at an
approximate distance of 2,300 light years from Earth. It has the designation NGC 2287 in the New
General Catalogue. M41 is very easy to find as it lies about 4 degrees south of Sirius, the Dog Star,
one of the nearest stars to Earth. M41 can be seen in the same binocular field with Sirius and Nu2 Canis Majoris, an evolved orange giant with a visual magnitude of 3.95. The cluster forms a

triangle with the two stars. In clear, dark skies, it is visible to the naked eye. Messier 41 occupies
an area of 38 arc minutes in apparent diameter, roughly the size of the full Moon. The cluster has
a true diameter of 25 light years. Its estimated age is between 190 and 240 million years. M41 is
moving away from us at 23.3 km/s. Messier 41 contains about 100 members, including several red
giants and a number of white dwarfs. The brightest among the giant stars is a K3-type star with a
visual magnitude of 6.3, visible near the centre of the cluster. The orange giant is about 700 times
more luminous than the Sun. The hottest star in M41 has the spectral classification A0.
[http://www.messier-objects.com/messier-41/]

NGC 2359 (Thors Helmet): This helmet-shaped cosmic cloud with wing-like appendages is
popularly called Thors Helmet. Heroically sized even for a Norse god, Thors Helmet is about 30
light-years across. In fact, the helmet is more like an interstellar bubble, blown as a fast wind from
the bright, massive star near the bubbles center sweeps through a surrounding molecular cloud.
Known as a Wolf-Rayet star, the central star is an extremely hot giant thought to be in a brief, presupernova stage of evolution. Cataloged as NGC 2359, the nebula is located about 15,000 light-

years away in the constellation Canis Major. The sharp image, made using broadband and
narrowband filters, captures striking details of the nebulas filamentary structures. It shows off a
blue-green color from strong emission due to oxygen atoms in the glowing gas.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140215.html]
NGC 2360, known as Carolines Cluster after its discoverer Caroline Herschel, is an open cluster
located 3.5 degrees west of Muliphein ( Canis Majoris) and has a combined apparent magnitude
of 7.2. Around 15 light-years in diameter, it is located 3700 light-years away from Earth, and has
been dated to around 2.2 billion years old. NGC 2362 is another small, compact open cluster, 5200
light-years from Earth. It contains about 60 stars, of which Tau Canis Majoris is the brightest
member. Located around 3 degrees northeast of Wezen, it covers an area around 12 light-years in
diameter, though the stars appear huddled around Tau when seen through binoculars. It is a very
young open cluster as its member stars are only a few million years old. Lying 2 degrees southwest
of NGC 2362 is NGC 2354 a fainter open cluster of magnitude 6.5, with around 15 member stars
visible with binoculars.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canis_Major]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius]

Canis Minor

Canis Minor is a small constellation in the northern celestial hemisphere. Its name is Latin for
lesser dog, in contrast to Canis Major, the greater dog; both figures are commonly represented
as following the constellation of Orion the hunter.
Lying directly south of Geminis bright stars Castor and Pollux, Canis Minor is a small
constellation bordered by Monoceros to the south, Gemini to the north, Cancer to the northeast,
and Hydra to the east. It does not border Canis Major; Monoceros is in between the two. Covering
183 square degrees, Canis Minor ranks seventy-first of the 88 constellations in size. It appears
prominently in the southern sky during the Northern Hemispheres winter. Most visible in the
evening sky from January to March, Canis Minor is most prominent at 10 PM during midFebruary. It is then seen earlier in the evening until July, when it is only visible after sunset before
setting itself, and rising in the morning sky before dawn.

Canis Minor, as depicted by Johann Bode in his 1801 work Uranographia

Though strongly associated with the Classical Greek uranographic tradition, Canis Minor
originates from ancient Mesopotamia. Procyon and Gomeisa were called MASH.TAB.BA or
twins in the Three Stars Each tablets, dating to around 1100 BCE. In the later MUL.APIN, this
name was also applied to the pairs of Pi3 and Pi4 Orionis and Zeta and Xi Orionis. The meaning
of MASH.TAB.BA evolved as well, becoming the twin deities Lulal and Latarak, who are on the
opposite side of the sky from Papsukal, the True Shepherd of Heaven in Babylonian mythology.
Canis Minor was also given the name DAR.LUGAL, which translates to the star which stands
behind it, in the MUL.APIN; the constellation represents a rooster. This name may have also
referred to the constellation Lepus. DAR.LUGAL was also denoted DAR.MUEN and
DAR.LUGAL.MUEN in Babylonia. Canis Minor was then called tarlugallu in Akkadian
astronomy.

Canis Minor was one of the original 48 constellations formulated by Ptolemy in his second-century
Almagest, in which it was defined as a specific pattern (asterism) of stars; Ptolemy identified only
two stars and hence no depiction was possible. The Ancient Greeks called the constellation

 (Procyon), coming before the dog, transliterated into Latin as Antecanis, Praecanis, or
variations thereof, by Cicero and others. In Greek mythology, Canis Minor was sometimes
connected with the Teumessian Fox, a beast turned into stone with its hunter, Laelaps, by Zeus,
who placed them in heaven as Canis Major (Laelaps) and Canis Minor (Teumessian Fox).
Eratosthenes accompanied the Little Dog with Orion, while Hyginus linked the constellation with
Maera, a dog owned by Icarius of Athens. On discovering the latters death, the dog and Icarius
daughter Erigone took their lives and all three were placed in the sky- Erigone as Virgo and Icarius
as Botes. As a reward for his faithfulness, the dog was placed along the banks of the Milky
Way, which the ancients believed to be a heavenly river, where he would never suffer from thirst.

The medieval Arabic astronomers maintained the depiction of Canis Minor (al-Kalb al-Asghar in
Arabic) as a dog; in his Book of the Fixed Stars, Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi included a diagram of the
constellation with a canine figure superimposed. There was one slight difference between the
Ptolemaic vision of Canis Minor and the Arabic; al-Sufi claims Mirzam, now assigned to Orion,
as part of both Canis Minor- the collar of the dog- and its modern home. The Arabic names for
both Procyon and Gomeisa alluded to their proximity and resemblance to Sirius, though they were
not direct translations of the Greek; Procyon was called ash-Shira ash-Shamiya, the Syrian Sirius
and Gomeisa was called ash-Shira al-Ghamisa, the Sirius with bleary eyes. Among the Merazig of
Tunisia, shepherds note six constellations that mark the passage of the dry, hot season. One of
them, called Merzem, includes the stars of Canis Minor and Canis Major and is the herald of two
weeks of hot weather.

The ancient Egyptians thought of this constellation as Anubis, the jackal god.

In Chinese astronomy, the stars corresponding to Canis Minor lie in the Vermilion Bird of the
South (Nn Fng Zh Qu). Procyon, Gomeisa and Eta Canis Minoris form an asterism known as
Nnh, the Southern River. With its counterpart, the Northern River Beihe (Castor and Pollux),
Nnh was also associated with a gate or sentry. Along with Zeta and 8 Cancri, 6 Canis Minoris
and 11 Canis Minoris formed the asterism Shuiwei, which literally means water level. Combined
with additional stars in Gemini, Shuiwei represented an official who managed floodwaters or a
marker of the water level.

Neighboring Korea recognized four stars in Canis Minor as part of a different constellation, the
position of the water. This constellation was located in the Red Bird, the southern portion of the
sky.

Polynesian peoples often did not recognize Canis Minor as a constellation, but they saw Procyon
as significant and often named it; in the Tuamotu Archipelago it was known as Hiro, meaning
twist as a thread of coconut fiber, and Kopu-nui-o-Hiro (great paunch of Hiro), which was
either a name for the modern figure of Canis Minor or an alternative name for Procyon. Other
names included Vena (after a goddess), on Mangaia and Puanga-hori (false Puanga, the name for
Rigel), in New Zealand. In the Society Islands, Procyon was called Ana-tahua-vahine-o-toa-temanava, literally Aster the priestess of brave heart, figuratively the pillar for elocution. The
Wardaman people of the Northern Territory in Australia gave Procyon and Gomeisa the names
Magum and Gurumana, describing them as humans who were transformed into gum trees in the
dreamtime. Although their skin had turned to bark, they were able to speak with a human voice by
rustling their leaves.

The Aztec calendar was related to their cosmology. The stars of Canis Minor were incorporated
along with some stars of Orion and Gemini into an asterism associated with the day called Water.

[http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/CMi.html]

Canis Minor contains only two stars brighter than fourth magnitude. At magnitude 0.34, Procyon,
or Alpha Canis Minoris, is the seventh-brightest star in the night sky, as well as one of the closest.
Its name means before the dog or preceding the dog in Greek, as it rises an hour before the
Dog Star, Sirius, of Canis Major. It is a binary star system, consisting of a yellow-white main
sequence star of spectral type F5 IV-V, named Procyon A, and a faint white dwarf companion of
spectral type DA, named Procyon B. Procyon B, which orbits the more massive star every 41
years, is of magnitude 10.7. Procyon A is 1.4 times the Suns mass, while its smaller companion
is 0.6 times as massive as the Sun. The system is 11.4 light-years (3.5 parsecs) from Earth, the
shortest distance to a northern-hemisphere star of the first magnitude.

Gomeisa, or Beta Canis Minoris, with a magnitude of 2.89, is the second-brightest star in Canis
Minor. Lying 162 light-years (50 parsecs) from the Solar System, it is a blue-white main sequence
star of spectral class B8 Ve. Although fainter to Earth observers, it is much brighter than Procyon,
and is 250 times as luminous and three times as massive as the Sun. Although its variations are
slight, Gomeisa is classified as a shell star (Gamma Cassiopeiae variable), with a maximum
magnitude of 2.84 and a minimum magnitude of 2.92. It is surrounded by a disk of gas which it
heats and causes to emit radiation.

The Milky Way passes through much of Canis Minor, yet it has few deep-sky objects. William
Herschel recorded four objects in his 1786 work Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars,
including two he mistakenly believed were star clusters. NGC 2459 is a group of five thirteenthand fourteenth-magnitude stars that appear to lie close together in the sky but are not related. A
similar situation has occurred with NGC 2394, also in Canis Minor. This is a collection of fifteen
unrelated stars of ninth-magnitude and fainter.

Herschel also observed three faint galaxies, two of which are interacting with each other. NGC
2508 is a lenticular galaxy of thirteenth-magnitude, estimated at 205 million light-years (63 million
parsecs) distance with a diameter of 80 thousand light-years (25 thousand parsecs). Named as a
single object by Herschel, NGC 2402 is actually a pair of near-adjacent galaxies that appear to be
interacting with each other. Only of fourteenth- and fifteenth-magnitudes respectively, the
elliptical and spiral galaxy are thought to be approximately 245 million light-years distant, and
each measure 55,000 light-years in diameter.

[http://www.constellationofthemonth.com/2014/10/canis-minor.html]

The 11 Canis-Minorids, also called the Beta Canis Minorids, are a meteor shower that arise near
the fifth-magnitude star 11 Canis Minoris and were discovered in 1964 by Keith Hindley, who
investigated their trajectory and proposed a common origin with the comet D/1917 F1 Mellish.
However, this conclusion has been refuted subsequently as the number of orbits analyzed was low
and their trajectories too disparate to confirm a link. They last from 4 to 15 December, peaking
over 10 and 11 December.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canis_Minor]

Capricornus

[https://bobmoler.wordpress.com/2014/09/15/09152014-ephemeris-the-mer-goat-capricornus/]
Capricornus is one of the constellations of the zodiac. Its name is Latin for horned goat or goat
horn, and it is commonly represented in the form of a sea-goat: a mythical creature that is half
goat, half fish. Under its modern boundaries it is bordered by Aquila, Sagittarius, Microscopium,
Piscis Austrinus, and Aquarius. Capricornuss brighter stars are found on a triangle whose vertices
are 2 Capricorni (Giedi), Capricorni (Deneb Algiedi), and Capricorni. Capricornus is usually
drawn as a goat with the tail of a fish. The constellation is located in an area of sky called the Sea
or the Water, consisting of many water-related constellations such as Aquarius, Pisces and
Eridanus. It is the smallest constellation in the zodiac.

Due to the precession of the equinoxes the December solstice no longer takes place while the sun
is in the constellation Capricornus, as it did until 130 BCE, but the astrological sign called
Capricorn begins with the solstice. The solstice now takes place when the Sun is in Sagittarius.
The suns most southerly position, which is attained at the northern hemispheres winter solstice,
is now called the Tropic of Capricorn, a term which also applies to the line on the Earth at which
the sun is directly overhead at noon on that solstice. The Sun is now in Capricorn from late January
through mid-February.

Capricornus as a sea-goat from Uranias Mirror (1825)

Despite its faintness, Capricornus has one of the oldest mythological associations, having been
consistently represented as a hybrid of a goat and a fish since the Middle Bronze Age. First attested
in depictions on a cylinder-seal from around the 21st century BCE, it was explicitly recorded in
the Babylonian star catalogues as MULSUUR.MA, The Goat-Fish, before 1000 BCE. The
constellation was a symbol of the god Ea and in the Early Bronze Age marked the winter solstice.

In Greek mythology, the constellation is sometimes identified as Amalthea, the goat that suckled
the infant Zeus after his mother, Rhea, saved him from being devoured by his father, Cronos. The
goat's broken horn was transformed into the cornucopia or horn of plenty. Capricornus is also
sometimes identified as Pan, the god with a goat's head, who saved himself from the monster
Typhon by giving himself a fish's tail and diving into a river.

In Chinese astronomy, constellation Capricornus lies in The Black Tortoise of the North (Bi Fng
Xun W).
The Nakh peoples called this constellation Roofing Towers (Chechen: Neara Bjovna).
In the Society Islands, the figure of Capricornus was called Rua-o-Mere, Cavern of parental
yearnings.

The planet Neptune was discovered in Capricornus by German astronomer Johann Galle, near
Deneb Algedi ( Capricorni) on September 23, 1846, which is appropriate as Capricornus can be
seen best from Europe at 4:00am in September.

[http://www.pa.msu.edu/people/horvatin/Astronomy_Facts/constellation_pages/capricornus.htm]
The brightest star in Capricornus is Capricorni, also called Deneb Algedi, with a magnitude of
2.9, 39 light-years from Earth. Like several other stars such as Denebola and Deneb, it is named
for the Arabic word for tail (deneb); its traditional name means the tail of the goat. Deneb
Algedi is a Beta Lyrae variable star (a type of eclipsing binary). It ranges by about 0.2 magnitudes
with a period of 24.5 hours.

The other bright stars in Capricornus range in magnitude from 3.1 to 5.1. Capricorni (Algedi or
Giedi) is a multiple star. The primary (2 Cap), 109 light-years from Earth, is a yellow-hued giant
star of magnitude 3.6; the secondary (1 Cap), 690 light-years from Earth, is a yellow-hued
supergiant star of magnitude 4.3. The two stars are distinguishable by the naked eye, and both are
themselves multiple stars. 1 Capricorni is accompanied by a star of magnitude 9.2; 2
Capricornus is accompanied by a star of magnitude 11.0; this faint star is itself a binary star with
two components of magnitude 11. The traditional names of Capricorni come from the Arabic
word for the kid, which references the constellations mythology.
Capricorni (Dabih) is a double star. It is a yellow-hued giant star of magnitude 3.1, 340 lightyears from Earth. The secondary is a blue-white hued star of magnitude 6.1. The two stars are
distinguishable in binoculars. Capricornis traditional name comes from the Arabic phrase for
the lucky stars of the slaughterer, a reference to ritual sacrifices performed by ancient Arabs at
the heliacal rising of Capricornus.

The globular cluster NGC 7099 (M30) imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Several galaxies and star clusters are contained within Capricornus. M30 is a globular cluster
located 1 degree south of the galaxy group NGC 7103. The constellation also harbors the wide
spiral galaxy NGC 6907. M30 is a centrally-condensed globular cluster of magnitude 7.5. At a
distance of 30,000 light-years, it has chains of stars extending to the north that are resolvable in
small amateur telescopes.

HCG 87: A Small Group of Galaxies

HCG 87- A Small Group of Galaxies: Sometimes galaxies form groups. For example, our own
Milky Way Galaxy is part of the Local Group of Galaxies. Small, compact groups, like Hickson
Compact Group 87 (HCG 87) shown above, are interesting partly because they slowly selfdestruct. Indeed, the galaxies of HCG 87 are gravitationally stretching each other during their 100million year orbits around a common center. The pulling creates colliding gas that causes bright
bursts of star formation and feeds matter into their active galaxy centers. HCG 87 is composed of
a large edge-on spiral galaxy visible near the image center, an elliptical galaxy visible to its right,
and a spiral galaxy visible near the top. The small spiral near the center might be far in the distance.
Several stars from our Galaxy are also visible in the foreground. Studying groups like HCG 87
allows insight into how all galaxies form and evolve.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150809.html]

HCG 87 is located 400 million light-years from Earth. The face-on spiral galaxy is experiencing
abnormally high rates of star formation, indicating that it is interacting with one or both members
of the group. Furthermore, the large elliptical galaxy and the edge-on spiral galaxy, both of which
have active nuclei, are connected by a stream of stars and dust, indicating that they too are
interacting. Astronomers predict that the three galaxies may merge millions of years in the future
to form a giant elliptical galaxy.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capricornus]

Carina

Carina is a constellation in the southern hemisphere. Its name means keel in Latin. Carina used
to be a part of the constellation Argo Navis (the ship Argo), created by the Greek astronomer
Ptolemy in the 2nd century, before Argo Navis was divided into three constellations- Carina (the
keel), Puppis (the stern) and Vela (the sails)- by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in the 18th century.
Argo Navis represented Argo, the ship on which Jason and the Argonauts sailed to retrieve the
Golden Fleece. The constellation was also sometimes associated with the ship that carried
Menelaus home after the Trojan War. Egyptians also identified the constellation with a ship, one
that carried Osiris and Isis during the big flood.

Carina belongs to the Heavenly Waters family of constellations, along with Delphinus, Equuleus,
Eridanus, Piscis Austrinus, Puppis, Vela, Pyxis and Columba. Constellations directly bordering
Carina are Vela, Puppis, Puppis, Pictor, Volans, Chamaeleon, Musca and Centaurus. The
constellation Carina occupies an area of 494 square degrees. It can be seen at latitudes between
+20 and -90 and is best visible at 9 p.m. during the month of March.
[http://www.topastronomer.com/StarCharts/Constellations/Carina.php]

[http://www.astronomytrek.com/the-night-skys-2nd-brightest-star-canopus/]

[https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canopus]

Canopus is the brightest star of Carina, and the second brightest star in the night-time sky, after
Sirius. Canopus is 313 light-years from Earth, its visual magnitude is 0.72, and it has an absolute
magnitude of 5.65. It is a supergiant of spectral type F. Canopus is essentially white when seen
with the naked eye (although F-type stars are sometimes listed as yellowish-white).
It is located in the far southern sky, at a declination of 52 42' (2000) and a right ascension of
06h24.0m. In the southern hemisphere, Canopus and Sirius are both visible high in the sky
simultaneously, and reach the meridian just 21 minutes apart. Brighter than first magnitude,
Canopus can be seen by naked eye already in the early twilight. Most visible in the southern
hemisphere summer, Canopus culminates at midnight on December 27, and at 9PM on February
11.

To anyone living in the northern hemisphere, but far enough south to see the star, it served as a
southern pole star. This lasted only until magnetic compasses became common.

Canopus was not visible to the ancient Greeks and Romans; it was, however, visible to the ancient
Egyptians. Hence Aratus did not write of the star as it remained below the horizon, while
Eratosthenes and Ptolemy- observing from Alexandria- did, calling it Kanbos.

In Indian Vedic literature, the star Canopus is associated with the sage Agastya, one of the ancient
rishis (the others are associated with the stars of the Big Dipper). Agastya, the star, is said to be
the cleanser of waters and its rising coincides with the calming of the waters of the Indian Ocean.
It is considered the son of Pulasthya, son of Brahma.

The Bedouin people of the Negev and Sinai also knew it as Suhayl, and used it and Polaris as the
two principal stars for navigation at night. Due to the fact that it disappears below the horizon, it
became associated with a changeable nature, as opposed to always-visible Polaris, which was
circumpolar and hence steadfast. It is also referred to by its Arabic name: (Suhayl, Soheil in
Persian), given by Islamic scientists in the 7th century AD.

From China (especially northern China), the stars of Carina can barely be seen. The star Canopus
(the south polar star in Chinese astronomy) was located by Chinese astronomers in The Vermillion
Bird of the South ( Nn Fng Zh Qu). The rest of the stars were first classified by Xu Guanggi
during the Ming Dynasty, based on the knowledge acquired from western star charts, and placed
among The Southern Asterisms (Jnnnjxngu). Called the Old Man of the South Pole (Nanji
Lorn), Canopus appears on the medieval Chinese manuscript the Dunhuang star chart, despite
not being visible from the Chinese capital of Changan. The Chinese astronomer Yi Xing had
journeyed south to chart Canopus and other far southern stars in 724 AD. However, it was already
mentioned by Sima Qian in the second century BCE, drawing on sources from the Warring States
period, as the southern counterpart of Sirius.

Polynesian peoples had no name for the constellation in particular, though they had many names
for Canopus. The star served as the southern wingtip of a Great Bird constellation called Manu,
with Sirius as the body and Procyon the northern wingtip, which divided the Polynesian night sky
into two hemispheres. The Hawaiian people called Canopus Ke Alii-o-kona-i-ka-lewa, The chief

of the southern expanse; it was one of the stars used by Hawaii-loa and Ki when they traveled to
the Southern Ocean.
The Mori people of New Zealand/Aotearoa had several different names for Canopus. Ariki
(High-born), was known as a solitary star that appeared in the east, prompting people to weep
and chant. They also named it Atutahi, Aotahi or Atuatahi, Stand Alone. Its solitary nature
indicates it is a tapu star, as tapu people are often solitary. Its appearance at the beginning of the
Maruaroa season foretells the coming winter; light rays to the south indicate a cold wet winter, and
to the north foretell a mild winter. Food was offered to the star on its appearance. This name has
several different mythologies attached to it as well. One story tells of how Atutahi was left outside
of the basket representing the Milky Way when Tne wove it. Another related myth surrounding
the star says that Atutahi was the first-born child of Rangi, who refused to enter the Milky Way
and so turned it sideways and rose before it. The same name is used for other stars and
constellations throughout Polynesia. Kapae-poto, Short horizon, referred to the fact that it rarely
sets from the vantage point of New Zealand; Kauanga (Solitary) was the name for Canopus only
when it was the last star visible before sunrise.

The Tswana people of Botswana knew Canopus as Naka. Appearing late in winter skies, it
heralded increasing winds and a time when trees lose their leaves. Stock owners knew it was time
to their sheep with rams. To the Xam-speaking Bushmen of South Africa, Canopus and Sirius
signaled the appearance of termites and flying ants. They also believed stars had the power to cause
death and misfortune, and they would pray to Sirius and Canopus in particular to impart good
fortune or skill.
The Kalapalo people of Mato Grosso state in Brazil saw Canopus and Procyon as Kofongo Duck,
with Castor and Pollux representing his hands. The asterisms appearance signified the coming of
the rainy season and increase in manioc, a food staple fed to guests at feasts.
The Navajo named it Maii Biz.

Canopus traditionally marked the rudder of the ship Argo Navis. English explorer Robert Hues
brought it to the attention of European observers in his 1592 work Tractatus de Globis, along with
Achernar and Alpha Centauri, noting Now, therefore, there are but three Stars of the first
magnitude that I could perceive in all those parts which are never seen here in England. The first
of these is that bright Star in the stern of Argo which they call Canobus. The second is in the end
of Eridanus. The third is in the right foot of the Centaur.
In modern times, Canopus serves another navigational use. Canopuss brightness and location well
off the ecliptic make it popular for space navigation. Many spacecraft carry a special camera
known as a Canopus Star Tracker plus a Sun sensor for attitude determination.

The effects of precession will take Canopus within 10 of the south celestial pole around the year
14,000 AD.

[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carina_constellation_map.png]

There are several other stars above magnitude 3 in Carina. Beta Carinae, traditionally called
Miaplacidus, is a blue-white hued star of magnitude 1.7, 111 light-years from Earth. Epsilon
Carinae is an orange-hued giant star similarly bright to Miaplacidus at magnitude 1.9; it is 630
light-years from Earth. Another fairly bright star is the blue-white hued Theta Carinae; it is a
magnitude 2.7 star 440 light-years from Earth. Theta Carinae is also the most prominent member
of the cluster IC 2602 (also known as Southern Pleiades). Iota Carinae is a white-hued supergiant
star of magnitude 2.2, 690 light-years from Earth.

Detail of NGC 3372 taken by the VLT telescope

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carina_Nebula]

Homunculus Nebula
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus_Nebula]

Carina is known for its namesake nebula, NGC 3372, discovered by French astronomer Nicolas
Louis de Lacaille in 1751, which contains several nebulae. The Carina Nebula overall is a colossal
emission nebula approximately 8,000 light-years away and 300 light-years wide that possesses
vast star-forming regions; it has an overall magnitude of 8.0. It also has a massive apparent
diameter, more than 2 degrees. Its central region is called the Keyhole Nebula, named in 1847 by

John Herschel. The Keyhole is about seven light-years wide and is mostly made up of ionized
hydrogen, with two major star-forming regions.

The Homunculus Nebula is a planetary nebula visible to the naked eye that is being ejected by the
erratic luminous blue variable star Eta Carinae, the most massive visible star known. Eta Carinae
is so massive that it has reached the theoretical upper limit for the mass of a star and is the refore
unstable. It is known for its outbursts; in 1840 its massive outburst largely created the Homunculus
Nebula. Because of this instability and history of outbursts, Eta Carinae is considered a prime
supernova candidate for the next several hundred thousand years because it has reached the end of
its estimated million-year life span.

Southern Pleisades (IC 2602)

[http://www.astro-photography.net/Southern-Pleiades-%28IC-2602%29.html]

Since the Milky Way runs through Carina, there are a large number of open clusters in the
constellation, embedded in rich star fields. NGC 2516 is an open cluster that is both quite large-

approximately half a degree square- and bright, visible to the unaided eye. It is located 1100 lightyears from Earth and has approximately 80 stars, the brightest of which is a red giant star of
magnitude 5.2.
The most prominent open cluster in Carina is IC 2602, also called the Southern Pleiades. It
contains Theta Carinae, along with several other stars visible to the unaided eye, in total, the cluster
possesses approximately 60 stars. The Southern Pleiades is particularly large for an open cluster,
with a diameter of approximately one degree.

Horizontal southern gems, Carina Nebula (NGC 3372), Wishing Well Cluster (NGC 3532) and
Southern Cross are photographed over Dashanbao in China, located at latitude 27.2 degrees north.
Acrux, the southern tip of the cross, rises less than one degree over Dashanbao as seen from near
the northernmost limit for seeing this star.
[http://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=93939]

Close to NGC 3372 lies NGC 3532 (also known as Wishing Well Cluster), which is visible to the
unaided eye. It possesses approximately 150 stars that are arranged in an unusual shape,
approximating an ellipse with a dark central area. Several prominent orange giants are among the

cluster's bright stars, of the 7th magnitude. Superimposed on the cluster is Chi Carinae, a yellow white hued star of magnitude 3.9, far more distant than NGC 3532.

1E 0657-558

The Bullet cluster (1E 0657-558) consists of two colliding galaxy clusters in Carina. Most of the
matter in the clusters (blue) is separate from the normal matter (pink), giving evidence that all of
the matter is dark.
[http://annesastronomynews.com/photo-gallery-ii/galaxies-clusters/the-bullet-cluster-1e-0657558-consists-of-two-colliding-galaxy-clusters-in-carina-most-of-the-matter-in-the-clusters-blueis-separate-from-the-normal-matter-pink-giving-evidence-that-all-of-t/]

One noted galaxy cluster is 1E 0657-56, the Bullet Cluster. At a distance of 4 billion light years
(redshift 0.296), this galaxy cluster is named for the shock wave seen in the intra-cluster medium,

which resembles the shock wave of a supersonic bullet. The bow shock visible is thought to be
due to the smaller galaxy cluster moving through the intracluster medium at a relative speed of
3000- 4000 kilometers per second to the larger cluster. Because this gravitational interaction has
been ongoing for hundreds of millions of years, the smaller cluster is being destroyed and will
eventually merge with the larger cluster.

Carina contains the radiant of the Eta Carinids meteor shower, which peaks around January 21
each year.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carina_%28constellation%29]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canopus]

Cassiopeia

Cassiopeia is a constellation in the northern sky, named after the vain queen Cassiopeia in Greek
mythology, who boasted about her unrivalled beauty. Cassiopeia was one of the 48 constellations
listed by the 2nd-century Greek astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern
constellations today. It is easily recognizable due to its distinctive M shape when in upper
culmination but in higher northern locations when near lower culminations in spring and summer
it has a W shape, formed by five bright stars. It is bordered by Andromeda to the south, Perseus
to the southeast, and Cepheus to the north. It is opposite the Big Dipper. The bright W asterism of
the constellation is bright and compact, but the total area of Cassiopeia ranks it 25th in size out of
the 88 modern constellations, covering 1.45% of the sky. It extends as far south as declination 46,

nearly to the Andromeda Galaxy, and to 77 at its northern edge. In northern locations above 34N
latitude it is visible year-round and in the (sub)tropics it can be seen at its clearest from September
to early November in its characteristic M shape. Even in low southern latitudes below 25S it can
be seen low in the North.

A line from Alloth (Epsilon Ursae Majoris) through Polaris, extended by about the same distance
leads to the central star of the five stars that form the W or M of Cassiopeia.
[http://ufophenomenon.weebly.com/night-sky.html]

Cassiopeia in her chair, as depicted in Urania's Mirror, a set of constellation cards published in
London c. 1825.

The constellation is named after Cassiopeia, the queen of Ethiopia. Cassiopeia was the wife of
Cepheus, King of Ethiopia and mother of Andromeda. Cepheus and Cassiopeia were placed next
to each other among the stars, along with Andromeda. Cassiopeia was placed in the sky as a
punishment for her boast that her daughter Andromeda was more beautiful than the Nereids or,
alternatively, that she herself was more beautiful than the sea nymphs. As punishment, she was
forced to wheel around the North Celestial Pole on her throne, spending half of her time clinging

to it so she does not fall off, and Poseidon decreed that Andromeda should be bound to a rock as
prey for the monster Cetus, who was ravishing the Ethiopian coast. Andromeda was then rescued
by the hero Perseus, whom she later married.

Cassiopeia has been variously portrayed throughout her history as a constellation. In the 1600s,
various Biblical figures were depicted in the stars of Cassiopeia. These included Bathsheba,
Solomons mother; Deborah, an Old Testament prophet; and Mary Magdalene. a disciple of Jesus.
A figure called the Tinted Hand also appeared in the stars of Cassiopeia in some Arab atlases.
This is variously said to represent a womans hand dyed red with henna, as well as the bloodied
hand of Muhammads daughter Fatima. The hand is made up of the stars Cas, Cas, Cas,
Cas, Cas, and Cas. The arm is made up of the stars Per, Per, Per, Per, Per, and Per.
Another Arab constellation that incorporated the stars of Cassiopeia was the Camel. Its head was
composed of Lambda, Kappa, Iota, and Phi Andromedae; its hump was Beta Cassiopeiae; its body
was the rest of Cassiopeia, and the legs were composed of stars in Perseus and Andromeda.

In Persia, she was drawn by al-Sufi as a queen holding a staff with a crescent moon in her right
hand, wearing a crown, as well as a two-humped camel.

In France, she was portrayed as having a marble throne and a palm leaf in her left hand, holding
her robe in her right hand. This depiction is from Augustin Royers 1679 atlas.

In the ancient Celtic world Anu was the mother goddess and considered to be the mother of all the
gods; the Tuatha de Danann. Other references say that she is the mother earth goddess or the
Goddess of fertility. On the Cork Kerry border are two mountains called the Paps of Anu (pap is
another word for breast.) On the top of each mountain are stone structures or cairns that when
viewed from a distance make the two mountains look like a pair of breasts. Anu was known, in the
Celtic World, by several similar names: Danu or Don being the most popular alternatives. She was
a Mother-Goddess, the wife of the Sun God, Belenos, and considered to be the ancestor of all the
Gods, the Tuatha d Danann, who found themselves obliged to reside in the Otherworld when

Miled brought the Celts to the British Isles. She still looks down on us from the night's sky where
she appears as Llys Don, better known as the constellation of Cassiopeia.

In Chinese astronomy, the stars forming the constellation Cassiopeia are found among three areas:
the Purple Forbidden enclosure (Z Wi Yun), the Black Tortoise of the North (Bi Fng Xun
W), and the White Tiger of the West (X Fng Bi H). The Chinese astronomers saw several
figures in what is modern-day Cassiopeia. Kappa, Eta, and Mu Cassopeiae formed a constellation
called the Bridge of the Kings; when seen along with Alpha and Beta Cassiopeiae, they formed
the great chariot Wang-Liang. The charioteers whip was represented by Gamma Cassiopeiae,
sometimes called Tsih, the Chinese word for whip.

Other cultures see a hand or moose antlers in the pattern. These include the Lapps, for whom the
W of Cassiopeia forms an elk antler. The Chukchi of Siberia similarly saw the five main stars as
five reindeer stags.

The people of the Marshall Islands saw Cassiopeia as part of a great porpoise constellation. The
main stars of Cassiopeia make its tail, Andromeda and Triangulum form its body, and Aries makes
its head. In Hawaii, Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Cassiopeiae were named. Alpha Cassiopeiae was
called Poloahilani, Beta Cassiopeiae was called Polula, and Gamma Cassiopeiae was called
Mulehu. The people of Pukapuka saw the figure of Cassiopeia as a distinct constellation called Na
Taki-tolu-a-Mataliki.

[http://www.astroleaguephils.org/archive/news/121020starparty.html]

The five brightest stars of Cassiopeia make up the W shape. All are prominent naked eye stars,
three are noticeably variable, and a fourth is a suspected low amplitude variable.
Cas (alpha Cassiopeiae), traditionally called Shedar (from the Arabic Al Sadr, the breast), is a
double star. The primary is an orange-hued giant of magnitude 2.2, 229 light-years from Earth.
The secondary is widely separated from the primary and is of magnitude 8.9.
Cas, or Caph (meaning hand), is a white-hued star of magnitude 2.3, 54 light-years from Earth.
16th-century Arabian astronomer Al Tizini gave this star the name Al Sanam al Nakah, (the
Camels Hump), referring to the contemporaneous Persian figure. It is a variable star with a small
amplitude and regular period of 2.4 hours.
Cas is the star at the center of the distinctive W in the constellation of Cassiopeia. It is a fairly
bright star but it has no traditional Arabic or Latin name. Its a variable star with an apparent visual

magnitude from 1.6 to 3.0, but is generally near magnitude 2.2, with unpredictable fades and
brightenings. It is located at a distance of roughly 550 light-years from Earth.
Cas, also known as Ruchbah or Rukbat, meaning knee, is also a variable star, which varies
by 0.1 magnitudes around magnitude 2.7; its period is 2 years and 1 month. Ruchbah appears to
have a blue-white hue and it is 99 light-years from Earth.
Cas is a blue-white hued star of magnitude 3.3, 442 light-years from Earth. It has the traditional
name Segin. The name Segin probably originates from an erroneous transcription of Seginus, the
traditional name for Botis, which itself is of uncertain origin.

Because it lies in rich Milky Way star fields, Cassiopeia contains many deep sky objects, including
open clusters and nebulae. The Heart Nebula (IC 1805) and the Soul Nebula (IC 1848) are two
neighboring emission nebulae about 7,500 light-years away.

The Heart and Soul Nebulas

Is the heart and soul of our Galaxy located in Cassiopeia? Possibly not, but that is where two bright
emission nebulas nicknamed Heart and Soul can be found. The Heart Nebula, visible in the above
zoomable view on the right, has a shape reminiscent of a classical heart symbol. Both nebulas
shine brightly in the red light of energized hydrogen. Several young open clusters of stars populate
the image and are visible above in blue, including the nebula centers. Light takes about 6,000 years
to reach us from these nebulas, which together span roughly 300 light years. Studies of stars and
clusters like those found in the Heart and Soul Nebulas have focused on how massive stars form
and how they affect their environment.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140211.html]

Two Messier objects, M52 (NGC 7654) and M103 (NGC 581), are located in Cassiopeia; both are
open clusters. M52, once described as a kidney-shaped cluster, contains approximately 100 stars
and is 5200 light-years from Earth. Its most prominent member is an orange-hued star of magnitude
8.0 near the cluster's edge. M103 is far poorer than M52, with only about 25 stars included. It is
also more distant, at 8200 light-years from Earth. Its most prominent member is actually a closer,
superimposed double star; it consists of a 7th-magnitude primary and 10th-magnitude secondary.

The other prominent open clusters in Cassiopeia are NGC 457 and NGC 663, both of which have
about 80 stars. NGC 457 is looser, and its brightest member is Phi Cassiopeiae, a white-hued
supergiant star of magnitude 5.0. The stars of NGC 457, arrayed in chains, are approximately
10,000 light-years from Earth. NGC 663 is both closer, at 8200 light-years from Earth, and larger,
at 0.25 degrees in diameter.

NGC 457 is another open cluster in Cassiopeia, also called the E.T. Cluster, the Owl Cluster, and
Caldwell 13. The cluster was discovered in 1787 by William Herschel. It has an overall magnitude
of 6.4 and is approximately 10,000 light-years from Earth, lying in the Perseus arm of the Milky
Way. However, its most prominent member, the double star Phi Cassiopeiae, is far closer - between
1000 and 4000 light-years away. NGC 457 is fairly rich. It is concentrated towards its center and
detached from the star field. It contains more than 100 stars, which vary widely in brightness.

Two members of the Local Group of galaxies are in Cassiopeia. NGC 185 is a magnitude 9.2
elliptical galaxy, 2 million light-years away. Slightly dimmer and more distant NGC 147 is a
magnitude 9.3 elliptical galaxy, like NGC 185 it is an elliptical of type E0; it is 2.3 million light years from Earth. Though they do not appear in Andromeda, both dwarf galaxies are
gravitationally bound to the far larger Andromeda Galaxy.

Supernova Cassiopeia A, observed by the Hubble Space Telescope

[]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassiopeia_A

There are two supernova remnants in Cassiopeia. The first, which is unnamed, is the aftermath of
the supernova called Tychos Star. It was observed in 1572 by Tycho Brahe and now exists as a
bright object in the radio spectrum. Within the W asterism formed by Cassiopeias five major
stars lies Cassiopeia A (Cas A). It is the remnant of a supernova that took place approximately 300
years ago (as observed now from Earth; it is 10,000 light-years away), and has the distinction of
being the strongest radio source observable outside the Solar System. It was perhaps observed as

a faint star in 1680 by John Flamsteed. It was also the subject of the first image returned by the
Chandra X-Ray Observatory in the late 1990s. The shell of matter expelled from the star is moving
at 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi) per second; it has a temperature of 30,000 kelvin on average.

If one were able to observe Earths Sun from Alpha Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System,
it would appear in Cassiopeia as a yellow-white 0.5 magnitude star. The famous W of Cassiopeia
would become a zig-zag pattern with the Sun at the leftmost end, closest to Cas.

The December Phi Cassiopeiids are a recently discovered early December meteor shower that
radiates from Cassiopeia. Phi Cassiopeiids are very slow, with an entry velocity of approximately
16.7 kilometers per second. The showers parent body is a Jupiter family comet, though its specific
identity is unknown.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassiopeia_%28constellation%29]

Centaurus

Centaurus is a bright constellation in the southern sky. One of the largest constellations, Centaurus
was included among the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and it
remains one of the 88 modern constellations. In Greek mythology, Centaurus represents a centaur;
a creature that is half human, half horse (another constellation named after a centaur is one from
the zodiac: Sagittarius).

While Centaurus now has a high southern latitude, at the dawn of civilization it was an equatorial
constellation. Precession has been slowly shifting it southward for millennia, and it is now close
to its maximal southern declination. Thousands of years from now Centaurus will, once again, be
at lower latitudes and be visible worldwide.

Johannes Hevelius Centaurus from Uranographia (1690)

[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/constellations/centaurus.html]

The figure of Centaurus can be traced back to a Babylonian constellation known as the Bison-man
(MUL.GUD.ALIM). This being was depicted in two major forms: firstly, as a 4-legged bison with
a human head, and secondly, as a being with a man's head and torso attached to the rear legs and
tail of a bull or bison. It has been closely associated with the Sun god Utu-Shamash from very
early times.

To the Greeks Centaurus represented Chiron, the leader of the Centaurs. These creatures - halfman, half-horse were aggressive and warlike, Chiron being the one exception. The only immortal
Centaur, he was exceedingly wise and kind. His story is closely connected with the Fourth Labor
of Hercules who, on his way to capture the rampaging Erymanthian boar, called on the Centaur
Pholus. After eating a good meal, and despite warnings from Pholus, Hercules opened a cask of
wine belonging to all of the Centaurs. They were incensed at such a liberty and furiously attacked
Hercules but he managed to overcome them and chased them to Malea, the home of Chiron. Sadly,
the kindly creature was accidentally struck on the knee by one of Hercules poisoned arrows. In

spite of Hercules desperate efforts to help his friend, the wound would not heal, and Chiron
seemed doomed to an eternal life of suffering. However fate, in the form of Prometheus,
intervened. Zeus agreed that Prometheus should take over Chirons immortality, thus allowing the
stricken Centaur to be freed from his agony. He was then placed by Zeus in the heavens.
[http://www.heavensabove.com/myth.aspx?con=cen&lat=0&lng=1&loc=Unspecified&alt=0&tz=CET&cul=en]

The constellation was mentioned by Eudoxus in the 4th century BCE and Aratus in the 3rd century
BCE. In the 2nd century AD, Claudius Ptolemy catalogued 37 stars in Centaurus. Large as it is
now, in earlier times it was even larger, as the constellation Lupus was treated as an asterism within
Centaurus, portrayed in illustrations as an unspecified animal either in the centaur's grasp or
impaled on its spear. The Southern Cross, which is now regarded as a separate constellation, was
treated by the ancients as a mere asterism formed of the stars composing the centaur's legs.
Additionally, what is now the minor constellation Circinus was treated as undefined stars under
the centaurs front hooves.

According to the Roman poet Ovid, the constellation honors the centaur Chiron. However, most
authorities consider Sagittarius to be the civilized Chiron, while Centaurus represents a more
uncouth member of the species.

In Chinese astronomy, the stars of Centaurus are found in three areas: the Azure Dragon of the
East (Dng Fng Qng Lng), the Vermillion Bird of the South (Nn Fng Zh Qu), and the
Southern Asterisms (Jnnnjxngu). Not all of the stars of Centaurus can be seen from China,
and the unseen stars were classified among the Southern Asterisms by Xu Guangqi, based on his
study of western star charts. However, most of the brightest stars of Centaurus, including Cen,
Cen, Cen and Cen, can be seen in the Chinese sky.

Some Polynesian peoples considered the stars of Centaurus to be a constellation as well. On

Pukapuka, Centaurus had two names: Na Mata-o-te-tokolua and Na Lua-mata-o-Wua-ma-Velo. In
Tonga, the constellation was called by four different names: O-nga-tangata, Tautanga-ufi,
Mamangi-Halahu, and Mau-kuo-mau. Alpha and Beta Centauri were not named specifically by

the people of Pukapuka or Tonga, but they were named by the people of Hawaii and the Tuamotus.
In Hawaii, the name for Alpha Centauri was either Melemele or Ka Maile-hope and the name for
Beta Centauri was either Polapola or Ka Maile-mua. In the Tuamotu islands, Alpha was called Na
Kuhi and Beta was called Tere.

The two bright stars are (left) Alpha Centauri and (right) Beta Centauri. The faint red star in the
center of the red circle is Proxima Centauri.

Centaurus contains several very bright stars because of its position in the Milky Way. The
constellation has 281 stars above magnitude 6.5, meaning that they are visible to the unaided eye,
the most of any constellation.

Alpha Centauri is a triple star system that contains Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun.
Traditionally called Rigil Kentaurus or Toliman, meaning foot of the centaur, the system has an
overall magnitude of -0.28 and is 4.4 light-years from Earth. The primary and secondary are both
yellow-hued stars; the primary, is of magnitude -0.01 and the secondary is of magnitude 1.35.

Hubbles New Shot of Proxima Centauri, our Nearest Neighbor

Shining brightly in this Hubble image is our closest stellar neighbor: Proxima Centauri, just over
four light-years from Earth. Although it looks bright through the eye of Hubble, as you might
expect from the nearest star to the Solar System, Proxima Centauri is not visible to the naked eye.
Its average luminosity is very low, and it is quite small compared to other stars, at only about an
eighth of the mass of the sun. However, on occasion, its brightness increases. Proxima is what is
known as a flare star, meaning that convection processes within the stars body make it prone to
random and dramatic changes in brightness. The convection processes not only trigger brilliant
bursts of starlight but, combined with other factors, mean that Proxima Centauri is in for a very
long life. Astronomers predict that this star will remain middle-aged- or a main sequence star in
astronomical terms- for another four trillion years, some 300 times the age of the current Universe.
[https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/hubbles-new-shot-of-proxima-centauri-our-nearestneighbor/#.V0Yt5r4rRWA]

Proxima is a red dwarf of magnitude 11.0; it is almost 2 degrees away from the primary and
secondary and has a period of approximately one million years. Also a flare star, Proxima has
minutes-long outbursts where it brightens by over a magnitude. The primary and secondary have
a period of 80 years and will be closest to each other as seen from Earth in 2037 and 2038.

In addition to Alpha Centauri (the 3rd brightest star in the sky), a second first magnitude star, Beta
Centauri, is part of Centaurus. Also called Hadar and Agena (names of unknown origin), Beta
Centauri is a double star; the primary is a blue-hued giant star of magnitude 0.6, 525 light-years
from Earth. The secondary is of magnitude 4.0 and has a very small separation.

Alpha and Beta Centauri, also known as the Pointers, are visible all year round from the Southern
Hemisphere, as the constellation they point to is Crux (the Southern Cross).
[https://heartstar.org/2015/01/26/alpha-centauri-the-pink-star/]

The globular cluster Omega Centauri

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Centauri]
Centauri (NGC 5139), despite being listed as the constellations omega star, is in fact a nakedeye globular cluster, located at a distance of 17,000 light-years with a diameter of 150 light-years.
It is the largest and brightest globular cluster in the Milky Way, at ten times the size of the nextlargest cluster; it has a magnitude of 3.7. It is also the most luminous globular cluster in the Milky
Way, at over one million solar luminosities. Omega Centauri contains several million stars, most
of which are yellow dwarf stars, but also possesses red giants and blue-white stars; the stars have
an average age of 12 billion years. This has prompted suspicion that Omega Centauri was the core
of a dwarf galaxy that had been absorbed by the Milky Way. Omega Centauri was determined to

be non-stellar in 1677 by the English astronomer Edmond Halley, though it was visible as a star
to the ancients. Its status as a globular cluster was determined by James Dunlop in 1827. To the
unaided eye, Omega Centauri appears fuzzy and is obviously non-circular; it is approximately half
a degree in diameter, the same size as the full Moon.

Centaurus is also home to open clusters. NGC 3766 is an open cluster 6300 light-years from Earth
that is visible to the unaided eye. It contains approximately 100 stars, the brightest of which are
7th magnitude. NGC 5460 is another naked-eye open cluster, 2500 light-years from Earth, that has
an overall magnitude of 6 and contains approximately 40 stars.

A Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 3918

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_3918]

There is one bright planetary nebula in Centaurus, NGC 3918, also known as the Blue Planetary.
It has an overall magnitude of 8.0 and a central star of magnitude 11.0; it is 2600 light-years from

Earth. The Blue Planetary was discovered by John Herschel and named for its colors similarity to
Uranus, though the nebula is three times larger than the planet.

A Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 4622

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_4622]

Centaurus is rich in galaxies as well. NGC 4622 is a face-on spiral galaxy located 200 million
light-years from Earth (redshift 0.0146). Its spiral arms wind in both directions, which makes it
nearly impossible for astronomers to determine the rotation of the galaxy. Astronomers theorize
that a collision with a smaller companion galaxy near the core of the main galaxy could have led
to the unusual spiral structure.

NGC 4650A

Space Telescope Science Institute astronomers are giving the public chances to decide where to
aim the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Guided by 8, 000 Internet voters, Hubble has
already been used to take a close-up, multi-color picture of the most popular object from a list of
candidates, the extraordinary polar-ring galaxy NGC 4650A. Located about 130 million lightyears away, NGC 4650A is one of only 100 known polar-ring galaxies. Their unusual disk-ring
structure is not yet understood fully. One possibility is that polar rings are the remnants of colossal
collisions between two galaxies sometime in the distant past, probably at least 1 billion years ago.
What is left of one galaxy has become the rotating inner disk of old red stars in the center.
[http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9916a/]

Centaurus A (NGC 5128)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaurus_A]

One of the closest active galaxies to Earth is the Centaurus A galaxy, NGC 5128, at a distance of
11 million light-years (redshift 0.00183). It has a supermassive black hole at its core, which expels
massive jets of matter that emit radio waves due to synchrotron radiation. Astronomers posit that
its dust lanes, not common in elliptical galaxies, are due to a previous merger with another galaxy,
probably a spiral galaxy. NGC 5128 appears in the optical spectrum as a fairly large elliptical
galaxy with a prominent dust lane. Its overall magnitude is 7.0, and it has been seen under perfect
conditions with the naked eye, making it one of the most distant objects visible to the unaided
observer. In equatorial and southern latitudes, it is easily found by star hopping from Omega
Centauri. In small telescopes, the dust lane is not visible; it begins to appear with about 4 inches
of aperture under good conditions. In large amateur instruments, above about 12 inches in aperture,
the dust lanes west-northwest to east-southeast direction is easily discerned. Another dim dust
lane on the east side of the 12 arcminute by 15 arcminute galaxy is also visible. ESO 270-17, also
called the Fourcade-Figueroa Object, is a low-surface brightness object believed to be the remnants

of a galaxy; it does not have a core and is very difficult to observe with an amateur telescope. It
measures 7 arcminutes by 1 arcminute. It likely originated as a spiral galaxy and underwent a
catastrophic gravitational interaction with Centaurus A around 500 million years ago, stopping its
rotation and destroying its structure.

NGC 4696: a cosmic question mark

Curling around itself like a question mark, the unusual looking galaxy NGC 4696 itself begs many
questions. Why is it such a strange shape? What are the odd, capillary-like filaments that stretch
out of it? And what is the role of a large black hole in explaining its decidedly odd appearance?

NGC 4696 is an elliptical galaxy with a difference. Lacking the complex structure and active star
formation of their spiral brethren, elliptical galaxies are usually little more than shapeless
collections of ageing stars. Most likely formed by collisions between spiral galaxies, elliptical
galaxies experience a brief burst of star formation triggered as the interstellar dust and gas crash
into each other, but which quickly leaves the young elliptical galaxies exhausted. With no more
gas to form new stars from, the galaxies gradually grow older and fainter.

But NGC 4696 is more interesting than most elliptical galaxies. The huge dust lane, around 30 000
light-years across, that sweeps across the face of the galaxy is one way in which it looks different
from most other elliptical galaxies. Viewed at certain wavelengths, strange thin filaments of

ionized hydrogen are visible within it. In this picture, these structures are visible as a subtle
marbling effect across the galaxys bright center.
[https://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1013/]

NGC 4696 belongs to the Centaurus Cluster (A3526), a cluster of hundreds of galaxies, located
approximately 170 million light years away in the Centaurus constellation. The Centaurus cluster
shares its supercluster, the Hydra-Centaurus Supercluster, with IC4329 Cluster and Hydra Cluster.
The cluster consists of two different sub-groups of galaxies with different velocities. Cen 30 is the
main subgroup containing NGC 4696. Cen 45 is moving at 1500 km/s relative to Cen 30, and is
believed to be merging with the main cluster.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaurus_Cluster]

[http://holographicgalaxy.blogspot.gr/2013/11/cosmic-structure-10-billion-light-years.html]

Hydra-Centaurus Supercluster shares its borders with the Shapley supercluster, the largest
concentration of galaxies in our nearby universe that forms a gravitationally interacting unit,
thereby pulling itself together instead of expanding with the universe. It appears as a striking over density in the distribution of galaxies in the constellation of Centaurus. It is 650 million light years
away (z=0.046).
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapley_Supercluster]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaurus]

Cepheus

Cepheus is a constellation in the northern sky. It is named after Cepheus in Greek mythology. It
was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and remains one
of the 88 modern constellations. Its brightest star is Alpha Cephei with an apparent magnitude of
3.5.

Cepheus in the robes of a Persian king, depicted in the Atlas Coelestis of John Flamsteed (1729).
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/cepheus.htm]

Cepheus was the King of Ethiopia. He was married to Cassiopeia and was the father of Andromeda,
both of whom are immortalized as modern day constellations along with Cepheus. He is most
commonly depicted as holding his arms aloft, praying for the gods to spare the life of Andromeda.
He is also depicted as a more regal monarch sitting on his throne.

In traditional Chinese uranography Cepheus lies across one of the quadrants symbolized by the
The Black Tortoise of the North (Bi Fng Xun W), and Three Enclosures (Sn Yun), that

divide the sky. The name of the western constellation in modern Chinese is (xin wng zu),
meaning the immortal king constellation.

To find dim Cepheus you can use either the Big Dipper or Cassiopeia, both of which are very
distinctive. This map shows the sky as you look due north in late June.
[http://astrobob.areavoices.com/2009/06/22/this-small-tent-holds-big-company/]

[https://www.pa.msu.edu/people/horvatin/Astronomy_Facts/constellation_pages/cepheus.htm]
Alpha Cephei ( Cep, Cephei), the brightest star in the constellation, is a second magnitude star
in the constellation of Cepheus near the northern pole. The star is relatively close to Earth at only
49 light years. It has the traditional name Alderamin, an Arabic name meaning the right arm.
With a declination in excess of 62 degrees north, Alderamin is mostly visible to observers in the
northern hemisphere, though the star is still visible to latitudes as far south as -27, albeit just
above the horizon. Alderamin, is a white Class A star, evolving off the main sequence into a
subgiant, probably on its way to becoming a red giant as its hydrogen supply runs low.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Cephei]

Beta Cephei is a third magnitude star. It has the traditional name Alfirk (Arabic al-firqah), meaning
The Flock. This star, along with Cep (Alderamin) and Cep (Alkidr), were Al Kawkib al
Fir, meaning the Stars of The Flock. by Ulug Beg. Beta Cephei is a triple star comprising a
spectroscopic binary with a magnitude 8 optical companion. Its magnitude varies between +3.15
and +3.21 with a period of 0.1904844 days. Beta Cephei A is a blue giant star with a a radius that
has been estimated at 9 solar radii and a mass of 12 solar masses. Like most high-mass B-class
stars, Cep is a relatively young star with an estimated age of around 50 million years old. Like
the majority of giant stars, Beta Cephei A rotates slowly on its axis with a rotational velocity of 7

degrees per day, a speed which takes the star approximately 51 days to make one complete
revolution.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Cephei]

Gamma Cephei is a binary star system approximately 45 light-years away. Its traditional name
derives from the Arabic ar-r, meaning the shepherd. The primary (Gamma Cephei A) is an
orange subgiant star; it has a red dwarf companion (Gamma Cephei B). Gamma Cephei has an
apparent magnitude of 3.22, nearly all of which is accounted for by Gamma Cephei A. The primary
is about 6.6 billion years old. Gamma Cephei B has a mass approximately 0.409 times that of the
Sun. It is probably a red dwarf. An extrasolar planet (designated Gamma Cephei Ab, later named
Tadmor) is believed to be orbiting the primary.
Gamma Cephei is the naked-eye star that will succeed Polaris as the Earths northern pole star,
due to the precession of the equinoxes. It will be closer to the northern celestial pole than Polaris
around 3000 CE and will make its closest approach around 4000 CE.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_Cephei]

Delta Cephei is the prototype Cepheid variable (the Cepheids are a class of pulsating variable
stars), a yellow-hued supergiant star 980 light-years from Earth. It varies between 3.5m and 4.4m
over a period of 5 days and 9 hours. It has a minimum size of 40 solar diameters and a maximum
size of 46 solar diameters. It is also a double star with a wide-set blue-hued companion of
magnitude 6.3.
There are several other prominent variable stars in Cepheus. One, Cephei, is also known as
Herschels Garnet Star due to its deep red color. It is a semiregular variable star with a minimum
magnitude of 5.1 and a maximum magnitude of 3.4. Its period is approximately 2 years. The star
is around 11.8 AU in radius. If it were placed at the center of the Solar System, it would extend to
the orbit of Saturn. Another, VV Cephei A, like Mu Cephei, is a red supergiant located at least
5,000 light-years from Earth. It has a minimum magnitude of 5.4 and a maximum magnitude of
4.8. One of the largest stars in the galaxy, it has a diameter of 1,300 solar diameters.

[http://quest4truth.tripod.com/atlas/cep.htm]
Kruger 60, located near Cep., is an 11th magnitude binary star consisting of two red dwarfs. The
star system is one of the nearest, being only 13 light years away from Earth.

Facing NGC 6946

From our vantage point in the Milky Way Galaxy, we see NGC 6946 face-on. The big, beautiful
spiral galaxy is located just 10 million light-years away, behind a veil of foreground dust and stars
in the high and far-off constellation of Cepheus. From the core outward, the galaxys colors change
from the yellowish light of old stars in the center to young blue star clusters and reddish star
forming regions along the loose, fragmented spiral arms. NGC 6946 is also bright in infrared light
and rich in gas and dust, exhibiting a high star birth and death rate. In fact, since the early 20th
century at least nine supernovae, the death explosions of massive stars, were discovered in NGC
6946. Nearly 40,000 light-years across, NGC 6946 is also known as the Fireworks Galaxy. This
remarkable portrait of NGC 6946 is a composite that includes image data from the 8.2 meter
Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120109.html]

NGC 7023 (Caldwell 4) & Collinder 427

NGC 7023 was observed 18 October 1794 by William Herschel. It is located about 3.5 degrees
south west of Beta Cephei (Alfirk). This is a wonderful example of a reflection nebula. Its unusual
structure gave rise to the name, the Iris Nebula. The nebula is illuminated by light for a Mag 6.8
star (HD200775) in its center. The bright blue light seen here is due to light being reflected off
dust particles that survived the star's birth. There are faint hints of red color surrounding the central
star. This is evidence of some hydrogen emission taking place. Images of this object frequently
capture the dense dust cloud that is resides in.

There is also and open cluster of stars associated with NGC 7023 that is known as Collinder 427.
This loose open cluster is located on the west side of the reflection nebula within the dark region
above the petal structure of the Iris. There was a second cluster reportedly within the nebula NCC
7023 cataloged by Collinder as 429, but this was a mistake as there is no other open cluster within
NGC 7023.
[http://darkhorseobservatory.org/product.php?ProductID=146&CategoryID=31]

S 155, also known as the Cave Nebula, Sh2-155 or Caldwell 9, is a dim and very diffuse bright
nebula in the constellation Cepheus within a larger nebula complex containing emission,
reflection, and dark nebulosity.

Visually it is a difficult object, but with adequate exposure, makes a striking image. The nebula
gets its name Cave Nebula from the dark lane at the eastern side abutting the brightest curve of
emission nebulosity which gives the appearance of a deep cave when seen through a telescope
visually.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_155]

[https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/2x58e4/black_hole_breaks_records_swallows_up_
scientific/?limit=500]

Artists impression of a hyperluminous quasar similar to S5 0014+81 surrounded by a thick

accretion disc with two powerful jets.

S5 0014+81 is a distant, compact, hyperluminous, broad-absorption line quasar or blazar located

near the high declination region of the constellation Cepheus, near the North Equatorial Pole.

The object is a blazar, in fact an FSRQ quasar, the most energetic subclass of objects known as
active galactic nuclei, produced by the rapid accretion of matter by a central supermassive black
hole, changing the gravitational energy to light energy that can be visible in cosmic distances. In
the case of S5 0014+81 it is one of the most luminous quasars known, powering up light equivalent
to over 1041 watts, equal to an absolute bolometric magnitude of -31.5. If the quasar were at a
distance of 280 light-years from earth it would give as much energy per square meter as the Sun
despite being 18 million times more distant. The quasars luminosity is therefore about 300 trillion
times the Sun, or over 25 thousand times as luminous as all the 100 to 400 billion stars of the Milky

Way Galaxy combined, making it one of the most powerful objects in the universe. However,
because of its huge distance of 12.1 billion light-years it can only be studied by spectroscopy. The
host galaxy of S5 0014+81 is a giant elliptical starburst galaxy, with the apparent magnitude of 24.

The central black hole of the quasar devours an extremely huge amount of matter, equivalent to
4000 solar masses of material every year. In 2009, a team of astronomers using the Swift
Spacecraft used the luminosity output of S5 0014+81 to measure the mass of the central black
hole. To their surprise, they found out that the central black hole of S5 0014+81 is actually 10,000
times more massive than the black hole at the center of our galaxy, or equivalent to 40 billion solar
masses. This makes it one of the most massive black holes ever discovered, more than six times
the value of the black hole of M87, which was thought to be the largest black hole for almost 60
years, and was coined to be an ultra-massive black hole. The Schwarzschild radius of this black
hole is 118.35 billion kilometers. So, this black hole has an external horizon showing a diameter
of 236.7 billion kilometers, 1,600 astronomical units, or 47 times the distance from the Sun to
Pluto, and shows a mass equivalent to four Large Magellanic Clouds. What is even more
astounding is that the monstrous black hole exists so early in the universe, at only 1.6 billion years
after the Big Bang. This suggests that supermassive black holes grow up very quickly.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S5_0014%2B81]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cepheus_%28constellation%29]

Cetus

Cetus is a constellation whose name refers to Cetus, a sea monster in Greek mythology, although
it is often called the whale today. It is located in the region of the sky that contains other waterrelated constellations such as Aquarius, Pisces, and Eridanus.

Although Cetus is not generally considered part of the zodiac, the ecliptic passes less than a quarter
of a degree from its constellation boundary, and thus the moon, planets, and even part of the sun
may be in Cetus for brief periods of time. This is all the more true of asteroids, since their orbits
usually have a greater inclination to the ecliptic than the moon and planets. For example, the
asteroid 4 Vesta was discovered in this constellation in 1807.

As seen from Mars, the ecliptic passes into Cetus, with the sun appearing in Cetus for around six
days shortly after the northern summer solstice. Marss orbit is tilted by 1.85 with respect to
Earths.

Cetus dominates this card from Urania's Mirror (1825)

Cetus may have originally been associated with a whale, which would have had mythic status
amongst Mesopotamian cultures. It is often now called the Whale, though it is most strongly
associated with Cetus the sea-monster, who was slain by Perseus as he saved the princess
Andromeda from Poseidon's wrath. Cetus is located in a region of the sky called The Sea because
many water-associated constellations are placed there, including Eridanus, Pisces, Piscis
Austrinus, Capricornus, and Aquarius.

Cetus has been depicted many ways throughout its history. In the 17th century, Cetus was depicted
as a dragon fish by Johann Bayer. Both Willem Blaeu and Andreas Cellarius depicted Cetus as

a whale-like creature in the same century. However, Cetus has also been variously depicted with
animal heads attached to a piscine body.

In Chinese astronomy, the stars of Cetus are found among two areas: the Black Tortoise of the
North (Bi Fng Xun W) and the White Tiger of the West (X Fng Bi H).

The Brazilian Tukano and Kobeua people used the stars of Cetus to create a jaguar, representing
the god of hurricanes and other violent storms. Lambda, Mu, Xi, Nu, Gamma, and Alpha Ceti
represented its head; Omicron, Zeta, and Chi Ceti represented its body; Eta Eri, Tau Cet, and
Upsilon Cet marked its legs and feet; and Theta, Eta, and Beta Ceti delineated its tail.

In Hawaii, the constellation was called Na Kuhi, and Mira (Omicron Ceti) may have been called
Kane.

[https://www.thinglink.com/scene/578218207291113472]

The most notable star in Cetus is Mira (the Wonderful), designated Omicron Ceti, the first
variable star to be discovered and the prototype of its class. Over a period of 332 days it reaches a
maximum apparent magnitude of 3- visible to the naked eye- and dips to a minimum magnitude
of 10, invisible to the unaided eye. Its seeming appearance and disappearance gave it its common
name, which means the amazing one. Mira pulsates with a minimum size of 400 solar diameters
and a maximum size of 500 solar diameters. 420 light-years from Earth, it was discovered by David
Fabricius in 1596.
Ceti, traditionally called Menkar (the nose), is a red-hued giant star of magnitude 2.5, 220 lightyears from Earth. It is a wide double star; the secondary is 93 Ceti, a blue-white hued star of
magnitude 5.6, 440 light-years away.
Ceti, also called Deneb Kaitos or Diphda, is the brightest star in Cetus. It is an orange-hued giant
star of magnitude 2.0, 96 light-years from Earth. The traditional name Deneb Kaitos means
whales tail.
Ceti, Kaffaljidhma (head of the whale) is a very close double star. The primary is a yellowhued star of magnitude 3.5, 82 light-years from Earth, and the secondary is a blue-hued star of
magnitude 6.6.

Tau Ceti is noted for being the nearest Sun-like star at a distance of 11.9 light-years. It is a yellowhued main-sequence star of magnitude 3.5.

M77 (NGC 1068)

Menkar is by far the most notable star in its section of the sky, outshining all the others around it
by at least a full magnitude. There are two other naked-eye stars that stand out near Menkar just to
the south: Ceti (the brighter one) and Ceti (the slightly dimmer one). If you can locate Ceti
in a pair of binoculars or a small telescope, that will help you find your way to Messier 77.
[http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2013/10/07/messier-monday-a-secretly-active-spiralgalaxy-m77/]

Cetus lies far from the galactic plane, so that many distant galaxies are visible, unobscured by dust
from the Milky Way. Of these, the brightest is Messier 77 (NGC 1068), a 9th magnitude spiral
galaxy near Delta Ceti. Messier 77 is a barred spiral galaxy about 47 million light-years away in
the constellation Cetus. Messier 77 is an active galaxy with an active galactic nucleus (it is the
brightest Seyfert galaxy), and has a diameter is 170,000 light-years.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_77]

An infrared Spitzer Space Telescope image of NGC 246.

NGC 246, known as the Skull Nebula, is a planetary nebula in the constellation Cetus. It is roughly
1,600 light-years away. The nebulas central star is the 12th magnitude white dwarf HIP 3678.
Among some amateur astronomers, NGC 246 is also known as the Pac-Man Nebula because of
the arrangement of its central stars and the surrounding star field.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_246]

NGC 247: Image taken by the Wide Field Imager (WFI) at ESOs La Silla Observatory in Chile

NGC 247 is an intermediate spiral galaxy (although it is sometimes classified as a dwarf spiral
galaxy), about 11.1 Mly away in the constellation Cetus. This distance was confirmed in late
February 2011. Previous measurements showed that the galaxy was about 12.2 Mly away, but this
was proved to be wrong. NGC 247 is a member of the Sculptor Group.

NGC 247 is marred by an unusually large void on one side of its spiral disk. This void contains
some older, redder stars but no younger, bluer stars.[3]
Nearby galaxies and galaxy group information

NGC 247 is one of several galaxies that form a small core in the center of the Sculptor Group,
which is one of the nearest groups of galaxies to the Milky Way. Most other galaxies associated
with the Sculptor Group are only weakly gravitationally bound to this core.

IC 1613 captured with the Very Large Telescopes (VLT) OmegaCAM.

IC 1613 (also known as Caldwell 51) is an irregular dwarf galaxy in the constellation Cetus near
the star 26 Ceti. It was discovered in 1906 by Max Wolf, and is approaching Earth at 234 km/s.
IC 1613 is a member of the Local Group. In 1999, Cole et al. used the Hubble Space Telescope to
find that the dominant population of this galaxy has an age of ~7 Gyr.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IC_1613]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cetus]

Chamaeleon

Chamaeleon is a very small constellation located near the South Pole. The constellation was named
after the chameleon, a type of lizard. Australians sometimes call it the Frying Pan. It occupies an
area of 132 square degrees and contains one star with known planets. It can be seen at latitudes
between +0 and -90 and is best visible at 9 p.m. during the month of April. Constellations directly
bordering Chamaeleon are Musca, Carina, Volans, Mensa, Octans and Apus.

The constellation Chamaeleon, Johann Bode, Uranographia, 1801

[http://www.constellationsofwords.com/Constellations/Chamaeleon.htm]

Chamaeleon was created in the 16th century by the Dutch astronomer and cartographer Petrus
Plancius from the observations of Dutch explorers Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de
Houtman. The constellation first appeared in a celestial atlas in Johann Bayers Uranometria in
1603.
[http://www.topastronomer.com/StarCharts/Constellations/Chamaeleon.php]

In Chinese astronomy, the stars that form Chamaeleon were classified as the Little Dipper
(Xiodu) among the Southern Asterisms (Jnnnjxngu) by Xu Guangqi.[

[http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/Cha.html]

[http://www.southernskyphoto.com/constellations/south_celestial_pole.htm]

There are four bright stars in Chamaeleon. Alpha Chamaeleontis is a white-hued star of magnitude
4.1, 63 light-years from Earth. Beta Chamaeleontis is a blue-white hued star of magnitude 4.2, 27
light-years from Earth. Gamma Chamaeleontis is a red-hued giant star of magnitude 4.1, 413 lightyears from Earth. The other bright star in Chamaeleon is Delta Chamaeleontis, a wide double star.
The brighter star is Delta2 Chamaeleontis, a blue-hued star of magnitude 4.4, 364 light-years from
Earth. Delta1 Chamaeleontis, the dimmer component, is an orange-hued giant star of magnitude
5.5, 354 light-years away.

A Hubble Space Telescope (HST) image of NGC 3195

NGC 3195 is a planetary nebula located in the constellation Chamaeleon. It is the most southern
of all the bright sizable planetary nebula in the sky, and remains invisible to all northern observers.

Discovered by Sir John Herschel in 1835, this 11.6 apparent magnitude planetary nebula is slightly
oval in shape, with dimensions of 4035 arc seconds. The nebula is fairly faint and appears in a
telescope at about the same apparent size as Jupiter. Spectroscopy reveals that NGC 3195 is
approaching Earth at 17 kilometres per second (11 mi/s). The central star is listed as >15.3V or
16.1B magnitude, and its distance is estimated at about 1.7 kpc.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_3195]

An infant star lights up the nebula IC 2631 in this remarkable new image from the MPG/ESO 2.2m telescope at ESOs La Silla Observatory, Chile.

IC 2631, also known as Ced 112 and BRAN 341C, is a so-called reflection nebula, a dust cloud
that reflects light from a nearby star into space, creating a stunning light show. This object is the
brightest nebula in the Chamaeleon Complex, a large region of gas and dust clouds that harbors
numerous newborn and still-forming stars. The complex is located in the southern constellation
Chamaeleon, approximately 500 light-years away.

IC 2631 is illuminated by a very young star known as HD 97300. Despite its dominating presence,
the heft of HD 97300 should be kept in perspective. It is a T Tauri star, the youngest visible stage
for relatively small stars. As these stars mature and reach adulthood they will lose mass and shrink.
But during the T Tauri phase these stars have not yet contracted to the more modest size that they
will maintain for billions of years as main sequence stars.

Reflection nebula, like the one spawned by HD 97300, merely scatter starlight back out into space.
Starlight that is more energetic, such as UV radiation pouring forth from very hot new stars, can
ionize nearby gas, making it emit light of its own. These emission nebulae indicate the presence
of hotter and more powerful stars, which in their maturity can be observed across thousands of
light-years.
[http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/reflection-nebula-ic2631-photo-03624.html]

Chamaeleon is also the location of Cha 110913, a unique dwarf star or proto solar system.
Furthermore, in 1999, a nearby open cluster was discovered centered on the star Chamaeleontis.
The cluster, known as either the Eta Chamaeleontis cluster or Mamajek 1, is just 8 million years
old, and lies 316 light years from Earth. Another characteristic of the constellation is a number of
molecular clouds (the Chamaeleon dark clouds) that are forming low-mass T Tauri stars. The cloud
complex lies some 400 to 600 light years from Earth, and contains tens of thousands of solar
masses of gas and dust. The most prominent cluster of T Tauri stars and young B-type stars are in
the Chamaeleon I cloud, and are associated with the reflection nebula IC 2631.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamaeleon]

Circinus

Circinus is a small faint constellation in the southern sky. Its name is Latin for compass, referring
to the drafting tool used for drawing circles (it should not be confused with Pyxis, a constellation
that represents a mariner's compass which points north). Bordered by Centaurus, Musca, Apus,
Triangulum Australe, Norma and Lupus, Circinus lies adjacent to the Alpha and Beta Centauri
stars. As it is at declination 50 to 70, the whole constellation is only visible south of latitude
30 N. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of the constellation lie
between 13h 38.4m and 15h 30.2m, and the declination coordinates are between 55.43 and
70.62. Circinus culminates each year at 9 p.m. on 30 July.

Circinus from the Uranographia of Johann Bode, with Triangulum Australe to its left and Norma
et Regula (the set square and ruler) just off the top of the picture. The bright star at the right is
Alpha Centauri.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/circinus.htm]

[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/lacaillenormaetc.htm]

Circinus was first defined in 1756 by French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, with the French
name le Compas, representing a pair of dividing compasses, on a chart of the southern sky. On the
chart, Lacaille portrayed the constellations of Norma, Circinus, and Triangulum Australe,
respectively, as a set square and ruler, a compass, and a surveyors level in a set of draughtsmans
instruments. Circinus was given its current name in 1763, when Lacaille published an updated sky
map with Latin names for the constellations he introduced.

[http://www.allthesky.com/constellations/cir85.html]

Circinus is a faint constellation, with only one star brighter than fourth magnitude. Alpha Circini,
a white main sequence star with an apparent magnitude of 3.19, is 54 light-years away and 4 south
of Alpha Centauri. Not only the brightest star in the constellation, it is also the brightest example
of a rapidly oscillating star in the night sky. It has an unusual spectral type, showing increased
emissions of strontium, chromium and europium. These stars have oddly localized magnetic fields
and are slightly variable. Alpha Circini forms a binary star system with an orange dwarf companion
of spectral type K5 and magnitude 8.5, which is only discernible with small telescopes with a
separation of 5.7 arcseconds. The distance between both stars is 260 AU and they take 2600 years
to rotate around a common center of gravity.

The second brightest star is Beta Circini, a white main sequence star of spectral type A3Va and a
magnitude of 4.07, about 100 light-years away. It has around 1.8 times the diameter of the Sun.

Gamma Circini is a binary star 450 light-years away, whose components need a telescope to be
seen. The brighter component is a bluish star of magnitude 4.51, while the dimmer component is
a yellow star of magnitude 5.5. They orbit each other every 180 years.

Several stars with planetary systems lie within the borders of Circinus, although none of the host
stars are particularly prominent. HD 134060 is a sun-like yellow dwarf star of magnitude 6.29,
around 79 light-years away. Its two planets were discovered in 2011 through the radial velocity
method: the smaller, HD 134060 b, has a mass of 0.0351 MJ (Jupiter masses) and orbits its star
every 3.27 days, at 0.0444 AU; and the larger, HD 134060 c (0.15 MJ), orbits farther out at 2.226
AU, with a period of approximately 1161 days. Even fainter, at magnitude 8.8, HD 129445 is 220
light-years away, and has 99% of the Suns mass and a similar spectral type of G8V. HD 129445
b, a Jupiter-like planet (1.6 MJ) discovered in 2010 via the radial velocity method, orbits this star
at a distance of 2.9 AU, approximately every 1840 days.

Three open clusters and a planetary nebula are found within the borders of Circinus, all visible
with amateur telescopes of varying sizes. NGC 5823, also called Caldwell 88, is an 800-millionyear-old open cluster, located 3500 light-years away and spanning a 12-light-year region along the
constellations northern border. Despite having an integrated magnitude of 7.9, the cluster can be
seen by star hopping from Beta Circini or from Alpha Centauri. It contains 80- 100 stars of 10th
magnitude and fainter, which are spread out over a diameter of 10 arcseconds. The brighter stars,
however, are not true members of the cluster, as they are closer to the Earth than the dimmer ones.
NGC 5823 appears distinct to the observer, sometimes seen as a reversed S, as described by John
Herschel, although it has also been described as tulip-shaped and boxy.

Comparatively, open cluster NGC 5715 is fainter (integrated magnitude of 9.8)- its brightest star
is only 11th magnitude- and smaller (7.0 arcminutes), comprising only 30 stars.

The third open cluster, Pismis 20, contains 12 stars in a diameter of 4.5 arcseconds but exhibits a
magnitude similar to NGC 5823 (7.8). At 8270 light-years, it requires an amateur telescope with
an aperture over 300 mm to be easily discerned.

A Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 5315

The planetary nebula NGC 5315 has a magnitude of 9.8 around a central star of magnitude 14.2,
located 5.2 degrees west-southwest of Alpha Circini. It is only visible as a disc at magnifications
over 200-fold.

The Circinus Galaxy

The Circinus Galaxy (ESO 97-G13) is a Type II Seyfert galaxy in the Circinus constellation- and
one of the closest to the Milky Way, though it is probably slightly further away than Centaurus A.
It is only 4 degrees below the Galactic plane, and 13 million light-years away. The galaxy is
undergoing tumultuous changes, as rings of gas are being ejected from the galaxy. The outermost
ring is 700 light-years from the center of the galaxy and the inner ring is 130 light-years out.
Although the Circinus galaxy can be seen using a small telescope, it was not noticed until 1977
because it lies close to the plane of the Milky Way and is obscured by galactic dust.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circinus_Galaxy]

Circinus X-1
The youngest member of an important class of objects has been found using data from NASAs
Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Australia Compact Telescope Array. A composite image
shows the X-rays in blue and radio emission in purple, which have been overlaid on an optical
field of view from the Digitized Sky Survey. This discovery allows scientists to study a critical
phase after a supernova and the birth of a neutron star.
Systems known as X-ray binaries are some of the brightest X-ray sources in the sky. They consist
of either an ultra-dense star packed with neutrons- a.k.a., a neutron star- or a black hole that is
paired with a normal star like the sun. As these two objects orbit one another, the neutron star or
black hole pulls material from the companion star onto it.

A new study shows that the X-ray binary called Circinus X-1 is less than 4,600 years old, making
it the youngest ever seen. Astronomers have detected hundreds of X-ray binaries throughout the

Milky Way and other nearby galaxies. However, these older X-ray binaries only reveal information
about what happens later in the evolution of these systems.

Astronomers were able to determine the age of Circinus X-1 by examining material around the
orbiting pair. While the source itself has been known for decades, the neutron star is usually so
bright that the glare from its X-ray light overwhelms any faint emission surrounding it. The new
Chandra data were obtained while the neutron star was in a very faint state, which meant it was
dim enough for astronomers to detect the faint afterglow created by the supernova explosion
plowing through the surrounding interstellar gas. This, combined with characteristics of the radio
emission, allowed the researchers to pinpoint the age of the supernova remnant. In turn, this
information reveals the age of the neutron star since they were formed at the same time.
[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/xray-binary-circinus-x1.html]

PSR B1509-58 is a pulsar (rotating neutron star) approximately 17,000 light-years away in the
constellation of Circinus discovered by the Einstein X-Ray Observatory in 1982. It is
approximately 1700 years old and sits in a nebula that spans about 150 light years. NASA
described the star as a rapidly spinning neutron star which is spewing energy out into the space
around it to create complex and intriguing structures, including one that resembles a large cosmic
hand. Spin rate is almost 7 times per second.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSR_B1509-58]

Infrared images from NASAs Spitzer Space Telescope and WISE are combined with X-ray data
from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton Observatory in this image of RCW
86 (the remnant of SN 185 supernova).

SN 185 refers to an AD 185 transient astronomical event that was likely a supernova. The transient
occurred in the direction of Alpha Centauri, between the constellations Circinus and Centaurus,
centered at RA 14h 43m Dec 62 30, in Circinus. This guest star was observed by Chinese
astronomers in the Book of Later Han, and might have been recorded in Roman literature. It
remained visible in the night sky for eight months. This is believed to be the first supernova for
which records exist.

The following record was given by the Chinese of the supernova:

In the 2nd year of the epoch Chung Ping, the 10th moon, on the day Kwei Hae [December 7], a
strange star appeared in the middle of Nan Mun [asterism containing Alpha Centauri], It was like
a large bamboo mat. It displayed the five colors, both pleasing and otherwise. It gradually lessened.
In the 6th moon of the succeeding year it disappeared.

The gaseous shell RCW 86 is probably the supernova remnant of this event and has a relatively
large angular size of roughly 45 arc minutes (larger than the apparent size of the full moon, which
varies from 29 to 34 arc minutes). The distance to RCW 86 is estimated to be 2,800 parsecs (9,100
light-years). Recent X-ray studies show a good match for the expected age.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_185]

Circinus is the radiant of an annual meteor shower, the Alpha Circinids (ACI). First observed in
Queensland in 1977, the meteors have an average velocity of 27.1 km/s and are thought to be
associated with a long-period comet. In 2011, Peter Jenniskens proposed that the debris trail of
comet C/1969 T1 could intersect with the Earths orbit and generate a meteor outburst coming
from a radiant close to Beta Circini. The ACI shower peaks on 4 June, the day it was first observed.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circinus]

Columba

Columba is a small, faint constellation created in the late sixteenth century. Its name is Latin for
dove. It is located just south of Canis Major and Lepus.

Columba with an olive branch in its beak as shown on Chart XVIII of the Uranographia of Johann
Bode (1801).
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/columba.htm]

Columba was created by Dutch astronomer Petrus Plancius in 1592 in order to differentiate the
unformed stars of the large constellation Canis Major. Plancius first depicted Columba on the
small celestial planispheres of his large wall map of 1592. It is also shown on his smaller world
map of 1594 and on early Dutch celestial globes.

Plancius originally named the constellation Columba Noachi (Noahs Dove), referring to the
dove that gave Noah the information that the Great Flood was receding. This name is found on
early 17th-century celestial globes and star atlases. Columba may also represent the dove released
by Jason and the Argonauts at the Black Seas mouth; it helped them navigate the dangerous
Symplegades.
Although the Plancius is credited with the creation of Columba, the existence of a dove
constellation was attested to by Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215), although it is not known

whether the same group of stars was contemplated. In addition, given the mythological linkage of
Columba with Jason and the Argonauts, the celestial location of Columba over Puppis, part of the
larger constellation once known as Argo Navis (the ship of the Argonauts), supports an ancient
derivation of this constellation, despite its notable omission by Ptolemy.

In the Society Islands, Alpha Columbae (Phact) was called Ana-iva.

In traditional Chinese uranography the constellation Columba lies across two of the quadrants that
divide the sky, symbolized by the The White Tiger of the West (X Fng Bi H) and The
Vermillion Bird of the South (Nn Fng Zh Qu). The name of the western constellation in
modern Chinese is (tin g zu), meaning the heaven dove constellation.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columba_%28Chinese_astronomy%29]

[http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/Col.html]

Columba is rather inconspicuous, the brightest star, Alpha Columbae, being only of magnitude
2.7. Alpha Columbae, a blue-white star, is traditionally called Phact, which means ring dove.
Alpha Columbae is 268 light-years from Earth.

The only other named star in Columba is Beta Columbae, which has the name Wazn. It is an
orange-hued giant star of magnitude 3.1, 86 light-years from Earth.

Columba is the constellation that is at the solar antapex- the Earth (and Sun) is moving away from
its direction as the solar system moves through space.

NGC 1792, a starburst galaxy in Columba

NGC 1792 is a barred spiral galaxy, located about 43 million light-years away from Earth in the
south-western corner of the small southern constellation of Columba (the Dove), while it is moving
away from us at 1211-1222 kilometers per second. It is a member of the NGC 1808 Group of
Galaxies.

This bright, large oval-shaped galaxy has a large core with a very bright nucleus. It appears brighter
along the western side of the major axis, with some areas of lower surface brightness what gives
us a hint of its spiral structure. The mass of NGC 1792 is very close to 18 billion solar masses.

The optical appearance of this starburst galaxy is quite chaotic, due to the patchy distribution of
dust throughout the disk of NGC 1792. It is very rich in neutral hydrogen gas- fuel for the
formation of new stars- and is indeed rapidly forming such stars.

The galaxy is characterized by unusually luminous far-infrared radiation, due to dust heated by
young stars.
[http://annesastronomynews.com/photo-gallery-ii/galaxies-clusters/ngc-1792/]

NGC 1808, a barred spiral galaxy in Columba

NGC 1808 is a barred spiral galaxy of some 35,000 light-years across, located about 40 million
light-years away in the southern constellation Columba. NGC 1808 is undergoing so much star
formation it has been deemed a starburst galaxy. The galaxy is moving away from us at 995
kilometers per second.

NGC 1808 is distinguished by a peculiar and complex nucleus, an unusually warped disk, and
strange flows of hydrogen gas out from the central regions. The galaxys center is the hotbed of
vigorous star formation.

The starburst must be at least 50 million years old, and can be no older than 100 million years old.
Star formation has been rapid and continuous. Without an influx of fresh molecular gas into the
central region, the star forming activity can only be maintained at this rate for another 6 to 20
million years.

NGC 1808 is called a barred spiral galaxy because of the straight lines of star formation on both
sides of the bright nucleus. This star formation may have been triggered by the rotation of the bar,
or by matter which is streaming along the bar towards the nuclear region (feeding the starburst).
Filaments of dust are being ejected from the core into the galactic halo by massive stars that have
exploded as supernovae in the starburst region.

The outer spiral arms of the galaxy are warped with respect to the inner arms (which display a
prominent dark dust lane). This is evidence that NGC 1808 may have had a tidal interaction with
the nearby galaxy NGC 1792. Such an interaction could have created the bar morphology, and
hurled gas towards the nucleus of NGC 1808, igniting the exceptional burst of star formation seen
there.

Stars are often born in compact clusters within starbursts, while dense gas and dust heavily often
obscures these starburst region. In NGC 1808 are star formation regions in the bar and also many
young star clusters in the nucleus of NGC 1808. The nucleus of the galaxy show two maxima.
Either the galaxy has two nuclei (from a previous merger), or one of the dusty filaments happens
to bisect the nucleus along our line of sight.

NGC 1808 is also a prominent radio source. The radio emission is produced by supernova
remnants, of which supernova 1993af has been observed.
[http://annesastronomynews.com/photo-gallery-ii/galaxies-clusters/ngc-1808/]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columba_%28constellation%29]

Coma Berenices

Coma Berenices is the 42nd constellation in size, occupying an area of 386 square degrees. It lies
in the third quadrant of the northern hemisphere (NQ3) and can be seen at latitudes between +90
and -70. The neighboring constellations are Botes, Canes Venatici, Leo, Ursa Major, and Virgo.
[http://www.constellationsofwords.com/Constellations/ComaBerenices.html]

[http://blog.simulationcurriculum.com/articles/2015/6/2/constellation-in-focus-for-june-comaberenices]

[http://arksky.org/aso/aso-guides/aso-constellation-guides/78-bootes-corona-borealis-comaberenices]

Coma Berenices is located near Arcturus, and the constellation Leo to which it formerly belonged.
It contains the North Galactic Pole, at right ascension 12h 51m 25s and declination +27 07 48
(epoch J2000.0).

Coma Berenices, the flowing tresses of an Egyptian queen, from the Uranographia of Johann Bode
(1801). The nebulous mass described by Ptolemy that formed the basis of the constellation is in
the upper right part of the illustration, on the crown of the hair.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/comaberenices.htm]

Coma Berenices is one of the few constellations to owe its name to a historical figure, in this case
Queen Berenice II of Egypt, wife of Ptolemy III Euergetes (fl. 246 BCE- 221 BCE), the king under
whom Alexandria became an important cultural center. In 243 BCE, during the Third Syrian War,

Ptolemy undertook a dangerous expedition against the Seleucids, who had murdered his sister. His
newlywed bride, Berenice, swore to the goddess Aphrodite to sacrifice her long, blonde hair, of
which she was extremely proud, if her husband returned safely. He did, so she cut her hair and
placed it in the goddesss temple. By the next morning the hair had disappeared. To appease the
furious king the court astronomer, Conon, announced that the offering had so pleased the goddess
that she had placed it in the sky. He indicated a cluster of stars that have since been called
Berenices Hair.
Eratosthenes referred to Coma Berenices as both Ariadnes Hair and Berenices Hair. Ptolemy
referred to it as the lock of hair; however, he did not list it as one of his 48 constellations,
considering it to be a part of Leo, specifically, the tuft at the end of the lions tail. Tycho Brahe,
who is usually given credit for Comas promotion to constellation status, listed it in his star
catalogue of 1602, but it originally occurred on a celestial globe by the cartographer Caspar Vopel
from 1536. Gerardus Mercator has also been credited as its promoter in 1551. Coma Berenices and
the now-defunct constellation Antinous are considered to be the first post-Ptolemaic constellations
to be depicted on a celestial globe.

In Chinese astronomy, the stars of Coma Berenices are located in two areas: the Supreme Palace
enclosure (Ti Wi Yun) and the Azure Dragon of the East (Dng Fng Qng Lng).

The asterism of Coma Berenices was recognized by several Polynesian peoples. The people of
Pukapuka likely called it Te Yiku-o-te-kiole; the people of Tonga had three different names. These
included Fatana-lua, Fata-olunga (also Fata-lalo), and Kapakau-o-Tafahi.

Though the formal constellation of Coma Berenices is focused on the Coma Berenices Cluster
(seen just to the right of center), it covers much more territory, and includes. Diadem (Alpha
Comae), and Beta (unnamed). Of the three indicated stars, only Gamma is part of the cluster. Coma
Berenices is just south of Canes Venatici, the two constellations seen to the west of Bootes. Coma
Berenices contains the North Galactic Pole (NGP), the northern perpendicular to the Milky Way,
which is well marked by 31 Comae, Polaris Galacticus Borealis. The South Galactic Pole is in
Sculptor.
[http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/com-t.html]

Coma Berenices is not particularly bright, having no stars brighter than fourth magnitude. Beta
Comae Berenices is the brightest star in the constellation, at magnitude 4.2; it is 30 light-years
from Earth. Like the Sun, it is a yellow-hued main-sequence star. It is intrinsically only slightly
brighter than the Sun, which gives an idea of how faint the Sun would appear seen from Beta
Comaes distance.
The second brightest star in Coma Berenices is Comae Berenices also called Diadem. The name
represents the gem in Berenices crown. It is a binary star, with two components of almost equal
magnitude. To the naked eye, it appears to be one star of magnitude 4.3. Because the orbital plane
is so close to the Earths line of sight, it was long suspected of being an eclipsing binary, but it

now appears that the orbital tilt is 0.1 relative to the line of sight, so the stars do not eclipse each
other as seen from Earth. The two components are slightly yellow-tinged; both are of magnitude
5.1. This binary has a period of 26 years and is 47 light-years from Earth.

Gamma Comae Berenices, which is superimposed on the Coma Star Cluster, is an orange-hued
giant star of magnitude 4.4, 170 light-years from Earth.

Although Coma Berenices is not a large constellation, it contains eight Messier objects. The
constellation is rich in galaxies, containing the northern part of the Virgo cluster. There are also
several globular clusters to be seen. These objects can be seen with minimal obscuration from dust
because the constellation is not in the direction of the galactic plane (the North Pole of the galactic
plane is in this constellation). However, because of this fact, there are few open clusters (except
for the Coma Berenices Cluster, which dominates the northern part of the constellation), diffuse
nebulae, or planetary nebulae.

[http://www.allthesky.com/constellations/com85.html]

Image of the cluster taken by an astronaut on the International Space Station

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coma_Star_Cluster]

The Coma Berenices Cluster does not have a Messier or an NGC designation, but it is in the
Melotte catalogue of open clusters, where it is designated Melotte 111. It is a large, diffuse open
cluster of about 50 stars that range between 5th and 10th magnitudes, including several of the
naked eye stars in the constellation. 12 Comae Berenices, at magnitude 4.8, is the clusters
brightest member. The cluster is spread over a huge region, more than 5 degrees across, near
Coma Berenices. The cluster has such a large apparent size because it is relatively nearby, only
288 light years away.

Black Eye Galaxy (M64, NGC 4826)

A relatively nearby spiral galaxy, in the constellation Coma Berenices, with a conspicuous dark
feature to one side of the bright nucleus; discovered by Johan Bode in 1779, it is also called the
Sleeping Beauty Galaxy. Although M64 can be glimpsed with good binoculars, the oval eye only
starts to show in telescopes of 10 to 15 cm aperture.

M64 has two counter-rotating systems of stars and gas in its disk: an inner zone, about 3,000 lightyears in radius that rubs along the inner edge of an outer disk, which rotates in the opposite
direction at about 300 km /s and extends out to at least 40,000 light-years. This rubbing may
explain the vigorous burst of star formation that is currently taking place in the galaxy and is visible
as blue knots embedded in the huge dust lane.

The strange disk and dust lane, according to one theory, may be the result of material from a former
companion galaxy that has been accreted but has yet to settle into the orbital plane of the disk.
Another suggestion is that M64 may be the prototype for a class of galaxies called ESWAG, or
evolved second wave activity galaxy. According to this idea, the main spiral pattern consists of an

intermediate-aged stellar population. Star formation first evolved outside, following the density
gradient, manufacturing stars as long as there was enough interstellar matter available, and then
slowly died out. As matter was re-released into space from the evolved stars, by way of stellar
winds, supernovae, and planetary nebulae, more and more interstellar matter accumulated again,
until finally there was enough to enable a new wave of star formation to begin. This second wave,
the theory maintains, has now reached the region where the dark dust lane appears.
[http://baranobservatory.com/node/67]

M64 is 24 7 million light-years away.

NGC 4414 as observed by the Hubble Space Telescope

NGC 4414 is an unbarred spiral galaxy about 62 million light-years away in the constellation Coma
Berenices. It is a flocculent spiral galaxy, with short segments of spiral structure but without the
dramatic well-defined spiral arms of a grand design spiral. In 1974 a supernova, SN 1974G, was
observed and was the only supernova in this galaxy to be recorded until June 7, 2013 when SN
2013df was discovered at Magnitude 14.

It was imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995, as part of the HSTs main mission to
determine the distance to galaxies, and again in 1999 as part of the Hubble Heritage project. It has
been part of an ongoing effort to study its Cepheid variable stars. The outer arms appear blue due
to the continuing formation of young stars and include a possible Luminous Blue Variable with an
absolute magnitude of 10.

NGC 4414 is also a very isolated galaxy without signs of past interactions with other galaxies and
despite not being a starburst galaxy shows a high density and richness of gas - both atomic and
molecular, with the former extending far beyond its optical disk.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_4414]

NGC 4565 or Needle Galaxy

NGC 4565 (also known as the Needle Galaxy or Caldwell 38) is an edge-on spiral galaxy about
30 to 50 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices.

The 10th magnitude galaxy sits perpendicular to our own Milky Way galaxy and is almost directly
above the North Galactic Pole (in the same way Polaris is located above the Earths North Pole).

It is known as the Needle Galaxy for its narrow profile. First spotted in 1785 by Sir William
Herschel (1738-1822), it is one of the most famous examples of an edge-on spiral galaxy. Visible

through a small telescope, some sky enthusiasts consider NGC 4565 to be a prominent celestial
masterpiece Messier missed.

NGC 4565 is a giant spiral galaxy more luminous than the Andromeda Galaxy and it has been
proposed that if it were viewed face-on, it would be the most spectacular of the galaxies of its type
in the nearby Universe.

Much speculation exists in the literature as to the nature of the central bulge. In the absence of
clear-cut dynamical data on the motions of stars in the bulge, the photometric data alone cannot
adjudge among various options put forth. However, its exponential shape suggested that it is a
barred spiral galaxy. Subsequent studies with the help of the Spitzer Space Telescope not only
confirmed the presence of a central bar but also showed a pseudo-bulge within it as well as an
inner ring.

NGC 4565 has at least two companion galaxies, one of which is interacting with it. It has a
population of roughly 240 globular clusters, more than the Milky Way.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_4565]

The Mice Galaxies, NGC 4676A (right)/NGC 4676B (left)

NGC 4676, or the Mice Galaxies, are two spiral galaxies in the constellation Coma Berenices.
About 290 million light-years away, they began the process of colliding and merging about 290
million years ago. Their name refers to the long tails produced by tidal action- the relative
difference between gravitational pulls on the near and far parts of each galaxy- known here as a
galactic tide. Members of the Coma cluster, it is a possibility that both galaxies have experienced
collision, and will continue colliding until they coalesce.

The colors of the galaxy are peculiar. In the upper galaxy (NGC 4676A, to the right in the photo),
a core with some dark markings is surrounded by a bluish white remnant of spiral arms. The tail
is unusual, starting out blue and terminating in a more yellowish color, despite the fact that the
beginning of each arm in virtually every spiral galaxy starts yellow and terminates in a bluish

color. The lower galaxy (NGC 4676B, to the left) is closer to normal, with a yellowish core and
two arcs; arm remnants underneath are bluish as well.

The galaxies were photographed in 2002 by the Hubble Space Telescope.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mice_Galaxies]

A Sloan Digital Sky Survey/Spitzer Space Telescope mosaic of the Coma Cluster in longwavelength infrared (red), short-wavelength infrared (green), and visible light. The many faint
green smudges are dwarf galaxies in the cluster.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSFC/SDSS

The Coma Cluster (Abell 1656) is a large cluster of galaxies that contains over 1,000 identified
galaxies. Along with the Leo Cluster (Abell 1367), it is one of the two major clusters comprising
the Coma Supercluster. It is located in and takes its name from the constellation Coma Berenices.
The clusters mean distance from Earth is 99 Mpc (321 million light years). Its ten brightest spiral
galaxies have apparent magnitudes of 12-14 that are observable with amateur telescopes larger
than 20 cm. The central region is dominated by two supergiant elliptical galaxies: NGC 4874 and
NGC 4889. The cluster is within a few degrees of the north galactic pole on the sky. Most of the
galaxies that inhabit the central portion of the Coma Cluster are ellipticals. Both dwarf and giant
ellipticals are found in abundance in the Coma Cluster.

The Coma Cluster is one of the first places where observed gravitational anomalies were
considered to be indicative of unobserved mass. In 1933 Fritz Zwicky showed that the galaxies of
the Coma Cluster were moving too fast for the cluster to be bound together by the visible matter
of its galaxies. Though the idea of dark matter would not be accepted for another fifty years,
Zwicky even wrote that the galaxies must be held together by some dunkle Materie (dark matter).

About 90% of the mass of the Coma cluster is believed to be in the form of dark matter. However,
the distribution of dark matter throughout the cluster is poorly constrained.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coma_Cluster]

Quasar PG1247+26 is the brightest quasar visible in Coma Berenices. As well, W Com was
originally identified as a variable star and so given a variable star designation, but later discovered
to be a BL Lacertae object. It is normally around magnitude 16.5 m, but has been known to reach
12th magnitude.

Comae Berenicids meteor shower

Comae Berenicids meteor streams are groups of meteoroids originating from dust grains ejected
from an unknown comet. These small dust grains (meteoroids) are distributed along the parent
comet's orbit concentrated close to the comet nucleus with fewer grains farther away from the
nucleus. Every time the Earth passes through this stream of dust particles (i.e. meteor stream), we
experience what is known as a Comae Berenicids meteor shower. These brief streaks of light from
meteors, sometimes called "shooting stars", peak on Sunday night the 25th December 2016 when
earth moves through the center of the dust trail left behind by the comet.

To view the Comae Berenicids, go outside, find a dark spot and look north-east near the
constelation of Coma Berenicis for the Comae Berenicids radiant. Meteor showers are strictly for
night owls or early risers. The best time to view the Comae Berenicids is from around 2h15 in the
early morning to dawn. You should be able to see 5 streaks an hour or more during the peak. The
Comae Berenicids meteor shower is active from the 12th Dec to 23rd Jan with fewer activity either
side of the peak time.

[http://www.bashewa.com/wxmeteor-showers.php?shower=Comae+Berenicids]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coma_Berenices]

Corona Australis

Corona Australis or Corona Austrina is a constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere. Its
Latin name means southern crown, and it is the southern counterpart of Corona Borealis, the
Northern Crown. Corona Australis is a small constellation bordered by Sagittarius to the north,
Scorpius to the west, Telescopium to the south, and Ara to the southwest. Although fainter than its
namesake, the oval- or horseshoe-shaped pattern of its brighter stars renders it distinctive. In the
equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of the constellation lie between 17h
58.3m and 19h 19.0m, while the declination coordinates are between 36.77 and 45.52.
Covering 128 square degrees, Corona Australis culminates at midnight around the 30th of June
and ranks 80th in area. Only visible at latitudes south of 53 north, Corona Australis cannot be

seen from the British Isles as it lies too far south, but it can be seen from southern Europe and
readily from the southern United States.

Corona Australis depicted in the Atlas Coelestis of John Flamsteed

Corona Australis may have been recorded by ancient Mesopotamians in the MUL.APIN, as a
constellation called MA.GUR (The Bark). However, this constellation, adjacent to
SUHUR.MASH (The Goat-Fish, modern Capricornus), may instead have been modern Epsilon
Sagittarii. As a part of the southern sky, MA.GUR was one of the fifteen stars of Ea.

In the 3rd century BCE, the Greek didactic poet Aratus wrote of, but did not name the constellation,
instead calling the two crowns (Stephanoi, Wreaths). The Greek astronomer Ptolemy
described the constellation in the 2nd century AD, though with the inclusion of Alpha Telescopii,
since transferred to Telescopium. Ascribing 13 stars to the constellation, he named it
(Stephanos notios), Southern Wreath, while other authors associated it with either
Sagittarius (having fallen off his head) or Centaurus; with the former, it was called Corona
Sagittarii. Similarly, the Romans called Corona Australis the Golden Crown of Sagittarius. It

was known as Parvum Coelum (Canopy, Little Sky) in the 5th century. The 18th-century
French astronomer Jrme Lalande gave it the names Sertum Australe (Southern Garland) and
Orbiculus Capitis, while German poet and author Philippus Caesius called it Corolla (Little
Crown) or Spira Australis (Southern Coil), and linked it with the Crown of Eternal Life from
the New Testament. Seventeenth-century celestial cartographer Julius Schiller linked it to the
Diadem of Solomon. Sometimes, Corona Australis was not the wreath of Sagittarius but arrows
held in his hand.

Corona Australis has been associated with the myth of Bacchus and Stimula. Jupiter had
impregnated Stimula, causing Juno to become jealous. Juno convinced Stimula to ask Jupiter to
appear in his full splendor, which the mortal woman could not handle, causing her to burn. After
Bacchus, Stimulas unborn child, became an adult and the god of wine, he honored his deceased
mother by placing a wreath in the sky.

In Chinese astronomy, the stars of Corona Australis are located within the Black Tortoise of the
North (Bi Fng Xun W). The constellation itself was known as tien pieh (Heavenly Turtle)
and during the Western Zhou period, marked the beginning of winter. However, precession over
time has meant that the Heavenly River (Milky Way) became the more accurate marker to the
ancient Chinese and hence supplanted the turtle in this role.
Arabic names for Corona Australis include Al ubbah the Tortoise, Al ib the Tent or Al
Ud al Nam the Ostrich Nest. It was later given the name Al Ikll al Janbiyyah, which the
European authors Chilmead, Riccioli and Caesius transliterated as Alachil Elgenubi, Elkleil
Elgenubi and Aladil Algenubi respectively.
The Xam speaking San people of South Africa knew the constellation as nabbe ta !nu house of
branches- owned originally by the Dassie (rock hyrax), and the star pattern depicting people
sitting in a semicircle around a fire.

The indigenous Boorong people of northwestern Victoria, Australia, saw it as Won, a boomerang
thrown by Totyarguil (Altair). The Aranda people of Central Australia saw Corona Australis as a

coolamon carrying a baby, which was accidentally dropped to earth by a group of sky-women
dancing in the Milky Way. The impact of the coolamon created Gosses Bluff crater, 175 km west
of Alice Springs.

The Torres Strait Islanders saw Corona Australis as part of a larger constellation encompassing
part of Sagittarius and the tip of Scorpiuss tail; the Pleiades and Orion were also associated. This
constellation was Tagais canoe, crewed by the Pleiades, called the Usiam, and Orion, called the
Seg. The myth of Tagai says that he was in charge of this canoe, but his crewmen consumed all of
the supplies onboard without asking permission. Enraged, Tagai bound the Usiam with a rope and
tied them to the side of the boat, then threw them overboard. Scorpius's tail represents a suckerfish,
while Eta Sagittarii and Theta Coronae Australis mark the bottom of the canoe. On the island of
Futuna, the figure of Corona Australis was called Tanuma and in the Tuamotus, it was called Na
Kaua-ki-Tonga.

[http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/CrA.html]

[http://www.peoplesguidetothecosmos.com/constellations/coronaaustralis.htm]

Though Corona Australis has no stars brighter than 4th magnitude, it still has 21 stars visible to
the unaided eye (brighter than magnitude 5.5). Nicolas Louis de Lacaille used the Greek letters
Alpha through to Lambda to label the most prominent eleven stars in the constellation, designating
two stars as Eta and omitting Iota altogether. Mu Coronae Australis, a yellow star of spectral type
G5.5III and apparent magnitude 5.21, was labelled by Johann Elert Bode and retained by Benjamin
Gould, who deemed it bright enough to warrant naming.

The only star in the constellation to have received a name is Alfecca Meridiana or Alpha CrA. The
name combines the Arabic name of the constellation with the Latin for southern. In Arabic,
Alfecca means break, and refers to the shape of both Corona Australis and Corona Borealis. Also
called simply Meridiana, it is a white main sequence star located 130 light years away from

Earth, with an apparent magnitude of 4.10 and spectral type A2Va. A rapidly rotating star, it spins
at almost 200 km per second at its equator, making a complete revolution in around 14 hours. Like
the star Vega, it has excess infrared radiation, which indicates it may be ringed by a disk of dust.
It is currently a main-sequence star, but will eventually evolve into a white dwarf; currently, it has
a luminosity 31 times greater, and a radius and mass of 2.3 times that of the Sun.

Beta Coronae Australis is an orange giant 510 light years from Earth. Its spectral type is K0II, and
it is of apparent magnitude 4.11. Since its formation, it has evolved from a B-type star to a K-type
star. Its luminosity class places it as a bright giant; its luminosity is 730 times that of the Sun,
designating it one of the highest-luminosity K0-type stars visible to the naked eye. 100 million
years old, it has a radius of 43 solar radii and a mass of between 4.5 and 5 solar masses. Alpha and
Beta are so similar as to be indistinguishable in brightness to the naked eye.

Some of the more prominent double stars include Gamma Coronae Australis- a pair of yellowish
white stars 58 light years away from Earth, which orbit each other every 122 years. Widening since
1990, the two stars can be seen as separate with a 100 mm aperture telescope; they are separated
by 1.3 arcseconds at an angle of 61 degrees. They have a combined visual magnitude of 4.2; each
component is a dwarf star with a magnitude of 5.01.

Epsilon Coronae Australis is an eclipsing binary belonging to a class of stars known as W Ursae
Majoris variables. These star systems are known as contact binaries as the component stars are so
close together they touch. Varying by a quarter of a magnitude around an average apparent
magnitude of 4.83 every seven hours, the star system lies 98 light years away.

At the southern end of the crown asterism are the stars Eta and Eta Coronae Australis, which
form an optical double. Of magnitude 5.1 and 5.5, they are separable with the naked eye and are
both white.

Kappa Coronae Australis is an easily resolved optical double- the components are of apparent
magnitudes 6.3 and 5.7 and are 1700 and 490 light years away respectively. They appear at an

angle of 359 degrees, separated by 21.6 arcseconds. Kappa is actually the brighter of the pair and
is more bluish white.

Stars and Dust across Corona Australis

Cosmic dust clouds sprawl across a rich field of stars in this sweeping telescopic vista near the
northern boundary of Corona Australis, the Southern Crown. Probably less than 500 light-years
away and effectively blocking light from more distant, background stars in the Milky Way, the
densest part of the dust cloud is about 8 light-years long. At its tip (upper right) is a group of lovely
reflection nebulae cataloged as NGC 6726, 6727, 6729, and IC 4812. A characteristic blue color
is produced as light from hot stars is reflected by the cosmic dust. The smaller yellowish nebula
(NGC 6729) surrounds young variable star R Coronae Australis. Magnificent globular star cluster

NGC 6723 is toward the upper right corner of the view. While NGC 6723 appears to be part of the
group, it actually lies nearly 30,000 light-years away, far beyond the Corona Australis dust clouds.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120927.html]

In the north of the constellation is the Corona Australis Molecular Cloud, a dark molecular cloud
with many embedded reflection nebulae, including NGC 6729, NGC 6726- 6727, and IC 4812. It
is a star-forming region of around 7000 solar masses, which contains proto-stars and some very
young stars. About 430 light years (130 parsecs) away, it is one of the closest star-forming regions
to the Solar System. The related NGC 6726 and 6727, along with unrelated NGC 6729, were first
recorded by Johann Friedrich Julius Schmidt in 1865. The Coronet cluster, about 554 light years
(170 parsecs) away at the edge of the Gould Belt, is also used in studying star and protoplanetary
disk formation.

The star-forming region around NGC 6726 in the southern constellation of Corona Australis
(Southern Crown) about 400 - 500 light years distant is a complex association of dust, beautiful

blue reflection nebula and unusual objects referred to as Herbig-Haro (HH) objects. The image
above is 34 arcminutes square and north us up. Since there are so many different objects present,
an annotated image is presented below for reference. NGC 6726/6727 and IC 4812 are blue
reflection nebulae, where bright stars are embedded in a large cloud of dust which reflects the blue
light of the stars. NGC 6729 is a butterfly-shaped emission/reflection object that is a variable
nebula, powered by the irregular variable star, R Coronae Australis (R CrA). R CrA was discovered
about 100 years ago. HH objects are shown as delicate, small arcs of glowing gas. They originate
as energetic outflows from embryonic stars that are still forming and cloaked inside gas and dust.
Bernes 157 is dark nebula that is so dense that stars inside the nebula and behind it cannot shine
through. The Corona Australis star forming region has incredible diversity and is a wonderful
imaging target.
[http://astrodonimaging.com/gallery/ngc-6726/]

R Coronae Australis is an irregular blue-white variable star ranging from magnitudes 9.7 to 13.9.
A very young star, it is still accumulating interstellar material. It is obscured by, and illuminates,
the surrounding nebula, NGC 6729, which brightens and darkens with it. The nebula is often
compared to a comet for its appearance in a telescope, as its length is five times its width. Nearby,
another young blue-white variable star, TY Coronae Australis, illuminates another nebula:
reflection nebula NGC 67267. TY Coronae Australis ranges irregularly between magnitudes 8.7
and 12.4, and the brightness of the nebula varies with it. The largest young stars in the region, R,
S, T, TY and VV Coronae Australis, are all ejecting jets of material which cause surrounding dust
and gas to coalesce and form Herbig- Haro objects, many of which have been identified nearby.
Lying adjacent to the nebulosity is the globular cluster known as NGC 6723, which is actually in
the neighboring constellation of Sagittarius and is much further away.

Near Epsilon and Gamma Coronae Australis is Bernes 157, a dark nebula and star forming region.
It is a large nebula, 55 by 18 arcminutes, that possesses several stars around magnitude 13. These
stars have been dimmed by up to 8 magnitudes by its dust clouds.

Halfway between Theta Coronae Australis and Theta Scorpii is the dense globular cluster NGC
6541. Described as between magnitude 6.3 and magnitude 6.6, it is visible in binoculars and small

telescopes. Around 22000 light years away, it is around 100 light years in diameter. It is estimated
to be around 14 billion years old. NGC 6541 appears 13.1 arcminutes in diameter and is somewhat
resolvable in large amateur instruments; a 12-inch telescope reveals approximately 100 stars but
the core remains unresolved.

The Corona Australids are a meteor shower that takes place between 14 and 18 March each year,
peaking around 16 March. This meteor shower does not have a high peak hourly rate. In 1953 and
1956, observers noted a maximum of 6 meteors per hour and 4 meteors per hour respectively; in
1955 the shower was barely resolved. However, in 1992, astronomers detected a peak rate of 45
meteors per hour. The Corona Australids rate varies from year to year. At only six days, the
showers duration is particularly short, and its meteoroids are small; the stream is devoid of large
meteoroids. The Corona Australids were first seen with the unaided eye in 1935 and first observed
with radar in 1955. Corona Australid meteors have an entry velocity of 45 kilometers per second.
In 2006, a shower originating near Beta Coronae Australis was designated as the Beta Coronae
Australids. They appear in May, the same month as a nearby shower known as the May
Microscopids, but the two showers have different trajectories and are unlikely to be related.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona_Australis]

Corona Borealis

Corona Borealis is a small constellation in the Northern Celestial Hemisphere. Its brightest stars
form a semicircular arc. Its Latin name, inspired by its shape, means northern crown. Covering
179 square degrees and hence 0.433% of the sky, Corona Borealis ranks 73rd of the 88 modern
constellations by area. Its position in the Northern Celestial Hemisphere means that the whole
constellation is visible to observers north of 50S. It is bordered by Botes to the north and west,
Serpens Caput to the south, and Hercules to the east. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right
ascension coordinates of the constellation lie between 15h 16.0m and 16h 25.1m, while the
declination coordinates are between 39.71 and 25.54. It has a counterpart- Corona Australis- in
the Southern Celestial Hemisphere.

Hercules and Corona Borealis, as depicted in Uranias Mirror (c.1825)

In Greek mythology, Corona Borealis was linked to the legend of Theseus and the minotaur. It
was generally considered to represent a crown given by Dionysus to Ariadne, the daughter of
Minos of Crete, after she had been abandoned by the Athenian prince Theseus. When she wore the
crown at her marriage to Dionysus, he placed it in the heavens to commemorate their wedding. An
alternate version has the besotted Dionysus give the crown to Ariadne, who in turn gives it to
Theseus after he arrives in Crete to kill the minotaur that the Cretans have demanded tribute from
Athens to feed. The hero uses the crowns light to escape the labyrinth after disposing of the
creature, and Dionysus later sets it in the heavens.

The Latin author Hyginus linked it to a crown or wreath worn by Bacchus (Dionysus) to disguise
his appearance when first approaching Mount Olympus and revealing himself to the gods, having
been previously hidden as yet another child of Jupiters trysts with a mortal, in this case Semele.

In Welsh mythology, it was called Caer Arianrhod, the Castle of the Silver Circle, and was the
heavenly abode of the Lady Arianrhod. Corona Borealis was one of the 48 constellations
mentioned in the Almagest of classical astronomer Ptolemy.

The Arabs called the constellation Alphecca (a name later given to Alpha Coronae Borealis), which
means separated or broken up, a reference to the resemblance of the stars of Corona Borealis
to a loose string of jewels. This was also interpreted as a broken dish. Among the Bedouins, the
constellation was known as qaat al-maskn, or the dish/bowl of the poor people.

The Skidi people of Native Americans saw the stars of Corona Borealis representing a council of
stars whose chief was Polaris. The constellation also symbolised the smokehole over a fireplace,
which conveyed their messages to the gods, as well as how chiefs should come together to consider
matters of importance. The Shawnee people saw the stars as the Heavenly Sisters, who descended
from the sky every night to dance on earth. Alphecca signifies the youngest and most comely sister,
who was seized by a hunter who transformed into a field mouse to get close to her. They married
though she later returned to the sky, with her heartbroken husband and son following later. The
Mikmaq of eastern Canada saw Corona Borealis as Mskegwm, the den of the celestial bear
(Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta Ursae Majoris).

Polynesian peoples often recognized Corona Borealis; the people of the Tuamotus named it Na
Kaua-ki-tokerau and probably Te Hetu. The constellation was likely called Kaua-mea in Hawaii,
Rangawhenua in New Zealand, and Te Wale-o-Awitu in the Cook Islands atoll of Pukapuka. Its
name in Tonga was uncertain; it was either called Ao-o-Uvea or Kau-kupenga.
In Australian Aboriginal astronomy, the constellation is called womera (the boomerang) due to
the shape of the stars. The Wailwun people of northwestern New South Wales saw Corona Borealis
as mullion wollai eagles nest, with Altair and Vega- each called mullion- the pair of eagles
accompanying it. The Wardaman people of northern Australia held the constellation to be a
gathering point for Mens Law, Women's Law and Law of both sexes come together and consider
matters of existence.

[http://www.thespacewriter.com/2003_04_01_thespacewriter_archive.html]
Within the constellations borders, there are 37 stars brighter than or equal to apparent magnitude
6.5. The seven stars that make up the constellations distinctive crown-shaped pattern are all 4thmagnitude stars except for the brightest of them, Alpha Coronae Borealis.

Also called Alphekka or Gemma, Alpha Coronae Borealis appears as a blue-white star of
magnitude 2.2. In fact, it is an Algol-type eclipsing binary that varies by 0.1 magnitude with a
period of 17.4 days. The primary is a white main-sequence star that is 2.91 times the mass of the
Sun and 57 times as luminous, and is surrounded by a debris disk out to a radius of around 60
astronomical units (AU). The secondary companion is a yellow main-sequence star that is a little
smaller (0.9 times) the diameter of the Sun. Lying 750.5 light-years from Earth, Alphekka is
believed to be a member of the Ursa Major Moving Group of stars that have a common motion
through space.

Located 1123 light-years away, Beta Coronae Borealis or Nusakan is a spectroscopic binary
system whose two components are separated by 10 AU and orbit each other every 10.5 years. The
brighter component is a rapidly oscillating star, pulsating with a period of 16.2 minutes. With a
surface temperature of around 7980 K, it has around 2.1 solar masses, 2.6 solar radii, and
luminosity 25.3 suns. The smaller star has a surface temperature of around 6750 K, and around 1.4
solar masses, 1.56 solar radii, and luminosity between 4 and 5 times that of the sun.

Near Nusakan is Theta Coronae Borealis, a binary system that shines with a combined magnitude
of 4.13 located 38020 light-years distant. The brighter component, Theta Coronae Borealis A, is
a blue-white star that spins extremely rapidly- at a rate of around 393 km per second. It is
surrounded by a debris disk.

Flanking Alpha to the east is Gamma Coronae Borealis, yet another binary star system, whose
components orbit each other every 92.94 years and are roughly as far apart from each other as the
Sun and Neptune. The components are main sequence stars.

Located 1702 light-years away, 4.06-magnitude Delta Coronae Borealis is a yellow giant star
that is around 2.4 solar masses and has swollen to 7.4 solar radii. It has a surface temperature of
5180 K. For most of its existence, Delta Coronae Borealis was a blue-white main-sequence star of
spectral type B before it ran out of hydrogen fuel in its core. Its luminosity and spectrum suggest,
having finished burning core hydrogen, has just begun burning hydrogen in a shell that surrounds
the core.

The spectrum of Epsilon Coronae Borealis was analyzed for seven years from 2005 to 2012,
revealing a planet around 6.7 times as massive as Jupiter (MJ) orbiting every 418 days at an
average distance of around 1.3 AU. Epsilon itself is a 1.7 solar masses orange giant of spectral
type K2III that has swollen to 21 solar radii and 151 solar luminosities.

Corona Borealis is home to two remarkable variable stars. T Coronae Borealis is a cataclys mic
variable star also known as the Blaze Star. Normally placid around magnitude 10- it has a
minimum of 10.2 and maximum of 9.9- it brightens to magnitude 2 in a period of hours, caused

by a nuclear chain reaction and the subsequent explosion. T Coronae Borealis is one of a handful
of stars called recurrent novae, which include T Pyxidis and U Scorpii. An outburst of T Coronae
Borealis was first recorded in 1866; its second recorded outburst was in February 1946. T Coronae
Borealis is a binary star with a red-hued giant primary and a white dwarf secondary, the two stars
orbiting each other over a period of approximately 8 months.

R Coronae Borealis is a yellow-hued variable supergiant star, over 7000 light-years from Earth,
and prototype of a class of stars known as R Coronae Borealis variables. Normally of magnitude
6, its brightness periodically drops as low as magnitude 15 and then slowly increases over the next
several months. These declines in magnitude come about as dust that has been ejected from the
star obscures it. Direct imaging with the Hubble Space Telescope shows extensive dust clouds out
to a radius of around 2000 AU from the star, corresponding with a stream of fine dust (composed
of grains 5 nm in diameter) associated with the stars stellar wind and coarser dust (composed of
grains with a diameter of around 0.14 m) ejected periodically.

One of the reddest stars in the sky, V Coronae Borealis is a cool star with a surface temperature of
2877 K that shines with a luminosity 102,831 times that of the Sun and is a remote 8810 lightyears distant from Earth. Varying between magnitudes 6.9 and 12.6 over a period of 357 days, it
is located near the junction of the border of Corona Borealis with Hercules and Bootes.

NGC 6085 (above, left) and NGC 6086

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_6085]

Corona Borealis contains few galaxies observable with amateur telescopes. NGC 6085 and 6086
are a faint spiral and elliptical galaxy respectively close enough to each other to be seen in the
same visual field through a telescope. Abell 2142 is a huge (six million light-year diameter), Xray luminous galaxy cluster that is the result of an ongoing merger between two galaxy clusters. It
has a redshift of 0.0909 (meaning it is moving away from us at 27,250 km/s) and a visual
magnitude of 16.0. It is about 1.2 billion light-years away. Another galaxy cluster in the
constellation, RX J1532.9+3021, is approximately 3.9 billion light-years from Earth. At the
clusters center is a large elliptical galaxy containing one of the most massive and most powerful
supermassive black holes yet discovered. Abell 2065 is a highly concentrated galaxy cluster
containing more than 400 members, the brightest of which are 16th magnitude; the cluster is more
than one billion light-years from Earth. On a larger scale still, Abell 2065, along with Abell 2061,
Abell 2067, Abell 2079, Abell 2089, and Abell 2092, make up the Corona Borealis Supercluster.
Another galaxy cluster, Abell 2162, is a member of the Hercules Superclusters.

A2065 - The Corona Borealis Cluster

Although it is one billion light years from us, the Corona Borealis supercluster is famous because
it is a fairly obvious concentration of clusters of galaxies. Above is a picture of the center of the
A2065 cluster. This cluster is often called the Corona Borealis cluster. It is the richest cluster of
galaxies in the Corona Borealis supercluster.
The Corona Borealis cluster (A2065) was discovered by Edwin Hubble in the 1930s. In 1936,
Milton Humason measured the redshift of one of the galaxies (PGC 54876) in the cluster as part
of a project to demonstrate that velocity is proportional to distance for a large number of distant
clusters. This was powerful evidence that the universe is expanding.

The possibility that there might be a supercluster in Corona Borealis was first suggested in the
1950s. George Abell examined his own catalogue of Rich Clusters of Galaxies (published in
1958) and in a paper published in 1961, he included the Corona Borealis supercluster as
supercluster number 13 in a list of 17 possible superclusters.

The first proper study of the Corona Borealis supercluster was published by M Postman, M Geller
and J Huchra in 1988. They studied the motion of seven of the clusters in the supercluster, and
they estimated the mass of the supercluster.

More recently, in 1997 and 1998, T Small, C Ma, W Sargent and D Hamilton, published three
papers about this supercluster (1, 2, 3). They noticed the presence of another supercluster behind
the Corona Borealis supercluster (associated with A2034, A2049, A2062, A2069 and A2083) at a
distance of 1.5 billion light years (redshift 0.113). They also believe that the clusters at the center
of the Corona Borealis supercluster are collapsing together and will eventually form one big
cluster.
[http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/superc/cbo.html]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona_Borealis]

Corvus

Corvus is a small constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere. Its name comes from the
Latin word raven or crow. Covering 183 square degrees and hence 0.446% of the sky, Corvus
ranks 70th of the 88 constellations in area. It is bordered by Virgo to the north and east, Hydra to
the south, and Crater to the west. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension
coordinates of the constellation lie between 11h 56m 22s and 12h 56m 40s, while the declination
coordinates are between -11.68 and -25.20. Its position in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere
means that the whole constellation is visible to observers south of 65N.

Johannes Hevelius Corvus from Uranographia (1690)

The story behind the name: The constellation Corvus is named for the crow, a bird associated with
Apollo. The star pattern looks nothing like a bird. It consists of four bright stars that form a
quadrilateral and better fits the Arab designation of a tent, or the sailors lore that identifies it as a
sail. This constellation was not created because it looked like a crow, but because it was near the
constellation Hydra. While Hydra is chiefly associated with a very different story, the snake shape
also reminded sky watchers of a fable about Apollo, written down by Ovid, which involved a crow,
a watersnake and a cup. With one element of the story already in place (the snake), the two
constellations, Corvus (crow) and Crater (cup) were created to represent the other two story
elements. In ancient times, when stories were passed on by oral tradition, it was useful to have the
main points of a fable hanging in the sky for all to see.

In the story, Apollo needed water to prepare a libation. He sent the crow, who did odd jobs for
him, to bring water back in a cup. The crow was not known for having a serious or respectful
attitude. At the water source, he found a tree of ripe figs and could not pass up feasting on them.
He realized that he had kept Apollo waiting and that the god would be angry so he snatched up a

water snake (not the infamous Hydra) and brought it back with him to blame for his delay. Apollo
did not believe him and threw the crow, the snake, and the cup up into the sky. As a punishment,
the crow is never able to reach the water in the cup. The crow and the raven (a related bird) were
also associated with other stories about Apollo.
[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/constellations/corvus.html]

The Greek figure of Corvus is modeled on the Babylonian Raven (MUL.UGA.MUSHEN), which
was similarly placed sitting on the tail of the Serpent (Greek Hydra). The Babylonian constellation
was sacred to Adad, the god of rain and storm; in the second Millennium it would have risen just
before the start of the autumnal rainy season.

In Chinese astronomy, the stars of Corvus are located within the Vermillion Bird of the South (Nn
Fng Zh Qu). The four main stars depict a chariot, Zhen, while Alpha and Eta mark the linchpins
for the wheels, and Zeta is Changsha, a coffin.
In Indian astronomy, the first five stars of Corvus correspond to the Hast, the 11th nakshatra or
lunar mansion.

Corvus was recognized as a constellation by several Polynesian cultures. In the Marquesas Islands,
it was called Mee; in Pukapuka, it was called Te Manu, and in the Society Islands, it was called
Metua-ai-papa.

To find Corvus in May, use the constellation Virgo, and its brightest star Spica. Look to the
southeast about an hour after sunset, when Spica nears the meridian. The meridian is an imaginary
line that runs from south to north, and when an object crosses the meridian, it is at its highest point
in the sky. The effect is most easily seen with southerly constellations like Virgo and Corvus. Spica
will climb higher as the night wears on, and once it passes the meridian it will begin to sink into
the west. The five bright stars that make up Corvus are easy to see, even if there is light pollution
in your skies. The stars of nearby Crater, Hydra, and Centaurus will be much fainter. Don't expect
to see much of anything at all in Centaurus unless you have very dark skies and a clear southern
horizon.
[http://www.angelfire.com/ky/astronomers/Corvus.html]

[http://www.allthesky.com/constellations/crv85.html]
Corvus includes only 11 stars with brighter than 4.02 magnitudes. Within the constellations
borders, there are 29 stars brighter than or equal to apparent magnitude 6.5. Four principal stars,
Delta, Gamma, Epsilon, and Beta Corvi, form an asterism known as the Spicas Spanker or the
Sail. Gamma and Delta serve as pointers toward Spica.

Also called Gienah, Gamma is the brightest star in Corvus at magnitude 2.59. Its traditional name
means wing, the star marking the left wing in Bayers Uranometria. 1541 light-years from
Earth, it is a blue-white hued giant star 4.2 times as massive as the Sun. Around 160 million years
old, it has exhausted its core hydrogen and begun expanding and cooling as it moves away from
the main sequence. A binary star, it has a companion orange or red dwarf star that is about 0.8
times as massive as the Sun. Around 50 AU distant from Gamma Corvi A, it is estimated to
complete an orbit in 158 years.

Delta Corvi, traditionally called Algorab, is a double star divisible in small amateur telescopes.
The primary is a blue-white star of magnitude 2.9, around 87 light-years from Earth. An enigmatic

star around 2.7 times as massive as the Sun, it is more luminous (65-70 times that of the Sun) than
it should be for its surface temperature of 10,400 K, and hence is either a 3.2 million year-old very
young pre-main sequence star that has not settled down to a stable main sequence life stage, or a
260 million year-old star that has begun to exhaust its core hydrogen and expand, cool and shine
more brightly as it moves away from the main sequence. Its spectral type is given as A0IV,
corresponding with the latter scenario. Warm circumstellar dust- by definition part of its inner
stellar system- has been detected around Delta Corvi A. Delta Corvi B is an orange dwarf star of
magnitude 8.51 and spectral class K, also surrounded by circumstellar dust. It is at least 650 AU
distant from its brighter companion and takes at least 9400 years to complete an orbit. Delta
Corvis common name (Algorab) means the raven. It is one of two stars marking the right wing.
Marking the ravens breast is Beta Corvi, a star of magnitude 2.7 located 146 light-years from
Earth. Roughly 206 million years old and 3.7 1 times as massive as the Sun, it has exhausted its
core hydrogen and expanded and cooled to a surface temperature of around 5,100 K and is now a
yellow bright giant star of spectral type G5II. It likely spent most of its existence as a blue-white
main sequence star of spectral type B7V.

Bearing the proper name of Minkar and marking the ravens nostril is Epsilon Corvi, located some
318 light-years from Earth. It is a red giant that is around 54 times the Suns radius and 930 times
its luminosity. Around 4 times as massive as the Sun, it spent much of its life as a main sequence
star of spectral type B5V.

Also called Alchiba, Alpha Corvi is a white-hued star of magnitude 4.0, 48.7 light-years from
Earth. It exhibits periodic changes in its spectrum over a three-day period, which suggests it is
either a spectroscopic binary or (more likely) a pulsating Gamma Doradus-type variable. If the
latter is the case, it is estimated to be 1.39 times as massive as the Sun. According to Bayers atlas,
it lies above the birds beak.

Also marking the ravens right wing is Eta Corvi, a yellow-white main sequence star that is 1.52
times as massive and 4.87 times as luminous as the Sun. It is 59 light-years distant from our Solar

System. Two debris disks have been detected orbiting this star, one warm within 3.5 AU and
another out at ~150 AU.
Zeta Corvi marks the ravens neck. It is of apparent magnitude 5.21, separated by 7 arcseconds
from the star HR 4691. Located 420 light-years distant, it is a blue-white star; the presence of
hydrogen emission lines in its spectrum indicates it has a circumstellar disk. These stars may be
an optical double or a true multiple star system, with a separation of at least 50,000 astronomical
units and the stars taking 3.5 million years to orbit each other. HR 4691 is itself double, composed
of an ageing yellow-orange giant and an F-type main sequence star.

NGC 4361 imaged with a 24-inch telescope

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_4361]

Corvus contains no Messier objects. It has several galaxies and a planetary nebular observable
with amateur telescopes. The center of Corvus is home to a planetary nebula NGC 4361. The
nebula itself resembles a small elliptical galaxy and has a magnitude of 10.3, but the magnitude 13
star at its center gives away its true nature.

Exploring the Antennae

Some 60 million light-years away in the southerly constellation Corvus, two large galaxies are
colliding. The stars in the two galaxies, cataloged as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, very rarely collide
in the course of the ponderous cataclysm, lasting hundreds of millions of years. But their large
clouds of molecular gas and dust often do, triggering furious episodes of star formation near the
center of the cosmic wreckage. Spanning about 500 thousand light-years, this stunning composited
view also reveals new star clusters and matter flung far from the scene of the accident by
gravitational tidal forces. The remarkable collaborative image is a mosaic constructed using data
from small and large ground-based telescopes to bring out large-scale and faint tidal streams,
composited with the bright cores imaged in extreme detail by the Hubble Space Telescope. Of
course, the suggestive visual appearance of the extended arcing structures gives the galaxy pair its
popular name - The Antennae.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150212.html]

NGC 4027 ESO

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_4027]

The NGC 4038 Group is a group of galaxies across Corvus and Crater. The group may contain
between 13 and 27 galaxies. The best-known member is the Antennae peculiar galaxies, located
0.25 north of 31 Crateris. Each of the galaxies has multiple ultra-luminous X-ray sources, the
source of which is unknown. Astronomers theorize that they may be a rare type of x-ray emitting
binary stars or intermediate-mass black holes. The Antennae galaxies appear in a telescope at the
10th magnitude. NGC 4027 is another member of the group, notable for its extended spiral arm,
probably due to a past collision. Known as the Ringtail Galaxy, it lies close to 31 Crateris.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvus_%28constellation%29]

Crater

Crater is a constellation. Its name is Latin for cup, and in Greek mythology it is identified with the
cup of the god Apollo. It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer
Ptolemy, and remains one of the 88 modern constellations. It is faint, with no star brighter than
third magnitude.

Corvus and Crater, two adjacent constellations on the back of Hydra, shown in the Uranographia
of Johann Bode (1801). In ancient Greece, a krater was a bowl or vase used for mixing wine with
water, rather than a cup as we know it.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/corvusandcrater.htm]

Crater is identified with a story from Greek mythology in which a crow or raven serves Apollo,
and is sent to fetch water, but it rests lazily on the journey, and after finally obtaining the water in
a cup, takes back a water snake as an excuse. According to the myth, Apollo saw through the fraud,
and angrily cast the crow, cup, and snake, into the sky. The constellations of Corvus the crow and
Hydra the water-snake are also identified with this myth.

In Chinese astronomy, the stars of Crater are located within the constellation of the Vermillion
Bird of the South (Nn Fng Zh Qu).

In the Society Islands, Crater was recognized as a constellation called Moana-ohu-noa-ei-haa-moehara.

[http://www.astronomy.com/observing/observing-podcasts/2014/03/crater-the-spindle-galaxyand-sextans-b]

[http://www.go-astronomy.com/constellations.php?Name=Crater]

Alpha Crateris, traditionally called Alkes, is an orange-hued giant star of magnitude 4.1, 174 lightyears from Earth. Its traditional name means the cup.
Beta Crateris (also Al Sharas, meaning the rib) is a blue-white hued star of magnitude 4.5, 266
light-years from Earth.

Gamma Crateris is a double star divisible in small amateur telescopes. The primary is a white star
of magnitude 4.1, 84 light-years from Earth. The secondary is of magnitude 9.6.

Delta Crateris is the brightest star in Crater at magnitude 3.6. 195 light-years away, it is an orangehued giant star.

NGC 3981
[http://www.caelumobservatory.com/obs/n3981.html]

NGC 3511 is a spiral galaxy with a slight bar, seen nearly from the edge. It is a member of the
galaxy cluster Abell 1060. This galaxy is magnitude 12, and is 4' 1' in size. Right nearby, 30"
away, is NGC 3513, another SB-class spiral. NGC 3887 is a barred-spiral galaxy of magnitude 11,
with a diameter of 3.5'. NGC 3981 is a spiral galaxy with two wide spiral arms. It is magnitude 12
with a diameter of 3'. This galaxy was discovered by William Herschel in 1785.

A team of astrophysicists led by Dr. Rubens Reis from the University of Michigan has directly
measured the spin of a supermassive black hole in a quasar named RX J1131-1231, located 6
billion light years away from Earth.
Gravitational lensing by an intervening elliptical galaxy in the middle of the image has created
four different images of RX J1131-1231. Such lensing offers a rare opportunity to study regions
close to the black hole in distant quasars, by acting as a natural telescope and magnifying the light
from these sources. The X-rays are produced when a swirling accretion disk of gas and dust that
surrounds the black hole creates a multimillion-degree cloud, or corona near the black hole. Xrays from this corona reflect off the inner edge of the accretion disk. The reflected X-ray spectrum
is altered by the strong gravitational forces near the black hole. The larger the change in the
spectrum, the closer the inner edge of the disk must be to the black hole. The scientists found that
the X-rays are coming from a region in the disk located only about three times the radius of the
event horizon, the point of no return for in-falling matter. This implies that the black hole must be
spinning extremely rapidly to allow a disk to survive at such a small radius.

The result is important because black holes are defined by just two simple characteristics: mass
and spin. While astrophysicists have long been able to measure black hole masses very effectively,
determining their spins have been much more difficult. These spin measurements can give
researchers important clues about how black holes grow over time. If black holes grow mainly
from collisions and mergers between galaxies they should accumulate material in a stable disk,
and the steady supply of new material from the disk should lead to rapidly spinning black holes.
In contrast if black holes grow through many small accretion episodes, they will accumulate
material from random directions. Like a merry go round that is pushed both backwards and
forwards, this would make the black hole spin more slowly. The discovery that the black hole in
RX J1131-1231 is spinning at over half the speed of light suggests that this black hole has grown
via mergers, rather than pulling material in from different directions.
[http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/science-rxj11311231-spin-supermassive-black-hole01795.html]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crater_%28constellation%29]

Crux

Crux is a constellation located in the southern sky in a bright portion of the Milky Way. Its name
is Latin for cross, and it is dominated by a cross-shaped or kite-like asterism that is commonly
known as the Southern Cross. Crux is bordered by the constellations Centaurus (which surrounds
it on three sides) on the east, north and west, and Musca to the south. Covering 68 square degrees
and 0.165% of the night sky, it is the smallest of the 88 constellations. In the equatorial coordinate
system, the right ascension coordinates of the constellation lie between 11h 56.13m and 12h
57.45m, while the declination coordinates are between 55.68 and 64.70. The whole
constellation is visible to observers south of latitude 25N.

Crux is easily visible from the southern hemisphere at practically any time of year. It is also visible
near the horizon from tropical latitudes of the northern hemisphere for a few hours every night
during the northern winter and spring. For instance, it is visible from Cancun (southeastern
Mexico) or any other place at latitude 25 N or less at around 10 pm at the end of April.

In tropical regions Crux can be seen in the sky from April to June. Crux is exactly opposite to
Cassiopeia on the celestial sphere, and therefore it cannot appear in the sky with the latter at the
same time. For locations south of 34S, Crux is circumpolar and thus always visible in the night
sky.

Due to precession, Crux will move closer to the South Pole in the next millennia, up to 67 degrees
south declination for the middle of the constellation. But in AD 18000 or BCE 8000 Crux will
be/was less than 30 degrees south declination making it visible in Northern Europe. Even in AD
14000 it will be visible for most parts of Europe and the whole United States.

Crux lies under the hind legs of Centaurus. It contains a dark cloud of dust known to modern
astronomers as the Coalsack, but named Macula Magellanica on this illustration from the
Uranographia of Johann Bode (1801).
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/crux.htm]

Crux was known to the Ancient Greeks due to the fact that it can be seen from southern Egypt;
Ptolemy regarded it as part of the constellation Centaurus. It was entirely visible as far north as
Britain in the fourth millennium BCE. However, the precession of the equinoxes gradually lowered
its stars below the European horizon, and they were eventually forgotten by the inhabitants of
northern latitudes. By AD 400, most of the constellation never rose above the horizon for
Athenians.

The 15th-century Venetian navigator Alvise Cadamosto made note of what was probably the
Southern Cross on exiting the Gambia River in 1455, calling it carro dell' ostro (southern
chariot). However, Cadamostos accompanying diagram was inaccurate. Historians generally
credit Joo Faras- astronomer and physician of King Manuel I of Portugal who accompanied Pedro
lvares Cabral in the discovery of Brazil in 1500- for being the first European to depict it correctly.
Faras sketched and described the constellation (calling it Las Guardas, The Guards) in a letter
written on the beaches of Brazil on May 1, 1500, to the Portuguese monarch.

Explorer Amerigo Vespucci seems to have observed not only the Southern Cross but also the
neighboring Coalsack Nebula on his second voyage in 1501-02.

Another early modern description clearly describing Crux as a separate constellation is attributed
to Andreas Corsali, an Italian navigator who from 1515 to 1517 sailed to China and the East Indies
in an expedition sponsored by King Manuel I. In 1516, Corsali wrote a letter to the monarch
describing his observations of the southern sky, which included a rather crude map of the stars
around the south celestial pole including the Southern Cross and the two Magellanic Clouds seen
in an external orientation, as on a globe.

Emery Molyneux and Petrus Plancius have also been cited as the first uranographers to distinguish
Crux as a separate constellation; their representations date from 1592, the former depicting it on
his celestial globe and the latter in one of the small celestial maps on his large wall map. Both
authors, however, depended on unreliable sources and placed Crux in the wrong position. Crux
was first shown in its correct position on the celestial globes of Petrus Plancius and Jodocus
Hondius in 1598 and 1600. Its stars were first catalogued separately from Centaurus by Frederick
de Houtman in 1603. Later adopters of the constellation included Jakob Bartsch in 1624 and
Augustin Royer in 1679. Royer is sometimes wrongly cited as initially distinguishing Crux.
In Australian Aboriginal astronomy, Crux and the Coalsack mark the head of the Emu in the Sky
in several Aboriginal cultures, while Crux itself is said to be a possum sitting in a tree (Boorong
people of the Wimmera region of northwestern Victoria), a representation of the sky deity
Mirrabooka (Quandamooka people of Stradbroke Island), a stingray (Yolngu people of Arnhem
Land), or an eagle (Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains). Two Pacific constellations also included
Gamma Centauri. Torres Strait Islanders in modern-day Australia saw Gamma Centauri as the
handle and the four stars as the trident of Tagais Fishing Spear. The Aranda people of central
Australia saw the four Cross stars as the talon of an eagle and Gamma Centauri as its leg.

Various peoples in the East Indies viewed the four main stars as the body of a ray. In both Indonesia
and Malaysia, it is known as Bintang Pari and Buruj Pari respectively (ray stars). The Javanese
people of Indonesia called this constellation Gubug pncng (raking hut) or lumbung (the
granary), because the shape of the constellation was like a raking hut.
The Mori name for the Southern Cross is Te Punga (the anchor). It is thought of as the anchor
of Tama-reretis waka (the Milky Way), while the Pointers are its rope. In Tonga it is known as
Toloa (duck); it is depicted as a duck flying south, with one of his wings ( Crucis) wounded
because Ongo tangata (two men, and Centauri) threw a stone at it. The Coalsack is known as
Humu (the triggerfish), because of its shape. In Samoa the constellation is called Sumu
(triggerfish) because of its rhomboid shape, while and Centauri are called Luatagata (Two
Men), just as they are in Tonga. The peoples of the Solomon Islands saw several figures in the

Southern Cross. These included a knee protector and a net used to catch Palolo worms.
Neighboring peoples in the Marshall Islands saw these stars as a fish.

In Mapudungun, the language of Patagonian Mapuches, the name of the Southern Cross is Melipal,
which means four stars. In Quechua, the language of the Inca civilization, Crux is known as
Chakana, which means literally stair (chaka, bridge, link; hanan, high, above), but carries a
deep symbolism within Quechua mysticism. Acrux and Mimosa make up one foot of the Great
Rhea, a constellation encompassing Centaurus and Circinus along with the two bright stars. The
Great Rhea was a constellation of the Bororo people of Brazil. The Mocov people of Argentina
also saw a rhea including the stars of Crux. Their rhea is attacked by two dogs, represented by
bright stars in Centaurus and Circinus. The dogs heads are marked by Alpha and Beta Centauri.
The rheas body is marked by the four main stars of Crux, while its head is Gamma Centauri and
its feet are the bright stars of Musca. The Bakairi people of Brazil had a sprawling constellation
representing a bird snare. It included the bright stars of Crux, the southern part of Centaurus,
Circinus, at least one star in Lupus, the bright stars of Musca, Beta and Delta Chamaeleonis,
Volans, and Mensa. The Kalapalo people of Mato Grosso state in Brazil saw the stars of Crux as
Aganagi angry bees having emerged from the Coalsack, which they saw as the beehive.

Among Tuaregs, the four most visible stars of Crux are considered iggaren, i.e. four Maerua
crassifolia trees. The Tswana people of Botswana saw the constellation as Dithutlwa, two giraffesAcrux and Mimosa forming a male, and Gacrux and Delta Crucis forming the female.

The modern constellation Crux is not included in the Three Enclosures and Twenty-Eight
Mansions system of traditional Chinese uranography because its stars are too far south for
observers in China to know about them prior to the introduction of Western star charts. Based on
the work of Xu Guangqi and the German Jesuit missionary Johann Adam Schall von Bell in the
late Ming Dynasty, this constellation has been classified as one of the 23 Southern Asterisms
(Jnnnjxngu) under the name Cross (Shzji). Possibly Acrux (Alpha Crucis), Mimosa (Beta
Crucis) and Gacrux (Gamma Crucis) are bright stars in this constellation never seen in Chinese
sky. The name of the western constellation in modern Chinese is (nn sh z zu), meaning the
southern cross-shaped constellation.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crux_%28Chinese_astronomy%29]

[http://www.derekscope.co.uk/constellation-20th/crux/]

Locating the south celestial pole

In the Southern Hemisphere, the Southern Cross is frequently used for navigation in much the
same way that the Polaris is used in the Northern Hemisphere. Alpha and Gamma (known as Acrux

and Gacrux respectively) are commonly used to mark south. Tracing a line from Gacrux to Acrux
leads to a point close to the Southern Celestial Pole. Alternatively, if a line is constructed
perpendicularly between Alpha Centauri and Beta Centauri, the point where the above-mentioned
line and this line intersect marks the Southern Celestial Pole. Another way to find south, strike line
through Gacrux and Acrux, 3 1/2 times the distance between Gacrux and Acrux, directly below
that point is south. The two stars of Alpha and Beta Centauri are often referred to as the Southern
Pointers or just The Pointers, allowing people to easily find the asterism of the Southern Cross
or the constellation of Crux. Very few bright stars of importance lie between Crux and the pole
itself, although the constellation Musca is fairly easily recognized immediately beneath Crux.

[http://www.southernskyphoto.com/constellations/south_celestial_pole.htm]

[http://oneminuteastronomer.com/1985/constellation-crux-southern-cross/]

Predominating the asterism is the most southerly first-magnitude star and brightest star in the
constellation, the blue-white Alpha Crucis or Acrux, followed by four other stars, descending in
clockwise order by magnitude: Beta, Gamma (one of the closest red giants to Earth), Delta and
Epsilon Crucis. Many of these brighter stars are members of the ScorpiusCentaurus Association,
a large but loose group of hot blue-white stars that appear to share common origins and motion
across the southern Milky Way.

The four main stars that form the asterism are Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta Crucis. Also known
as Acrux, Alpha Crucis is a triple star 321 light-years from Earth. Blue-tinged and magnitude 0.8
to the unaided eye, it has two close components of magnitude 1.3 and 1.8, as well as a wide
component of magnitude 5. The two close components are divisible in a small amateur telescope
and the wide component is divisible in a pair of binoculars.

Beta Crucis, called Mimosa, is a blue-hued giant of magnitude 1.3, 353 light-years from Earth. It
is a Beta Cephei-type Cepheid variable with a variation of less than 0.1 magnitudes.

Gamma Crucis, called Gacrux, is an optical double star. The primary is a red-hued giant star of
magnitude 1.6, 88 light-years from Earth. The secondary is of magnitude 6.5, 264 light-years from
Earth.

Delta Crucis is a blue-white hued star of magnitude 2.8, 364 light-years from Earth. It is the
dimmest of the Southern Cross stars.

There are several dimmer stars within the borders of Crux. Epsilon Crucis is an orange-hued giant
star of magnitude 3.6, 228 light-years from Earth. Crux also boasts four Cepheid variables that
reach naked eye visibility- BG Crucis ranges from magnitude 5.34 to 5.58 over 3.3428 days; T
Crucis ranges from 6.32 to 6.83 over 6.73331 days; S Crucis ranges from 6.22 to 6.92 over 4.68997
days; and R Crucis ranges from 6.4 to 7.23 over 5.82575 days. BH Crucis, also known as Welch's
Red Variable, is a Mira variable that ranges from magnitude 6.6 to 9.8 over 530 days. Discovered
in October 1969, it has become redder and brighter (mean magnitude changing from 8.047 to
7.762) and its period lengthened by 25% in the first thirty years since its discovery. The star HD
106906 has been found to have a planet- HD 106906 b- that has a larger orbit than any other
exoplanet discovered to date.

The dark nebula called the Coalsack in the constellation Crux

Wedged between the star Acrux and the Jewel Box cluster in the Southern Cross, and extending
east into Centaurus and south into Musca, lies the Coalsack, the most prominent and easily
observed of the so-called dark nebulae that permeate the star clouds of the Milky Way like black
smoke.

Like all dark nebulae, the Coalsack is a region of cold gas and dust that obscures background
starlight. It is more remarkable than most because it stands out against the bright background of
the Milky Way, and covers a patch of sky some 75 degrees so large it barely fits into the field
of view of most binoculars.

The dark expanse of the Coalsack impressed preshistoric and renaissance stargazers. Aboriginal
stargazers have known about the Coalsack for at least 40,000 years. Bark drawings found on
Australias Groote Eylandt depicts the Coalsack as a fish speared by two brothers who are
represented by the two brightest stars of Crux. Polynesians called the Coalsack Te Paniwi a
Taewa, the Black Fish. Vespucci called it the Black Canopus.
While it looks like a patch of unoccupied space, the Coalsack is the quite the opposite. Its made
of thousands of solar masses of gas molecules and cold dust grains which scatter starlight out of
our field of view, much like dust in our atmosphere dims the setting Sun (see inset). This nebula
spans about 50 light years at its widest. But its not a single, simple blob. By studying light
extinction of dim backgrounds stars, astronomers conclude the Coalsack is two overlapping dust
clouds 610 and 790 light years away. And its not completely dark. Ground and space-based
observation show that dust grains of the nebula reflect a modest amount of blue and ultraviolet
light from nearby stars.
In good sky, the Coalsack presents a grand sight for stargazers without optics. But its worth
exploring with binoculars, and even with a telescope at low power. Look for structure among the
blackness. Keen-eyed observers see a rib-like structure in the Coalsack, especially in the area
nearest Acrux.

Look also for the small, dim star cluster NGC 4609 about 2 degrees east-northeast of Acrux. It
lies eight times farther away than the Coalsack, yet its young stars pack enough punch to remain
visible through this interstellar cloud.
[http://oneminuteastronomer.com/2036/coalsack-nebula/]

NGC 4755 (Jewel Box Cluster) in Crux

NGC 4755 (also known as the Jewel Box, Caldwell 94 or Kappa Crucis Cluster) is an open cluster
in the constellation Crux. It was discovered by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1752. Later this cluster
was named the Jewel Box by Sir John Herschel, who described its telescopic appearance as a
casket of variously colored precious stones. It can be easily found by the naked eye as a hazy star
some 1.0 southeast of the star Beta Crucis (Mimosa). Its other name (Kappa Crucis) was given
by its original Bayer star designation. Since known as a star cluster, the second brightest cluster
star, placed within the main A-shape, became known as Kappa Crucis. This is one of the youngest
known star clusters, with an estimated age of 14 million years. Its total integrated magnitude is
4.2, and it is located 6,440 light years from Earth.
[http://www.irida-observatory.org/Namibia-Tivoli/NGC4755/NGC4755.htm]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crux]

Cygnus

Cygnus is a northern constellation lying on the plane of the Milky Way, deriving its name from
the Latinized Greek word for swan. Cygnus was among the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd
century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations. A very large
constellation, Cygnus is bordered by Cepheus to the north and east, Draco to the north and west,
Lyra to the west, Vulpecula to the south, Pegasus to the southeast and Lacerta to the east. In the
equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of the constellation lie between 19h
07.3m and 22h 02.3m, while the declination coordinates are between 27.73 and 61.36. Covering

804 square degrees and around 1.9% of the night sky, Cygnus ranks 16th of the 88 constellations
in size.

[http://earthsky.org/favorite-star-patterns/the-northern-cross-backbone-of-the-milky-way]

Normally, Cygnus is depicted with Delta and Epsilon Cygni as its wings, Deneb as its tail, and
Albireo as the tip of its beak. The swan is one of the most recognizable constellations of the
northern summer and autumn, it features a prominent asterism known as the Northern Cross (in
contrast to the Southern Cross). Cygnus culminates at midnight on 29 June, and is most visible in
the evening from the early summer to mid-autumn in the Northern Hemisphere.

[https://www.thinglink.com/scene/522841762302001152]

[http://www.wallhapp.com/urano/johann-bayer]

There are several asterisms in Cygnus. In the 17th-century German celestial cartographer Johann
Bayers star atlas the Uranometria, Alpha, Beta and Gamma Cygni form the pole of a cross, while
Delta and Epsilon form the cross beam. The nova P Cygni was then considered to be the body of
Christ.

In Greek mythology, Cygnus has been identified with several different legendary swans. Zeus
disguised himself as a swan to seduce Leda, Spartan king Tyndareuss wife, who gave birth to the
Gemini, Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra; Orpheus was transformed into a swan after his murder,
and was said to have been placed in the sky next to his lyre (Lyra); and the King Cygnus was
transformed into a swan.

The Greeks also associated this constellation with the tragic story of Phaethon, the son of Helios
the sun god, who demanded to ride his father's sun chariot for a day. Phaethon, however, was
unable to control the reins, forcing Zeus to destroy the chariot (and Phaethon) with a thunderbolt,
causing it to plummet to the earth into the river Eridanus. According to the myth, Phaethon's
brother, Cycnus, grieved bitterly and spent many days diving into the river to collect Phaethon's
bones to give him a proper burial. The gods were so touched by Cycnuss devotion to his brother
that they turned him into a swan and placed him among the stars.
In Ovids Metamorphoses, there are three people named Cygnus, all of whom are transformed into
swans. Alongside Cycnus, noted above, he mentions a boy from Tempe who commits suicide
when Phyllius refuses to give him a tamed bull that he demands, but is transformed into a swan
and flies away. He also mentions a son of Neptune who is an invulnerable warrior in the Trojan
War who is eventually defeated by Achilles, but Neptune saves him by transforming him into a
swan.

Together with other avian constellations near the summer solstice, Vultur cadens and Aquila,
Cygnus may be a significant part of the origin of the myth of the Stymphalian Birds, one of The
Twelve Labours of Hercules.

In Polynesia, Cygnus was often recognized as a separate constellation. In Tonga it was called
Tuula-lupe, and in the Tuamotus it was called Fanui-tai. Deneb was also often given a name. In
New Zealand it was called Mara-tea, in the Society Islands it was called Pirae-tea or Taurua-i-tehaapa-raa-manu, and in the Tuamotus it was called Fanui-raro. Beta Cygni was named in New
Zealand; it was likely called Whetu-kaupo. Gamma Cygni was called Fanui-runga in the
Tuamotus.

According to traditional Chinese uranography, the modern constellation Cygnus is located within
the northern quadrant of the sky, which is symbolized as the The Black Tortoise of the North (Bi
Fng Xun W). The name of the western constellation in modern Chinese is (tin zu), meaning
the swan constellation.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygnus_%28Chinese_astronomy%29]

[http://www.peoplesguidetothecosmos.com/constellations/cygnus.htm]

[https://mdjslcc.wordpress.com/2012/04/04/star-identification/]

Cygnus contains Deneb, one of the brightest stars in the night sky and one corner of the Summer
Triangle, as well as some notable X-ray sources and the giant stellar association of Cygnus OB2.
One of the stars of this association, NML Cygni, is one of the largest stars currently known. The
constellation is also home to Cygnus X-1, a distant X-ray binary containing a supergiant and
unseen massive companion that was the first object widely held to be a black hole. Many star
systems in Cygnus have known planets as a result of the Kepler Mission observing one patch of
the sky, the patch is the area around Cygnus. In addition, most of the eastern part of Cygnus is
dominated by the HerculesCorona Borealis Great Wall, a giant galaxy filament that is the largest
known structure in the observable universe; covering most of the northern sky.

There are several bright stars in Cygnus. Alpha Cygni, called Deneb, is the brightest star in Cygnus.
It is a white supergiant star that varies between magnitudes 1.21 and 1.29, one of the largest and
most luminous A-class stars known. It is located about 3200 light-years away. Its traditional name
means tail and refers to its position in the constellation.

Albireo, designated Beta Cygni, is a celebrated binary star among amateur astronomers for its
contrasting hues. The primary is an orange-hued giant star of magnitude 3.1 and the secondary is
a blue-green hued star of magnitude 5.1. The system is 380 light-years away and is divisible in
large binoculars and all amateur telescopes.

Gamma Cygni, traditionally named Sadr, is a yellow-tinged supergiant star of magnitude 2.2, 1500
light-years away. Its traditional name means breast and refers to its position in the constellation.

Delta Cygni is another bright binary star in Cygnus, 171 light-years with a period of 800 years.
The primary is a blue-white hued giant star of magnitude 2.9, and the secondary is a star of
magnitude 6.6. The two components are divisible in a medium-sized amateur telescope.

The fifth star in Cygnus above magnitude 3 is Gienah, designated Epsilon Cygni. It is an orangehued giant star of magnitude 2.5, 72 light-years from Earth.

Cygnus is also home to several variable stars. SS Cygni is a dwarf nova which undergoes outbursts
every 7-8 days. The systems total magnitude varies from 12th magnitude at its dimmest to 8th
magnitude at its brightest. The two objects in the system are incredibly close together, with an
orbital period of less than 0.28 days. Chi Cygni is a red giant and the second-brightest Mira variable
star at its maximum. It ranges between magnitudes 3.3 and 14.2cover a period of 408 days; it has
a diameter of 300 solar diameters and is 350 light-years from Earth. P Cygni is a luminous blue
variable that brightened suddenly to 3rd magnitude in 1600 AD. Since 1715, the star has been of
5th magnitude, despite being more than 5000 light-years from Earth. The stars spectrum is
unusual in that it contains very strong emission lines resulting from surrounding nebulosity. NML
Cygni, a red hypergiant semi-regular variable star and possibly the largest star currently known in
the galaxy, is in Cygnus; it has the magnitude of around 16.60 and an estimated period of about
940 days; it is 5,300 light-years from Earth and has the estimated radius of about 1,650 solar radii,
and mass 40 times that of the Sun.

Cygnus is one of the constellations that the Kepler satellite surveyed in its search for extrasolar
planets, and as a result, there are about a hundred stars in Cygnus with known planets, the most of

any constellation. One of the most notable systems is the Kepler-11 system, containing six
transiting planets, all within a plane of approximately one degree. With a spectral type of G6V,
the star is somewhat cooler than the Sun. The planets are very close to the star; all but the last
planet are closer to Kepler-11 than Mercury is to the Sun, and all the planets are more massive
than Earth. The naked-eye star 16 Cygni, a triple star approximately 70 light-years from Earth
composed two Sun-like stars and a red dwarf, contains a planet orbiting one of the sun-like stars,
found due to variations in the stars radial velocity. Gliese 777, another naked-eye multiple star
system containing a yellow star and a red dwarf, also contains a planet. The planet is somewhat
similar to Jupiter, but with slightly more mass and a more eccentric orbit.

A diagram of the orbit of Kepler-22b within the Kepler-22 system, as compared to the inner Solar
System, and their respective projected habitable zones.

The Kepler-22 system is also notable, in that its extrasolar planet is believed to be the first Earthtwin planet ever discovered. It is located about 600 light years from Earth, and was discovered in
2011. It was the first known transiting planet to orbit within the habitable zone of a Sun-like star.
Kepler-22bs radius is roughly 2.4 times the radius of Earth. Its mass and surface composition
remain unknown, with only some very rough estimates established, though the mass is below 52.8
Earth masses to 95% confidence.

The average distance from Kepler-22b to its host star Kepler-22 is about 15% less than the distance
from Earth to the Sun but the luminosity (light output) of Kepler-22 is about 25% less than that of
the Sun. This combination of a shorter average distance from the star and a lower stellar luminosity
are consistent with a moderate surface temperature at that distance if it is assumed that the surface
is not subject to extreme greenhouse heating.
The only parameters of the planets orbit that are currently available are its period, which is about
290 days, and its inclination, which is approximately 90, so that it transits the disk of its star as
seen from Earth. No information is available about the shape of the planets orbit. If Kepler-22b
has a highly elongated orbit it may well only spend a small fraction of its time within the habitable
zone, which would cause extreme temperature differences on the planet and might make it
inhospitable.
Kepler-22b might be an ocean-like world. An Earth-like composition is ruled out by radial
velocity measurements of the system. It is thus likely to have a more volatile-rich composition
with a liquid or gaseous outer shell; this would make it similar to Kepler-11f, the smallest known
gas planet.
If it is mostly ocean with a small rocky core, Natalie Batalha, one of the scientists on the project,
speculated, its not beyond the realm of possibility that life could exist in such an ocean. This
possibility of life has spurred SETI to perform research on top candidates for extraterrestrial
intelligence.

The Hunt for Exo-moons with Kepler (HEK) project has studied the Kepler photometry of this
planet for evidence of transit timing and duration variations that may be caused by an orbiting
satellite. Such variations were not found, ruling out the existence of satellites of Kepler-22b above
0.54 Earth masses at 95% confidence.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler-22b]

[http://www.wlcastleman.com/astro/nm093011/cygnus_85/cygnus_85_labeled.htm]

[http://www.starobserver.eu/openclusters/ngc6910.html]

There is an abundance of deep-sky objects, with many open clusters, nebulae of various types and
supernova remnants found in Cygnus due to its position on the Milky Way. Some open clusters
can be difficult to make out from a rich background of stars.

M39 (NGC 7092) is an open cluster 950 light-years from Earth that is visible to the unaided eye
under dark skies. It is loose, with about 30 stars arranged over a wide area; their conformation
appears triangular. The brightest stars of M39 are of the 7th magnitude. Another open cluster in
Cygnus is NGC 6910, also called the Rocking Horse Cluster, possessing 16 stars with a diameter
of 5 arcminutes visible in a small amateur instrument; it is of magnitude 7.4. The brightest of these
are two gold-hued stars, which represent the bottom of the toy it is named for. A larger amateur
instrument reveals 8 more stars, nebulosity to the east and west of the cluster, and a diameter of 9
arcminutes.

[https://astrocacciucco.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/sadr-in-cygnus/]

The nebulosity in this region (Sadr region) is part of the Gamma Cygni Nebula. The other stars,
approximately 3700 light-years from Earth, are mostly blue-white and very hot. The Gamma Cygni
Nebula (IC 1318) includes both bright and dark nebulae in an area of over 4 degrees.

NGC 7000, the North America Nebula, is located in the constellation of Cygnus. It is a very large
area of emission nebulosity extending some 2.5 degrees to the east of Deneb. It was discovered in
the early 1890s during experiments into wide field astrophotography. Several areas of nebulosity
can be seen surrounding NGC 7000 including IC 5070, the Pelican Nebula, to the west and IC
5068 to the south. The Skull Nebula can also be seen between the North America and the Pelican
nebulae.
[http://www.astrocruise.com/milky_way/ngc7000.htm]

The North America Nebula (NGC 7000) is one of the most well-known nebulae in Cygnus,
because it is visible to the unaided eye under dark skies, as a bright patch in the Milky Way.
However, its characteristic shape is only visible in long-exposure photographs- it is difficult to
observe in telescopes because of its low surface brightness. It has low surface brightness because
it is so large; at its widest, the North America Nebula is 2 degrees across. Illuminated by a hot
embedded star of magnitude 6, NGC 7000 is 1500 light-years from Earth.

IC 5070 (The Pelican Nebula)

A 3.5 degree wide DSS image centered on IC 5068, also showing NGC 7000 and IC 5070, and
Corwins IC 5067.
[http://cseligman.com/text/atlas/ic50a.htm]

The Northern Coalsack Nebula, also called the Cygnus Rift, is a dark nebula located in the Cygnus
Milky Way. Other nebulae include:

NGC 6888: The Crescent Nebula

NGC 6888, also known as the Crescent Nebula, is a cosmic bubble about 25 light-years across,
blown by winds from its central, bright, massive star. This beautiful portrait of the nebula is from
the Isaac Newton Telescope at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in the Canary Islands. It
combines a composite color image with narrow band data that isolates light from hydrogen and
oxygen atoms in the wind-blown nebula. The oxygen atoms produce the blue-green hue that seems
to enshroud the detailed folds and filaments. NGC 6888s central star is classified as a Wolf-Rayet
star (WR 136). The star is shedding its outer envelope in a strong stellar wind, ejecting the
equivalent of the Sun's mass every 10,000 years. The nebulas complex structures are likely the
result of this strong wind interacting with material ejected in an earlier phase. Burning fuel at a
prodigious rate and near the end of its stellar life this star should ultimately go out with a bang in
a spectacular supernova explosion. Found in the nebula rich constellation Cygnus, NGC 6888 is
about 5,000 light-years away.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090915.html]

A Hubble Space Telescope (HST) image of NGC 6826

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_6826]

NGC 6826, the Blinking Planetary Nebula, is a planetary nebula with a magnitude of 8.5, 3200
light-years from Earth. It appears to blink in the eyepiece of a telescope because its central star
is unusually bright (10th magnitude). When an observer focuses on the star, the nebula appears to
fade out. Less than one degree from the Blinking Planetary is the double star 16 Cygni.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_6826]

Delicate in appearance, these filaments of shocked, glowing gas, draped in planet Earths sky
toward the constellation of Cygnus, make up the Veil Nebula. The nebula is a large supernova
remnant, an expanding cloud born of the death explosion of a massive star. Light from the original
supernova explosion likely reached Earth over 5,000 years ago. Also known as the Cygnus Loop,
the Veil Nebula now spans nearly 3 degrees or about 6 times the diameter of the full Moon. That
translates to over 70 light-years at its estimated distance of 1,500 light-years. In fact, the Veil is so
large its brighter parts are recognized as separate nebulae, including The Witchs Broom (NGC
6960) at the bottom of this stunning skyview and Pickerings Triangle (NGC 6979) below and
right of center. At the top is the haunting IC 1340.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100916.html]

The Veil Nebula (NGC 6960, 6962, 6979, 6992, and 6995), is located to the south of Epsilon
Cygni. Because of its appearance, it is also called the Cygnus Loop. The Loop is only visible in
long-exposure astrophotographs. However, the brightest portion, NGC 6992, is faintly visible in
binoculars, and a dimmer portion, NGC 6960, is visible in wide-angle telescopes.

Cygnus contains several noteworthy X-ray sources. Located near Eta Cygni is the X-ray source
Cygnus X-1, which is now thought to be caused by a black hole accreting matter in a binary star
system. This was the first X-ray source widely believed to be a black hole. Cygnus X-3 is a
microquasar containing a Wolf- Rayet star in orbit around a very compact object, with a period of
only 4.8 hours. The system is one of the most intrinsically luminous X-ray sources observed.
Interestingly, the system undergoes periodic outbursts of unknown nature, and during one such
outburst, the system was found to be emitting muons, likely caused by neutrinos. While the
compact object is thought to be a neutron star or possibly a black hole, it is possible that the object
is instead a more exotic stellar remnant, possibly the first discovered quark star, hypothesized due
to its production of cosmic rays that cannot be explained if the object is a normal neutron star. The
system also emits cosmic rays and gamma rays, and has helped shed insight on to the formation
of such rays. Cygnus X-2 is another X-ray binary, containing an A-type giant in orbit around a
neutron star with a 9.8 day period. The system is interesting due to the rather small mass of the
companion star, as most millisecond pulsars have much more massive companions. Another black
hole in Cygnus is V404 Cygni, which consists of a K-type star orbiting around a black hole of
around 12 solar masses. The black hole, similar to that of Cygnus X-3, has been hypothesized to
be a quark star. 4U 2129+ 47 is another X-ray binary containing a neutron star which undergoes
outbursts, as is EXO 2030+ 375.

Cygnus-X: The Inner Workings of a Nearby Star Factory

How do stars form? To help study this complex issue, astronomers took a deep infrared image of
Cygnus X, the largest known star forming region in the entire Milky Way Galaxy. The above
recently-released image was taken in 2009 by the orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope and digitally
translated into colors humans can see, with the hottest regions colored the most blue. Visible are
large bubbles of hot gas inflated by the winds of massive stars soon after they form. Current models
posit that these expanding bubbles sweep up gas and sometimes even collide, frequently creating
regions dense enough to gravitationally collapse into yet more stars. The star factory Cygnus-X
spans over 600 light years, contains over a million times the mass of our Sun, and shines

prominently on wide angle infrared panoramas of the night sky. Cygnus X lies 4,500 light years
away towards the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus). In a few million years, calm will likely be
restored and a large open cluster of stars will remain- which itself will disperse over the next 100
million years.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120118.html]

Cygnus X is the largest star-forming region in the Solar neighborhood and includes not only some
of the brightest and most massive stars known (such as Cygnus OB2-12), but also Cygnus OB2, a
massive stellar association classified by some authors as a young globular cluster.

Light from Cygnus A

Celebrating astronomy in this International Year of Light, the detailed image reveals spectacular
active galaxy Cygnus A in light across the electromagnetic spectrum. Incorporating X-ray data
(blue) from the orbiting Chandra Observatory, Cygnus A is seen to be a prodigious source of high
energy x-rays. But it is actually more famous at the low energy end of the electromagnetic
spectrum. One of the brightest celestial sources visible to radio telescopes, at 600 million light-

years distant Cygnus A is the closest powerful radio galaxy. Radio emission (red) extends to either
side along the same axis for nearly 300,000 light-years powered by jets of relativistic particles
emanating from the galaxys central supermassive black hole. Hot spots likely mark the ends of
the jets impacting surrounding cool, dense material. Confined to yellow hues, optical wavelength
data of the galaxy from Hubble and the surrounding field in the Digital Sky Survey complete a
remarkable multi-wavelength view.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150124.html]

Cygnus A is the first radio galaxy discovered. In the visible spectrum, it appears as an elliptical
galaxy in a small cluster. It is classified as an active galaxy because the supermassive black hole
at its nucleus is accreting matter, which produces two jets of matter from the poles. The jets
interaction with the interstellar medium creates radio lobes, one source of radio emissions.

This Gemini Observatory image of Kronberger 61 (Soccer Ball Nebula) shows the ionized shell
of expelled gas resembling a soccer ball. The light of the nebula here is primarily due to emission
from twice-ionized oxygen, and its central star can be seen as the slightly bluer star very close to
the center of the nebula.

[http://www.space.com/12423-soccer-ball-planetary-nebula-amateur-astronomer.html]
In recent years, amateur astronomers have made some notable Cygnus discoveries. The Soap
bubble nebula (PN G75.5+1.7), near the Crescent nebula, was discovered on a digital image by
Dave Jurasevich in 2007. In 2011, Austrian amateur Matthias Kronberger discovered a planetary
nebula (Kronberger 61, now nicknamed The Soccer Ball) on old survey photos, confirmed
recently in images by the Gemini Observatory; both of these are likely too faint to be detected by
eye in a small amateur scope. But a much more obscure and relatively tiny object- one which is
readily seen in dark skies by amateur telescopes, under good conditions- is the newly discovered
nebula (likely reflection type) associated with the star 4 Cygni (HD 183056): an approximately
fan-shaped glowing region of several arcminutes diameter, to the south and west of the fifthmagnitude star. It was first discovered visually near San Jose, California and publicly reported by
amateur astronomer Stephen Waldee in 2007, and was confirmed photographically by Al Howard
in 2010. California amateur astronomer Dana Patchick also says he detected it on the Palomar
Observatory survey photos in 2005 but had not published it for others to confirm and analyze at
the time of Waldees first official notices and later 2010 paper.

Cygnus is also the apparent source of the WIMP (weakly interacting massive particles)-wind due
to the orientation of the solar systems rotation through the galactic halo.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygnus_%28constellation%29]

Delphinus

Delphinus is a constellation in the northern sky, close to the celestial equator. Its name is Latin for
dolphin. Delphinus was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy,
and it remains among the 88 modern constellations recognized by the International Astronomical
Union. It is one of the smaller constellations, ranked 69th in size.
Delphinus brightest stars form a distinctive asterism that can easily be recognized. It is bordered
(clockwise from north) by Vulpecula the fox, Sagitta the arrow, Aquila the eagle, Aquarius the
water-carrier, Equuleus the foal and Pegasus the flying horse.

[http://www.peoplesguidetothecosmos.com/constellations/delphinus.htm]

Delphinus is depicted on the left of this card from Uranias Mirror (1825)

Delphinus is associated with two stories from Greek mythology. According to the first Greek god
Poseidon wanted to marry Amphitrite, a beautiful nereid. She, however, wanting to protect her
virginity, fled to the Atlas mountains. Her suitor then sent out several searchers, among them a
certain Delphinus. Delphinus accidentally stumbled upon her and was able to persuade Amphitrite
to accept Poseidons wooing. Out of gratitude the god placed the image of a dolphin among the
stars.

The second story tells of the Greek poet Arion of Lesbos (7th century BCE), who was saved by a
dolphin. He was a court musician at the palace of Periander, ruler of Corinth. Arion had amassed
a fortune during his travels to Sicily and Italy. On his way home from Tarentum his wealth caused
the crew of his ship to conspire against him. Threatened with death, Arion asked to be granted a
last wish which the crew granted: he wanted to sing a dirge. This he did, and while doing so, flung
himself into the sea. There, he was rescued by a dolphin which had been charmed by Arion's music.
The dolphin carried Arion to the coast of Greece and left.

In Chinese astronomy, the stars of Delphinus are located within the Black Tortoise of the North
(Bi Fng Xun W).

In Polynesia, two cultures recognized Delphinus as a constellation. On Pukapuka, it was called Te

Toloa and in the Tuamotus, it was called Te Uru-o-tiki.

[http://www.space.com/22389-nova-star-explosion-delphinus-discovery.html]

Delphinus does not have any bright stars; its brightest star is of magnitude 3.8. However,
Delphinus is in a rich Milky Way star field. The main asterism in Delphinus forms a diamond, or
Job's Coffin, from the four brightest stars: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta Delphini. Alpha and
Beta Delphini are named Sualocin and Rotanev, respectively. When read backwards, they read as
Nicolaus Venator, the Latinized name of Palermo Observatorys former director, Niccol
Cacciatore.

Alpha Delphini (Sualocin) is a blue-white hued main sequence star of magnitude 3.8, 241 lightyears from Earth.

Beta Delphini (Rotanev) is a close binary star and the brightest in Delphinus, divisible in only
large amateur telescopes. To the unaided eye, it appears to be a white star of magnitude 3.6. It has
a period of 27 years and is 97 light-years from Earth.

Gamma Delphini is a celebrated binary star among amateur astronomers. The primary is a goldcolored star of magnitude 4.3 and the secondary is a yellow-tinged star of magnitude 5.1. 102 lightyears away, the components of Gamma Delphini are divisible in a small amateur telescope. The
secondary, also described as green, is 10 arcseconds from the primary.

Delta Delphini is a giant star of magnitude 4.43.

Epsilon Delphini, called also Deneb Dulfim, tail of the Dolphin, is a blue-white giant star of
magnitude 4.

Delphinus is also home to several variable stars. R Delphini is a Mira-type variable star with a
period of 285.5 days. Its magnitude ranges between a maximum of 7.6 and a minimum of 13.8.

HR Delphini was a nova that brightened to magnitude 3.5 in December 1967. On 14 August 2013,
a possible nova was discovered by amateur astronomer Koichi Itagaki, initially labelled PNV
J20233073+2046041, now labelled Nova Delphini 2013.

NGC 6905 in Delphinus

[http://www.capella-observatory.com/ImageHTMLs/PNs/NGC6905.htm]

Because it is in a rich Milky Way star field, Delphinus has several deep-sky objects. One notable
planetary nebula is NGC 6905 or the Blue Flash nebula. It was discovered by William Herschel in
1784. The shape of the nebula is characterized by an internal shell with roughly conical extensions,
with ansae-type formations along the major axis. The central star, a white dwarf is of 14.0
magnitude, and it is estimated to have surface temperature 150.000 K. The distance of NGC 6905,
as with most planetary nebulae, is not well determined and estimates range between 1.7 and 2.6
kpc. NGC 6905 can be detected under dark skies with a 4-inch telescope, but it better observed
with larger instruments.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_6905]

Other nebulae include NGC 6934, a globular cluster of magnitude 9.75, about 50,000 light years
distant, and NGC 7006, extremely remote at a distance of about 185,000 light-years, and fairly
dim at magnitude 11.5.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphinus]

Dorado

Dorado is a constellation in the southern sky. It was named in the late 16th century and is now one
of the 88 modern constellations. Its name refers to the dolphinfish (Coryphaena hippurus), which
is known as dorado in Portuguese, although it has also been depicted as a swordfish. Dorado is
notable for containing most of the Large Magellanic Cloud, the remainder being in the
constellation Mensa. The South ecliptic pole also lies within this constellation.

Dorado shown in the Uranographia of Johann Bode under the name of Xiphias, the swordfish.
Nubecula Major, above it, is better known as the Large Magellanic Cloud.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/dorado.htm]

Even though the name Dorado is not Latin but Portuguese, astronomers give it the Latin genitive
form Doradus when naming its stars; it is treated (like the adjacent asterism Argo Navis) as a
feminine proper name of Greek origin ending in - (like Io or Callisto or Argo), which have a
genitive ending -s.

Dorado was one of twelve constellations named by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter
Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman, and it first appeared on a 35-cm diameter celestial
globe published in 1597 (or 1598) in Amsterdam by Plancius with Jodocus Hondius. Its first
depiction in a celestial atlas was in Johann Bayers Uranometria of 1603 where it was also named
Dorado. Dorado has been represented historically as a dolphinfish and a swordfish; the latter
depiction is inaccurate. It has also been represented as a goldfish. The constellation was also known
in the 17th and 18th century as Xiphias, the swordfish, first attested in Johannes Keplers edition

of Tycho Brahes star list in the Rudolphine Tables of 1627. The name Dorado ultimately become
dominant and was adopted by the IAU.
In Chinese astronomy, the stars of Dorado are located in two of Xu Guangqis Southern Asterisms
(Jnnnjxngu): the White Patches Attached (Jibi) and the Goldfish (Jny).

Constellations of Reticulum and Dorado

[http://www.davidmalin.com/fujii/source/Dor.html]

Dorado includes the following stars: Alpha Doradus is a blue-white star of magnitude 3.3, 176
light-years from Earth. It is the brightest star in Dorado.

Beta Doradus is a notably bright Cepheid variable star. It is a yellow-tinged supergiant star that
has a minimum magnitude of 4.1 and a maximum magnitude of 3.5. 1040 light-years from Earth,
Beta Doradus has a period of 9 days and 20 hours.

Gamma Doradus is the third brightest star in the constellation of Dorado. It has an apparent visual
magnitude of approximately 4.25 and is a variable star, with periods of approximately 17.6 and
18.2 hours.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_Doradus]
Delta Doradus is a faint star in the Dorado constellation that becomes the Moons South Pole star
once every 18.6 years. The pole star status changes periodically, because of the precession of the
Moons rotational axis. When Delta Doradus is the pole star, it is better aligned than Earths Polaris
( Ursae Minoris), but much fainter.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Doradus]

One of the many variable stars in Dorado is R Doradus. It is a red giant Mira variable star in the
constellation Dorado, although visually it appears more closely associated with the constellation
Reticulum. Its distance from Earth is about 178 light-years. Having a uniform disk diameter of
0.057 0.005 arcsec, it is currently believed to be the star with the largest apparent size as viewed
from Earth (not counting our own Sun). The visible magnitude of R Doradus varies between 4.8
and 6.6, which makes it usually just visible to the naked eye. The estimated diameter of R Doradus
is about 515 million km (3.46 AU) or about 370 times the diameter of the Sun. If placed at the
center of the Solar System, the orbit of Mars and most of the main asteroid belt would be contained
within the star.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_Doradus]

25th Anniversary of SN1987a

This February marks the 25th anniversary of the discovery of Supernova 1987A. A star, in the
Tarantula Nebula within the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), called Sanduleak 69 202, exploded
and became a supernova back on 24th February 1987. It is now 25 years since the light from this
cosmic explosion first reached us here on Earth. The star itself actually exploded about 168,000
years before, of course, with the light taking that long to reach us.

SN1987A has become the most studied star remnant in history and has provided great insights into
supernovae and their remnants. It was discovered by Ian Shelton and Oscar Duhalde at the Las
Campanas Observatory in Chile on February 24, 1987, and within the same 24 hours independently
by Albert Jones in New Zealand. On March 4-12, 1987 it was observed from space by Astron, the
largest ultraviolet space telescope of that time. Hubble had yet to be launched.

On February 23rd, approximately three hours before the visible light from SN1987A reached the
Earth, a burst of neutrinos was observed at separate neutrino observatories around the globe. This
is likely due to neutrino emission (which occurs simultaneously with core collapse) preceding the
emission of visible light (which occurs only after the shock wave reaches the stellar surface). This
was the first time neutrinos emitted from a supernova had been observed directly, and marked the
beginning of what is now neutrino astronomy.

The Supernova exploded in the Tarantula Nebula area near the edge of the Large Magellan Clouda satellite galaxy to our own. Even though its location in the LMC meant it was 10 times more
distant than if it had been in our own Milky Way, it also meant that we had a relatively unobscured
view of the supernova and its environment; there was never any ambiguity about its distance; and
the fact that it lies so far south meant that observations could be done each night throughout the
first year as it was always visible at some time during the night.

SN1987A was the brightest and closest supernova that has been seen since the invention of the
telescope back in 1604. That supernova was called Keplers Star and the supernova was in our
own galaxy around 20,000 light years away. It was so bright that it outshone Venus and Jupiter
and was even visible in daylight for 3 weeks back then. The only other one in our own galaxy was
Tychos Star seen in 1572 and also visible to the naked eye. There have only been a total of 8
naked eye supernova that are known.

The photograph shows the field around the site of the supernova in great detail, both before the
supernova exploded (right) and about 10 days afterwards, when it was still brightening. The image
of the star that exploded to create the supernova is elongated. This does not necessarily indicate
any peculiarity or a close companion, rather it is the effect of stars being by chance aligned along
the line of sight. Several other examples can be seen in this picture and other, different, blended
images are seen in the photograph of the same field taken two weeks after the supernova appeared
(left). The difference in image quality (seeing) between these pictures is an effect of the Earths
atmosphere which was much steadier when the plates used to make the pre-supernova picture were
taken. Top left is NE. Width of each image is about 8 arc minutes.
[http://www.astronnewsroom.com/2012/02/25th-anniversary-of-sn1987a/]

SNR 0509-67.5: Supernova Bubble Resembles Holiday Ornament

SNR 0509-67.5 is another supernova remnant located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite
galaxy to the Milky Way about 160,000 light years away. A new composite includes a Hubble
image of the star field and gas that has been shocked by the expanding blast wave (pink). Chandra
data (blue and green) show material in the center of the remnant that has been heated to millions
of degrees.
This colorful creation was made by combining data from two of NASAs Great Observatories.
Optical data of SNR 0509-67.5 and its accompanying star field, taken with the Hubble Space
Telescope, are composited with X-ray energies from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The result
shows soft green and blue hues of heated material from the X-ray data surrounded by the glowing
pink optical shell which shows the ambient gas being shocked by the expanding blast wave from
the supernova. Ripples in the shells appearance coincide with brighter areas of the X-ray data.

The Type 1a supernova that resulted in the creation of SNR 0509-67.5 occurred nearly 400 years
ago for Earth viewers. The supernova remnant, and its progenitor star reside in the Large
Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a small galaxy about 160,000 light-years from Earth. The bubbleshaped shroud of gas is 23 light-years across and is expanding at more than 11 million miles per
hour (5,000 kilometers per second).
[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2010/snr0509/]

Some celestial objects are only visible from Earths Southern Hemisphere, such as central portions
of our Milky Way galaxy, left, plus the two Magellanic Clouds above and to the left of the
observatory dome, as shown in this photo taken at Cerro Paranal in Chiles Atacama Desert.
[https://www.nasa.gov/press/2013/july/nasas-sofia-investigates-the-southern-sky-from-newzealand-1/#.V0y3e74rRWA]

Constellation of Hydrus (and the Magellanic Clouds)

On this photograph is one of the few images of supernova 1987A (at the right top of LMG) showing
it as part of the LMC (right). At the time this picture was taken it was visible to the unaided eye as
a faint star in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Also identified alongside the Small Magellanic Cloud
(left) is 47 Tucanae (on the left of the SMC), one of the finest globular clusters in the sky.
[http://www.davidmalin.com/fujii/source/Hyi.html]

A Large Magellanic Cloud Deep Field

Is this a spiral galaxy? No. Actually, it is the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), the largest satellite
galaxy of our own Milky Way Galaxy. The LMC is classified as a dwarf irregular galaxy because
of its normally chaotic appearance. In this deep and wide exposure, however, the full extent of the
LMC becomes visible. Surprisingly, during longer exposures, the LMC begins to resemble a
barred spiral galaxy. The Large Magellanic Cloud lies only about 180,000 light-years distant
towards the constellation of Dorado. Spanning about 15,000 light-years, the LMC was the site of
SN1987A, the brightest and closest supernova in modern times. Together with the Small
Magellanic Cloud (SMC), the LMC can be seen in Earths southern hemisphere with the unaided
eye.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080409.html]

The two Magellanic Clouds are two irregular dwarf galaxies visible from the southern hemisphere,
which are members of the Local Group and are orbiting the Milky Way galaxy. The Large
Magellanic Cloud and its neighbor and relative, the Small Magellanic Cloud, are conspicuous

objects in the southern hemisphere, looking like separated pieces of the Milky Way to the naked
eye. Roughly 21 apart in the night sky, the true distance between them is roughly 75,000 lightyears. Until the discovery of the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy in 1994, they were the closest
known galaxies to our own (since 2003, the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy was discovered to be closer
still, and is now considered the actual nearest neighbor). The LMC lies about 160,000 light years
away, while the SMC is around 200,000. The LMC is about twice the diameter of the SMC (14,000
ly and 7,000 ly respectively). For comparison, the Milky Way is about 100,000 ly across.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magellanic_Clouds]

Other deep- sky objects in Dorado are:

Commented [CT1]:

A close-up image of NGC 1566 taken by the Hubbles Wide Field Camera

NGC 1566, commonly known as the Spanish Dancer, is the dominant member of the Dorado
Group and also its brightest member. Its absolute luminosity is 3.710^10 suns. It contains
1.41010 solar masses, and its distance is 38.4 18.6 Mly.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_1566]

A HST image of a Star-forming region NGC 2080

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_2080]
NGC 2080, also called the Ghost Head Nebula, is an emission nebula that is 50 light-years wide
in the Large Magellanic Cloud. It is named for the two distinct white patches that it possesses,
which are regions of recent star formation. The western portion is colored green from doublyionized oxygen, the southern portion is red from hydrogen alpha emissions, and the center region

is colored yellow from both oxygen and hydrogen emissions. The western white patch has one
massive, recently formed star inside. The eastern patch has several stars hidden in its dust.

The Tarantula Nebula

The Tarantula Nebula is more than a thousand light-years in diameter, a giant star forming region
within nearby satellite galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud, about 180 thousand light-years away.
The largest, most violent star forming region known in the whole Local Group of galaxies, the
cosmic arachnid sprawls across this spectacular composite view constructed with space- and
ground-based image data. Within the Tarantula (NGC 2070), intense radiation, stellar winds and
supernova shocks from the central young cluster of massive stars, cataloged as R136, energize the
nebular glow and shape the spidery filaments. Around the Tarantula are other star forming regions

with young star clusters, filaments, and blown-out bubble-shaped clouds In fact, the frame includes
the site of the closest supernova in modern times, SN 1987A, at the lower right. The rich field of
view spans about 1 degree or 2 full moons, in the southern constellation Dorado. But were the
Tarantula Nebula closer, say 1,500 light-years distant like the local star forming Orion Nebula, it
would take up half the sky.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160226.html]

Huge Bubble in N44 Nebula

This image is part of the N44 super-bubble complex, a cloudy tempest dominated by a vast bubble
about 325 by 250 light-years across. A cluster of massive stars inside the cavern has cleared away
gas to form a distinctive mouth-shaped hollow shell. While astronomers do not agree on exactly
how this bubble has evolved for up to the past 10 million years, they do know that the central
cluster of massive stars is responsible for the clouds unusual appearance. It is likely that the

explosive death of one or more of the clusters most massive and short-lived stars played a key
role in the formation of the large bubble.
This region is like a giant laboratory providing us with a glimpse into many unique phenomena,
said Sally Oey of the University of Michigan, who has studied this object extensively.
Observations from space have even revealed x-ray-emitting gas escaping from this super-bubble,
and while this is expected, this is the only object of its kind where we have actually seen it
happening.

The Gemini data used to produce this image are being released to the astronomical community for
further research and follow-up analysis. The image provides one of the most detailed views ever
obtained of this relatively large region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to the
Milky Way, located some 150,000 light-years away and visible from the Southern Hemisphere.
The images captured light of specific colors that reveal the compression of material and the
presence of gases (primarily excited hydrogen gas and lesser amounts of oxygen and shocked
sulfur) in the cloud.

Multiple smaller bubbles appear in the image as bulbous growths clinging to the central superbubble. Most of these regions were probably formed as part of the same process that shaped the
central cluster. Their formation could also have been sparked by compression as the central stars
pushed the surrounding gas outward. Our view into this cavern could really be like looking through
an elongated tube, which lends the object its monstrous mouth-like appearance.

The images used to produce the color composite were obtained with the Gemini Multi-object
Spectrograph (GMOS) at the Gemini South Telescope on Cerro Pachn in Chile. The color image
was produced by Travis Rector of the University of Alaska Anchorage and combines three singlecolor images to produce the image. H-alpha emission is rendered in violet, OIII (doubly ionized
oxygen) emission in cyan, and SII emission in orange.
[http://www.wolaver.org/space/n44x.htm]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorado]

Draco

Draco is a constellation in the far northern sky. Its name is Latin for dragon. It was one of the 48
constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy and remains one of the 88 modern
constellations today. The north pole of the ecliptic is in Draco. Draco is circumpolar (that is, never
setting), and can be seen all year from northern latitudes. The constellations right ascension is 17,
its declination +65, and it covers an area 1083 sq. deg., ranking 8th in size.

Draco coils around the north celestial pole, as depicted in Urania's Mirror, a set of constellation
cards published in London c.1825
Dragons in Greek mythology that may have inspired the constellations name include Ladon, the
dragon who guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides. Hercules killed Ladon during his 12
labors; he was tasked with stealing the golden apples. The constellation of Hercules is depicted
near Draco. Sometimes, Draco is represented as the demon son of Gaia, Typhon.

In Greco- Roman legend, Draco was a dragon killed by the goddess Minerva and tossed into the
sky upon his defeat. The dragon was one of the Gigantes, who battled the Olympic gods for ten
years. As Minerva threw the dragon, it became twisted on itself and froze at the cold North
Celestial Pole before it could right itself.
The most commonly accepted version of Dracos arrival in the heavens is that Draco was the
dragon killed by Cadmus. Cadmus was the brother of Europa, who was carried off to Crete by
Jupiter in the form of a bull (Taurus). Cadmus was ordered by his father to go in search of his
sister, and told he could not return unless he brought Europa back with him. As Ovid narrates in
his Metamorphosis, Cadmus wandered over the whole world: for who can lay hands on what Jove
has stolen away? Driven to avoid his native country and his father's wrath, he made a pilgrimage
to Apollos oracle, and begged him to say what land he should dwell in.
Cadmus followed Apollos advice and found a suitable site for his new city. He sent his attendants
to find fresh water to offer as a libation to Jupiter, and they wandered into a cave with springs. As
they were getting water, however, they were all killed by the serpent of Mars, a creature with a
wonderful golden crest; fire flashed from its eyes, its body was all puffed up from poison, and
from its mouth, set with a triple row of teeth, flickered a three-forked tongue. After his
companions did not return, Cadmus himself went into the cave and discovered the dragon. He
killed it with his spear, and then (upon the order of Minerva) sowed the dragons teeth in the
ground. From the teeth sprung warriors, who battled each other until only five were left. These
five, along with Cadmus himself, were the first people of the city of Thebes.

Ovid himself does not equate the dragon of Mars with Draco. In fact he describes the dragon killed
by Cadmus in terms of the constellation: It was as huge as the Serpent that twines between the
two Bears in the sky, if its full length were seen uncoiled.
[http://www.comfychair.org/~cmbell/myth/draco.html]

Traditional Arabic astronomy does not depict a dragon in modern-day Draco, which is called the
Mother Camels. Instead, two hyenas, represented by Eta Draconis and Zeta Draconis are seen
attacking a baby camel (a dim star near Beta Draconis), which is protected by four female camels,

represented by Beta Draconis, Gamma Draconis, Nu Draconis, and Xi Draconis. The nomads who
own the camels are camped nearby, represented by a cooking tripod composed of Upsilon, Tau,
and Sigma Draconis.

A Babylonian creation story tells of Tiamat, who turned herself into a dragon but was later defeated
and split into two parts. One part became the heavens and the other, the Earth.

A Chinese tale sees the stars as the dragon who eats the Sun or Moon (possible represented by the
north star Polaris) in an eclipse. During a real eclipse, ancient Chinese would make as much noise
as possible, banging on pots and pans to try and scare away the dragon which was eating the Sun
or Moon.

A Norse creation myth tells of a dragon who gnaws at the roots of Ygdrasil, the tree that covers
the world.

Because Thuban was the pole star 5000 years ago the ancient Egyptians keenly observed it. Some
of Dracos stars were part of their constellation of Hippopotamus and some were of the Crocodile.
They appear on the planisphere of Denderah and the walls of the Ramesseum at Thebes. Dracos
stars were also said to represent the falcon headed god Horus.

The Pharaoh Khufu ruled ancient Egypt around 2550 BCE and was buried in the largest of the
Giza pyramids when he died. Khufus burial chamber was fashioned deep inside the Great
Pyramid. Two skinny shafts bore outward from the chamber. For decades, scholars thought they
were airshafts. But in the 1960s, astronomers found that they have an astronomical purpose. It was
found that one of the shafts pointed directly towards Thuban. The other was aimed at the belt of
Orion, which symbolized Osiris. The stars close to the pole never set. The Egyptians described
these stars as imperishable or undying. Khufu expected that when he died, he would join not
only with the Sun, but with Thuban as well, maintaining order in the celestial realm, just as he had
on Earth.

Around 800 BCE, the prehistoric Adena people who lived in the Ohio area of the United States
created Serpent Mound which is believed to mirror the constellation Draco. This huge mound is
nearly a quarter mile long.

The Persians have regarded Draco as a man-eating serpent called Azhdeha.

In early Hindu worship, Draco is given the form of an alligator known as Shi-shu-mara.
[http://starryskies.com/The_sky/constellations/draco.html]

[https://www.pa.msu.edu/people/horvatin/Astronomy_Facts/constellation_pages/draco.htm]
Thuban ( Draconis) was the northern pole star from 3942 BCE, when it moved farther north than
Theta Botis, until 1793 BCE. Due to the effects of precession, it will again be the pole star around
the year AD 21000. It is a blue-white giant star of magnitude 3.7, 309 light-years from Earth. The
traditional name of Alpha Draconis, Thuban, means head of the serpent.

There are two other stars above magnitude 3 in Draco. The brighter of the two- and the brightest
star in Draco- is Gamma Draconis, traditionally called Etamin or Eltanin. It is an orange giant star
of magnitude 2.2, 148 light-years from Earth. The aberration of starlight was discovered in 1728
when James Bradley observed Gamma Draconis.

Beta Draconis, traditionally called Rastaban, is a yellow giant star of magnitude 2.8, 362 lightyears from Earth. Its name shares a meaning with Thuban, head of the serpent.

The four stars forming the dragons head (beta Dra, gamma Dra, xi Dra and nu Dra), build a
conspicuous asterism called the Lozenge.

Epsilon Dra is a good double to be observed with scopes at a moderate magnification. Its
companions are about 3 arc sec apart. The binary mu Dra is a good test for a scope with an aperture
of 60mm. Good optics might split that pair consisting of two F7 main sequence stars (5.83 mag
and 5.80 mag).

An outstanding binary is nu Dra. The two white stars (an A6V and an A4m) have magnitudes of
4.88 and 4.87. They are a good object for binoculars. Small scopes reveal the 8th mag blue
companion of the G9IIIbCN-0.5 star omicron Dra (4.66 mag). A good binocular may be sufficient
to split the pair of psi Dra. Small scopes show a 5th mag star and a 6th mag star. Another easy pair
for small telescopes is 40-41 Dra. The two yellow stars are of 6th mag. Its coordinates are roughly
RA=18h and DECL=+80 degrees.

A really impressive triple system is 39 Dra. Field glasses show a wide double; in larger scopes a
third star close to the brighter one occurs.

Another attractive triple is 16-17. In binoculars two blue-white stars of 5th mag are revealed.
Viewing with a telescope shows another star of 7th mag close to one of the first two.
[http://www.crystalinks.com/draco.html]

The constellation contains the star recently named Kepler-10 which has been confirmed to be
orbited by Kepler-10b, the smallest rocky Earth-sized planet yet detected outside of the Solar
System. Yet it orbits its star in less than a day, at less than a twentieth of the distance from Mercury
to the Sun. Its surface temperature on the star lit side is approximately 1833 K which is as hot as
a blast furnace and hot enough to melt iron.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler-10b]

The Cats Eye Nebula

The full beauty of the Cats Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) is revealed in this new, detailed view from
NASAs Hubble Space Telescope. The image from Hubbles Advanced Camera for Surveys
(ACS) shows a bulls eye pattern of eleven or even more concentric rings, or shells, around the
Cats Eye. Each ring is actually the edge of a spherical bubble seen projected onto the sky thats
why it appears bright along its outer edge.

Observations suggest the star ejected its mass in a series of pulses at 1,500-year intervals. These
convulsions created dust shells, each of which contain as much mass as all of the planets in our
solar system combined (still only one percent of the Suns mass). These concentric shells make a
layered, onion-skin structure around the dying star. The view from Hubble is like seeing an onion
cut in half, where each skin layer is discernible.
The bulls-eye patterns seen around planetary nebulae come as a surprise to astronomers because
they had no expectation that episodes of mass loss at the end of stellar lives would repeat every
1,500 years. Several explanations have been proposed, including cycles of magnetic activity
somewhat similar to our own Sun's sunspot cycle, the action of companion stars orbiting around
the dying star, and stellar pulsations. Another school of thought is that the material is ejected
smoothly from the star, and the rings are created later on due to formation of waves in the
outflowing material.
[https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_211.html]
The Cats Eye Nebula is approximately 3,000 light-years away, and was discovered by English
astronomer William Herschel in 1786. It is 9th magnitude and was named for its appearance in the
Hubble Space Telescope, though it appears as a fuzzy blue-green disk in an amateur telescope.
NGC 6543 has a very complex shape due to gravitational interactions between the components of
the multiple star at its center, the progenitor of the nebula approximately 1,000 years ago. It is
located 9.6 arcminutes away from the north ecliptic pole to the west-northwest. It is also related to
IC 4677, a nebula that appears as a bar 1.8 arcminutes to the west of the Cats Eye nebula. In longterm exposures, IC 4677 appears as a portion of a ring surrounding the planetary nebula.

[http://www.wolaver.org/Space/NGC5866.htm]

There are several faint galaxies in Draco, one of which is the lenticular galaxy NGC 5866
(sometimes considered to be Messier Object 102) that bears its name to a small group that also
includes the spiral galaxies NGC 5879 and NGC 5907.

Another is the Draco Dwarf Galaxy, one of the least luminous galaxies with an absolute magnitude
of 8.6 and a diameter of only about 3,500 light years, discovered by Albert G. Wilson of Lowell
Observatory in 1954. Another dwarf galaxy found in this constellation is PGC 39058.

Abell 2218: A Galaxy Cluster Lens

Gravity can bend light, allowing huge clusters of galaxies to act as telescopes. Almost all of the
bright objects in this released Hubble Space Telescope image are galaxies in the cluster known as
Abell 2218. The cluster is so massive and so compact that its gravity bends and focuses the light
from galaxies that lie behind it. As a result, multiple images of these background galaxies are
distorted into long faint arcs - a simple lensing effect analogous to viewing distant street lamps
through a glass of wine. The cluster of galaxies Abell 2218 is itself about three billion light-years
away in the northern constellation Draco. The power of this massive cluster telescope has recently
allowed astronomers to detect a galaxy at redshift 5.58, the most distant galaxy yet measured. This
young, still-maturing galaxy is faintly visible to the lower right of the cluster core.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap011007.html]

Draco also features several interacting galaxies and galaxy clusters. One such massive cluster is
Abell 2218. It acts as a gravitational lens for even more distant background galaxies, allowing
astronomers to study those galaxies as well as Abell 2218 itself; more specifically, the lensing
effect allows astronomers to confirm the clusters mass as determined by x-ray emissions.

Arp 188 and the Tadpoles Tail

In this stunning vista, based on image data from the Hubble Legacy Archive, distant galaxies form
a dramatic backdrop for disrupted spiral galaxy Arp 188, the Tadpole Galaxy. The cosmic tadpole
is a mere 420 million light-years distant toward the northern constellation Draco. Its eye-catching
tail is about 280 thousand light-years long and features massive, bright blue star clusters. One story
goes that a more compact intruder galaxy crossed in front of Arp 188- from right to left in this
view- and was slung around behind the Tadpole by their gravitational attraction. During the close
encounter, tidal forces drew out the spiral galaxys stars, gas, and dust forming the spectacular tail.
The intruder galaxy itself, estimated to lie about 300 thousand light-years behind the Tadpole, can
be seen through foreground spiral arms at the upper right. Following its terrestrial namesake, the
Tadpole Galaxy will likely lose its tail as it grows older, the tail's star clusters forming smaller
satellites of the large spiral galaxy.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap121108.html]

Q1634+706 is a quasar that holds the distinction of being the most distant object usually visible in
an amateur telescope. At magnitude 14.4, it appears star-like, though it is at a distance of 12.9

billion light-years. The light of Q1634+706 has taken 8.6 billion years to reach Earth, a
discrepancy attributable to the expansion of the universe.

Draco is home to the February Eta Draconids, a meteor shower that was discovered on February
4, 2011. Observers noted six meteors with a common radiant in a short period. Its parent is a
previously unknown long-period comet.

Also, the Hercules- Corona Borealis Great Wall, possibly the largest known structure in the
universe, covers a part of the southern region of Draco.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draco_%28constellation%29]

Equuleus

Equuleus is a constellation whose name is Latin for little horse, a foal. It was one of the 48
constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy. It is the second smallest of the modern
constellations (after Crux), spanning only 72 square degrees. It is also very faint, having no stars
brighter than the fourth magnitude.

Equuleus, the foal, seen next to the head of Pegasus in Johann Bodes Uranographia (1801).
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/equuleus.htm]

In Greek mythology, one myth associates Equuleus with the foal Celeris (meaning swiftness or
speed), who was the offspring or brother of the winged horse Pegasus. Celeris was given to
Castor by Mercury. Other myths say that Equuleus is the horse struck from Poseidons trident,
during the contest between him and Athena when deciding which would be the superior. Because
this section of stars rises before Pegasus, it is often called Equus Primus, or the First Horse.
Equuleus is also linked to the story of Philyra and Saturn. Created by Hipparchus and included by
Ptolemy, it abuts Pegasus; unlike the larger horse it is depicted as a horses head alone.

In Chinese astronomy, the stars that correspond to Equuleus are located within the Black Tortoise
of the North (Bi Fng Xun W).

Youll find Equuleus wedged between Pegasus nose, marked by the star Enif, and another small
but better known constellation, Delphinus.
[https://bestdoubles.wordpress.com/2010/11/17/horsing-around-in-equuleus-delta-%CE%B4%CF%832786-%CF%832765-%CE%B270-and-lamda-%CE%BB/]

Equuleus constellation, image: Roberto Mura

Major stars in Equuleus include:

Kitalpha (Alpha Equulei) is a spectroscopic binary star of the spectral type G0III. It has a visual
magnitude of 3.92 and is approximately 186 light years distant. It is the brightest star in Equuleus.
The stars name, Kitalpha, is derived from the Arabic phrase qia(t) al-faras which means a
piece (or section) of the horse. Kitalpha is about 75 times more luminous than the Sun and has
2.72 times the mass.

Delta Equulei is another binary star in Equuleus. The components in the system belong to the
spectral classes G0 and F5 and have visual magnitudes of 4.49 and 5.4. The system is
approximately 60.3 light years distant from the Sun and has a combined apparent magitude of 4.47.

Gamma Equulei, or 5 Equulei, is also a double star. It belongs to the spectral class A9 Sr Eu. It
has a visual magnitude of 4.7 and is 118 light years distant. Gamma Equulei is a chemically
peculiar star that undergoes occasional variations in brightness and is also classified as a roAp star,
or a rapidly oscillationg Ap star. (An Ap star is a peculiar star of the type A that shows an
overabundance of certain metals and usually rotates much slower than regular A type stars.) The
companion star has an apparent magnitude of 9.05 and is located 1.26 arc seconds away from the
main component.

Beta Equulei is a main sequence star belonging to the spectral class A3V. It has four visual
companions that are not physically related to the main star. The system has a combined apparent
magnitude of 5.159 and is about 360 light years distant from Earth.

Epsilon Equulei is another multiple star in Equuleus. It consists of four components. It has a visual
magnitude of 5.3 and is 196.4 light years distant from the Sun.

Lambda Equulei is another binary star in the constellation. The primary component in the system
is a main sequence star belonging to the spectral class F6V. The system has an apparent magnitude
of 6.72 and is approximately 332 light years distant from the solar system.

HD 200964 is a subgiant of the spectral type K0 IV. It has a visual magnitude of 6.64 and is some
223 light years distant. The star is notable because two large extrasolar planets were discovered in
its orbit in July 2010. The planet closer to the star is almost double the mass of Jupiter, while the
more distant planet is slightly less massive than Jupiter. The inner planet has an orbital period of
614 days and the outer one orbits the star every 825 days. This adds up to a 4:3 resonance: every
time the bigger planet orbits the star four times, the smaller one orbits the star three times.

Deep sky objects in Equuleus include:

NGC 7015 is a galaxy with a visual magnitude of 12.4. It is 2.0x1.8 in size and about 212 million
light years distant.

NGC 7040 is a spiral galaxy with an apparent visual magnitude of 14.0. Its coordinates are 21h
13m 16.5s (right ascension), +085153.2 (declination).

NGC 7045 is a binary star in Equuleus. It was discovered by John Herschel in July 1827 and
included on the list of NGC deep sky objects. It has a visual magnitude of 12.0.
NGC 7046 is a barred spiral galaxy 1.9x1.4 in size. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 13.10.
The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel in October 1790.

[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/equuleus-constellation/]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equuleus]

Eridanus

Stars of constellations Orion and Eridanus are photographed above Sinai seashores near Dahab,
northeast Egypt. At this latitude of 28 degrees north even the southern most part of the constellation
Eridanus, the River, is visible. The bright star at the southern end of the river is Achernar, Alpha
star in Eridanus; means the end of the river in Arabic. Achernar is the 10th brightest star in the
night sky with +0.46 magnitude. Eridanus is the 6th largest constellation in the sky and its unique
figure take it from the celestial equator near Orion Belt to declination -57 at Achernar (57 degrees
below the celestial equator).
[http://twanight.org/newTWAN/photos.asp?ID=3003327]

Eridanus is the sixth largest constellation in the night sky, occupying an area of 1138 square
degrees. It is located in the first quadrant of the southern hemisphere (SQ1) and can be seen at
latitudes between +32 and -90. The neighboring constellations are Caelum, Cetus, Fornax,
Horologium, Hydrus, Lepus, Orion, Phoenix, Taurus and Tucana.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/eridanus-constellation/]

Johannes Hevelius Eridanus from Uranographia (1690)

[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/constellations/eridanus.html]

The name Eridanus refers to the Po River, the main river of northern Italy. Its association with a
river comes from the way its stars trace a tortuous path. In some star maps, Eridanus is depicted
as a river flowing from the waters poured by Aquarius. In such maps, Aquarius is visualized as
facing Eridanus, requiring a different perspective and a redesign of how the stars of Aquarius
connect, so the water pours onto the same side as Eridanus.

According to one theory, the Greek constellation takes its name from the Babylonian constellation
known as the Star of Eridu (MUL.NUN.KI). Eridu was an ancient city in the extreme south of
Babylonia; situated in the marshy regions it was held sacred to the god Enki-Ea who ruled the
cosmic domain of the Abyss- a mythical conception of the fresh-water reservoir below the Earths
surface.

Eridanus is connected to the myth of Phaethon, who took over the reins of his father Helios sky
chariot (i.e., the Sun), but didnt have the strength to control it and so veered wildly in different
directions, scorching both Earth and heaven. Zeus intervened by striking Phaethon dead with a
thunderbolt and casting him to Earth. The constellation was supposed to be the path Phaethon
drove along; in later times, it was considered a path of souls. Since Eridanos was also a Greek
name for the Po (Latin Padus), in which the burning body of Phaethon is said by Ovid to have
extinguished, the mythic geography of the celestial and earthly Eridanus is complex.

Another association with Eridanus is a series of rivers all around the world. First conflated with
the Nile River in Egypt, the constellation was also identified with the Po River in Italy. The stars
of the modern constellation Fornax were formerly a part of Eridanus.

The stars of Eridanus are also depicted as a river in Indian astronomy starting close to the head of
Orion just below Auriga. Eridanus is called Srotaswini in Sanskrit, srtas meaning the course of a
river or stream. Specifically, it is depicted as the Ganges on the head of Dakshinamoorthy or
Nataraja, a Hindu incarnation of Shiva. Dakshinamoorthy himself is represented by the
constellation Orion.

The stars that correspond to Eridanus cannot be fully seen from China. In Chinese astronomy, the
northern part is located within the White Tiger of the West (X Fng Bi H). The unseen southern
part was classified among the Southern Asterisms (Jnnnjxngu) by Xu Guangqi, based on
knowledge of western star charts.

[https://bobmoler.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/122711-ephemeris-the-constellation-of-eridanusthe-river/]

[http://www.pa.msu.edu/people/horvatin/Astronomy_Facts/constellation_pages/eridanus.htm]

At its southern end is the magnitude 0.5 star Achernar, designated Alpha Eridani. 144 light-years
from Earth, it is a blue-white hued main sequence star whose traditional name means the rivers
end. Achernar is a very peculiar star because it is one of the flattest stars known. Observations
indicate that its radius is about 50% larger at the equator than at the poles. This distortion occurs
because the star is spinning extremely rapidly.

There are several other noteworthy stars in Eridanus, including some double stars. Beta Eridani,
traditionally called Cursa, is a blue-white star of magnitude 2.8, 89 light-years from Earth. Its place
to the south of Orions foot gives it its name, which means the footstool.

Theta Eridani, called Acamar, is a binary star with blue-white components, distinguishable in small
amateur telescopes and 161 light-years from Earth. The primary is of magnitude 3.2 and the
secondary is of magnitude 4.3.

Epsilon Eridani is a star with one extrasolar planet similar to Jupiter. It is an orange -hued mainsequence star of magnitude 3.7, 10.5 light-years from Earth. Its one planet, with an approximate
mass of one Jupiter mass, has a period of 7 years.

A Hubble Space Telescope (HST) image of NGC 1300

Eridanus contains the galaxies NGC 1232, NGC 1234, NGC 1291 and NGC 1300, a grand design
barred spiral galaxy. NGC 1300 is a face-on barred spiral galaxy located 61 (plus or minus 8)
million light-years away. The galaxy is about 110,000 light-years across (about 2/3 the size of our
own galaxy, the Milky Way). It is a member of the Eridanus Cluster, a cluster of 200 galaxies. It
was discovered by John Herschel in 1835. In the core of the larger spiral structure of NGC 1300,
the nucleus shows its own extraordinary and distinct grand-design spiral structure that is about
3,300 light-years long. Only galaxies with large-scale bars appear to have these grand-design inner
disks- a spiral within a spiral. Models suggest that the gas in a bar can be funneled inwards, and
then spiral into the center through the grand-design disk, where it can potentially fuel a central
black hole. NGC 1300 is not known to have an active nucleus, indicating that its central black hole
is not accreting matter.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_1300]

IC 2118: The Witch Head Nebula

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble- maybe Macbeth should have
consulted the Witch Head Nebula. This suggestively shaped reflection nebula is associated with
the bright star Rigel in the constellation Orion. More formally known as IC 2118, the Witch Head
Nebula glows primarily by light reflected from Rigel, located just outside the top right corner of
the above image. Fine dust in the nebula reflects the light. The blue color is caused not only by

Rigels blue color but because the dust grains reflect blue light more efficiently than red. The same
physical process causes Earths daytime sky to appear blue, although the scatterers in Earths
atmosphere are molecules of nitrogen and oxygen. The nebula lies about 1000 light-years away.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap051227.html]

NGC 1535 using the 0.8m Schulman Telescope from the Mount Lemmon Sky Center
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_1535]

NGC 1535 is a small blue-gray planetary nebula visible in small amateur telescopes, with a disk
visible in large amateur instruments. 2000 light-years away, it is of the 9th magnitude.

The Nu Eridanids, a recently discovered meteor shower, radiate from the constellation between
August 30 and September 12 every year; the showers parent body is an unidentified Oort cloud
object. Another meteor shower in Eridanus is the Omicron Eridanids, which peak between
November 1 and 10.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eridanus_%28constellation%29]

Fornax

Fornax constellation lies in the southern hemisphere of the sky. Its name means the furnace in
Latin. Fornax is the 41st largest constellation in the sky, occupying an area of 398 square degrees.
It is located in the first quadrant of the southern hemisphere and can be seen at latitudes between
+50 and -90. The neighboring constellations are Cetus, Eridanus, Phoenix and Sculptor.

Fornax was portrayed under the name Apparatus Chemicus in the Uranographia of Johann Bode
(1801). Bode depicted it as Antoine Lavoisiers experiment to decompose water into hydrogen and
oxygen.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/fornax.htm]

Fornax was introduced by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1756, after his trip to the Cape of Good
Hope, where he observed the southern stars and constellations. Lacaille originally named the
constellation Fornax Chemica, the chemical furnace, after the small fuel heater used for chemical
experiments. It was the English astronomer Francis Bailey who shortened the constellations name
to Fornax at John Herchels suggestion in 1845.

According to traditional Chinese uranography, the modern constellation Fornax is located within
the western quadrant of the sky, The White Tiger of the West (X Fng Bi H). The name of the
western constellation in modern Chinese is (tin l zu), meaning the heaven furnace
constellation.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fornax_%28Chinese_astronomy%29]

[http://www.peoplesguidetothecosmos.com/constellations/fornax.htm]

Stars in Fornax include:

Alpha Fornacis is the brightest star in the constellation and the only star brighter than magnitude
4.0. It is a subgiant star belonging to the spectral class F8IV. It has an apparent visual magnitude
of 3.85 and is approximately 46 light years distant from the solar system. The star has the
traditional names Dalim and Fornacis. It is 33% more massive than the Sun and is believed to be
about 2.9 billion years old. Alpha Fornacis is really a binary star, and it may have a circumstellar
disk of debris, as it exhibits an excess of infrared emission.

Beta Fornacis is a giant star belonging to the spectral class G8.5IIIb. It has a visual magnitude of
4.465 and is approximately 169 light years distant. The star has an optical companion with a visual
magnitude of 14.0.

HD 16417- 2 Fornacis (Lambda-2 Fornacis) is a main sequence star with the stellar classification
G1V. It has an apparent magnitude of 5.78 and is 84.1 light years distant. It is about 300 million
years younger than the Sun, and hotter and more massive. The star has a low mass extrasolar planet
in its orbit.

HD 20781 and HD 20782 form a wide binary system and both stars have their own planetary
systems in S type orbits. This is the first binary star discovered with both components known to
have orbiting planets. HD 20781 has the stellar classification G9.5V and is approximately 117
light years distant from the solar system. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 8.44. It has two
confirmed planets in its orbit. They were discovered in 2011. HD 20782 belongs to the spectral
class G3V. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 7.38 and is also approximately 117 light years
distant. An extrasolar planet was discovered orbiting the star in 2006.

HIP 13044 is a red horizontal branch star, one in the stage of evolution that follows the red giant
stage. It has an apparent magnitude of 9.9 and is approximately 701 light years distant from Earth.
The star is part of the Helmi stream, a stellar stream of the Milky Way that started out as a dwarf
galaxy and was absorbed as a stream by the Milky Way. HIP 13044 is seven times the size of the
Sun, but slightly less massive. It is believed to be about nine billion years old or possibly even
older. A planet, designated HIP 13044 b, was discovered in the stars orbit in November 2010.
HIP 13044 b is a hot Jupiter that is believed to have originated outside the galaxy and then become
part of the Milky Way when its galaxy of origin collided with and was absorbed by our galaxy.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/fornax-constellation/]

Fornax has been the target of investigations into the furthest reaches of the universe. The Hubble
Ultra Deep Field is located within Fornax, and the Fornax Cluster, a small cluster of galaxies, lies
primarily within Fornax. At a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society in Britain, a team from
University of Queensland described 40 unknown dwarf galaxies in this constellation; follow-up
observations with the Hubble Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatory's Very
Large Telescope revealed that ultra-compact dwarfs are much smaller than previously known
dwarf galaxies, about 120 light-years (37 pc) across.

The Fornax Cluster of Galaxies

How do clusters of galaxies form and evolve? To help find out, astronomers continue to study the
second closest cluster of galaxies to Earth: the Fornax cluster, named for the southern constellation
toward which most of its galaxies can be found. Although almost 20 times more distant than our
neighboring Andromeda galaxy, Fornax is only about 10 percent further that the better known and
more populated Virgo cluster of galaxies. Fornax has a well-defined central region that contains

many galaxies, but is still evolving. It has other galaxy groupings that appear distinct and have yet
to merge. Seen here, almost every yellowish splotch on the image is an elliptical galaxy in the
Fornax cluster. The picturesque barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 visible on the lower right is also a
prominent Fornax cluster member.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130111.html]

NGC 1365: Majestic Spiral with Supernova

Barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 is truly a majestic island universe some 200,000 light-years across.
Located a mere 60 million light-years away toward the chemical constellation Fornax, NGC 1365
is a dominant member of the well-studied Fornax galaxy cluster. This sharp color image shows
intense star forming regions at the ends of the bar and along the spiral arms, and details of dust
lanes cutting across the galaxys bright core. At the core lies a supermassive black hole.
Astronomers think NGC 1365s prominent bar plays a crucial role in the galaxys evolution,
drawing gas and dust into a star-forming maelstrom and ultimately feeding material into the central
black hole. Discovered on October 27, the position of a bright supernova is indicated in NGC 1365.

Cataloged as SN2012fr, the type Ia supernova is the explosion of a white dwarf star.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap121124.html]

The Jets of NGC 1097

Enigmatic spiral galaxy NGC 1097 shines in southern skies, about 45 million light-years away in
the chemical constellation Fornax. Its blue spiral arms are mottled with pinkish star forming
regions in this colorful galaxy portrait. They seem to have wrapped around a small companion
galaxy below and left of center, about 40,000 light-years from the spirals luminous core. Thats
not NGC 1097s most peculiar feature, though. The very deep exposure hints of faint, mysterious
jets, most easily seen to extend well beyond the bluish arms toward the lower right. In fact, four
faint jets are ultimately recognized in optical images of NGC 1097. The jets trace an X centered
on the galaxys nucleus, but probably dont originate there. Instead, they could be fossil star

streams, trails left over from the capture and disruption of a much smaller galaxy in the large
spirals ancient past. A Seyfert galaxy, NGC 1097s nucleus also harbors a supermassive black
hole.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap131114.html]

A Hubble Space Telescope (HST) image of NGC 1316

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_1316]

Astronomers turn detectives when trying to figure out the cause of unusual sites like NGC 1316.
A preliminary inspection indicates that NGC 1316 is an enormous elliptical galaxy that started
devouring a smaller spiral galaxy neighbor about 100 million years ago. Supporting evidence

includes the dark dust lanes uniquely indicative of a spiral. What remains unexplained are the
unusually small globular star clusters, visible as faint dots on the above photograph. Most elliptical
galaxies have more and brighter globular clusters than evident in NGC 1316. Yet the observed
globulars are too old to have been created by the recent spiral collision. One hypothesis therefore
holds that these globulars survive from an even earlier galaxy that was subsumed into NGC 1316.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap990222.html]

NGC 1360
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_1360]

Planetary nebulae are normally symmetric, either as rings, spheres or bipolar structures. NGC
1360 on the contrary is a rather amorphous cloud and was only identified as a planetary nebula by
its strong radiation in the OIII (oxygen) band, due to excitation by the magnitude 9 central star. It
lies at an estimated 700 light years, well away from the galactic (Milky Way) plane. The reddish
matter towards the lower right is accepted to have been ejected from the original star before its
final collapse and transformation into this peculiar object. North is towards the lower right (150)
in this 15 x 10 arcmin field of view.
[http://www.astrosurf.com/antilhue/ngc1360.htm]

Most Distant Galaxy Candidate Ever Seen in Universe

The farthest and one of the very earliest galaxies ever seen in the universe appears as a faint red
blob in this ultra-deepfield exposure taken with NASAs Hubble Space Telescope. This is the
deepest infrared image taken of the universe. Based on the objects color, astronomers believe it
is 13.2 billion light-years away.

The most distant objects in the universe appear extremely red because their light is stretched to
longer, redder wavelengths by the expansion of the universe. This object is at an extremely faint
magnitude of 29, which is 500 million times fainter that the faintest stars seen by the human eye.

The dim object is a compact galaxy of blue stars that existed 480 million years after the Big Bang,
only four percent of the universes current age. It is tiny and considered a building block of todays
giant galaxies. Over one hundred such mini-galaxies would be needed to make up our Milky Way
galaxy.

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field infrared exposures were taken in 2009 and 2010, and required a total
of 111 orbits or 8 days of observing. The new Wide Field Camera 3 has the sharpness and nearinfrared light sensitivity that matches the Advanced Camera for Surveys optical images and
allows for such a faint object to be selected from the thousands of other galaxies in the incredibly
deep images of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field.
[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/ancient-object-gallery.html]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fornax]

Gemini

Gemini is one of the constellations of the zodiac. It was one of the 48 constellations described by
the 2nd century AD astronomer Ptolemy and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations today.
Its name is Latin for twins, and it is associated with the twins Castor and Pollux in Greek
mythology.

As of 2008, the Sun appears in the constellation Gemini from June 20 to July 20. In tropical
astrology, the Sun is considered to be in the sign Gemini from May 21 to June 22, and in sidereal
astrology, from June 16 to July 15.

Gemini as depicted in Uranias Mirror, c.1825.

In Babylonian astronomy, the stars Castor and Pollux were known as the Great Twins
(MUL.MASH.TAB.BA.GAL.GAL). The Twins were regarded as minor gods and were called
Meshlamtaea and Lugalirra, meaning respectively The One who has arisen from the Underworld
and the Mighty King. Both names can be understood as titles of Nergal, the major Babylonian
god of plague and pestilence, who was king of the Underworld.

In Greek mythology, Gemini was associated with the myth of Castor and Pollux, the children of
Leda and Argonauts both. Pollux was the son of Zeus, who seduced Leda, while Castor was the
son of Tyndareus, king of Sparta and Ledas husband. Castor and Pollux were also mythologically
associated with St. Elmos fire in their role as the protectors of sailors. When Castor died, because
he was mortal, Pollux begged his father Zeus to give Castor immortality, and he did, by uniting
them together in the heavens.

In Meteorologica, Aristotle mentions that he observed Jupiter in conjunction with and then
occulting a star in Gemini. This is the earliest known observation of this nature. A study published
in 1990 suggests the star involved was 1 Geminorum and the event took place on 5 December 337
BCE.
When William Herschel discovered Uranus on 13 March 1781 it was located near Gem. In 1930
Clyde Tombaugh exposed a series of photographic plates centred on Gem and discovered Pluto.

In Chinese astronomy, the stars that correspond to Gemini are located in two areas: the White
Tiger of the West (X Fng Bi H) and the Vermillion Bird of the South (Nn Fng Zh Qu).

[http://oneminuteastronomer.com/3010/constellation-gemini/]

Gemini is fairly easy to spot in the sky, even for amateur star gazers. It is located northeast of
Orion, and between Taurus and Cancer on the elliptic. Best viewing is during February. By April
and May, the constellation can be seen soon after sunset in the west.
[http://www.space.com/16816-gemini-constellation.html]

Gemini lies between Taurus to the west and Cancer to the east, with Auriga and Lynx to the north
and Monoceros and Canis Minor to the south.

The Sun resides in the astrological sign of Gemini from June 20 to July 20 each year (though the
zodiac dates it May 21 - June 21). By mid August, Gemini will appear along the eastern horizon
in the morning sky prior to sunrise. The best time to observe Gemini at night is overhead during
the months of January and February. By April and May, the constellation will be visible soon after
sunset in the west.

The easiest way to locate the constellation is to find its two brightest stars Castor and Pollux
eastward from the familiar V shaped asterism of Taurus and the three stars of Orions belt.

Another way is to mentally draw a line from the Pleiades star cluster located in Taurus and the
brightest star in Leo, Regulus. In doing so, you are drawing an imaginary line that is relatively
close to the ecliptic, a line which intersects Gemini roughly at the midpoint of the constellation,
just below Castor and Pollux.

The constellation contains 85 stars visible to observation on Earth without a telescope.

The brightest star in Gemini is Pollux, and the second brightest is Castor. Gem (Castor) is a
sextuple star system 52 light-years from Earth, which appears as a magnitude 1.6 blue-white star
to the unaided eye. Two spectroscopic binaries are visible at magnitudes 1.9 and 3.0 with a period
of 470 years. A wide-set red dwarf star is also a part of the system; this star is an Algol-type
eclipsing binary star with a period of 19.5 hours; its minimum magnitude is 9.8 and its maximum
magnitude is 9.3.
Gem (Pollux) is the brightest star in Gemini. It is an orange-hued giant star of magnitude 1.2, 34
light-years from Earth. Pollux has an extrasolar planet revolving around it, as do two other stars in
Gemini, HD 50554, and HD 59686.
Gem (Alhena): a blue-white hued star of magnitude 1.9, 105 light-years from earth.
Gem (Wasat): a long-period binary star 59 light-years from Earth. The primary is a white star of
magnitude 3.5, and the secondary is an orange dwarf star of magnitude 8.2. The period is over
1000 years; it is divisible in medium amateur telescopes.
Gem (Mebsuta): a double star, the primary is a yellow supergiant of magnitude 3.1, 900 lightyears from Earth. The optical companion, of magnitude 9.2, is visible in binoculars and small
telescopes.
Gem (Mekbuda): a double star, the primary is a Cepheid variable star with a period of 10.2 days;
its minimum magnitude is 4.2 and its maximum magnitude is 3.6. It is a yellow supergiant, 1200
light-years from Earth, with a radius that is 60 times solar, making it approximately 220,000 times

the size of the Sun. The companion, a magnitude 7.6 star, is visible in binoculars and small amateur
telescopes.
Gem (Propus): a binary star with a variable component. 350 light-years away, it has a period of
500 years and is only divisible in large amateur telescopes. The primary is a semi-regular red giant
with a period of 233 days; its minimum magnitude is 3.9 and its maximum magnitude is 3.1. The
secondary is of magnitude 6.
Gem: a binary star 143 light-years from Earth. The primary is a yellow giant of magnitude 3.6;
the secondary is of magnitude 8. The two are only divisible in larger amateur instruments because
of the discrepancy in brightness.
Gem: a double star divisible in binoculars and small amateur telescopes. The primary is a blue
giant of magnitude 4.1, 500 light-years from Earth, and the secondary is of magnitude 8.

38 Gem: a binary star divisible in small amateur telescopes, 91 light-years from Earth. The primary
is a white star of magnitude 4.8 and the secondary is a yellow star of magnitude 7.8.

U Gem: a dwarf nova type cataclysmic variable discovered by J.R. Hind in 1855.

Mu Gem: is the Bayer designation for a star in the northern constellation of Gemini. It has the
traditional name Tejat Posterior, which means back foot, because it is the foot of Castor, one of
the Gemini twins.

To look at Gemini is to look away from the Milky Way; as a result, there are comparatively few
deep-sky objects of note. The Eskimo Nebula, the Medusa Nebula and Geminga are among those
that attract the most attention.

Eskimo Nebula

In 1787, astronomer William Herschel discovered the Eskimo Nebula, which from the ground
resembles a persons head surrounded by a parka hood. In 2000, the Hubble Space Telescope
imaged the nebula that displays gas clouds so complex they are not fully understood. The Eskimo
Nebula is clearly a planetary nebula, and the gas seen above composed the outer layers of a sunlike star only 10,000 years ago. The inner filaments visible above are being ejected by strong wind
of particles from the central star. The outer disk contains unusual light-year long orange filaments.

[http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_762.html]

The Medusa Nebula

Braided, serpentine filaments of glowing gas suggest this nebula's popular name, The Medusa
Nebula. Also known as Abell 21, this Medusa is an old planetary nebula some 1,500 light-years
away in the constellation Gemini. Like its mythological namesake, the nebula is associated with a
dramatic transformation. The planetary nebula phase represents a final stage in the evolution of
low mass stars like the sun, as they transform themselves from red giants to hot white dwarf stars
and in the process shrug off their outer layers. Ultraviolet radiation from the hot star powers the
nebular glow. The Medusa's transforming hot central star is visible in the detailed color image as
the small blue star within the upper half of the overall bright crescent shape. Fainter filaments
clearly extend above and to the left of the bright crescent region. The Medusa Nebula is estimated
to be over 4 light-years across.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap071123.html]

Geminga

Astronomers have captured an image of a pulsar flying through space at 20 times the speed of
sound, with radiant twin tails of X-ray light stretching nearly two billion miles from this tiny, dense
sphere only about 12 miles across. The object, Geminga, in the constellation of Gemini, is the
closest known pulsar to Earth, about 500 light years away.

More than a pretty picture, the result provides unique insight into the contents and density of the
interstellar ocean Geminga is plowing through, along with independent estimates of key pulsar
properties: mass, radius, magnetic field strength, and speed at which such pulsars are kicked
when born in star explosions.
We have this spectacular view because Geminga is travelling almost directly across our line of
sight, said Dr. Patrizia Caraveo, lead author on the Science report. The tails appear to be the

bright edges of a three-dimensional shock wave sculpted by Geminga, like the wake of a ship
travelling across the ocean.

A pulsar is a type of rapidly spinning neutron star that emits steady pulses of radiation with each
rotation, funneled along strong magnetic field lines, much like a lighthouse beam sweeping across
space. A neutron star is the core remains of an exploded star once at least eight times as massive
as the Sun.
Most pulsars emit radio waves. Yet Geminga is radio quiet- a peculiar object discovered 30 years
ago as a gamma-ray only source. (Geminga has since been detected in the X-ray and optical light
wavebands.) Through processes not fully understood, Geminga is the second-brightest gamma-ray
object in the sky. Geminga generates this highest-energy form of light by accelerating electrons
and positrons, a type of antimatter, to high speeds as it spins like a dynamo four times per second.
Gemingas X-ray tails are the latest surprising discovery, Caraveo said. Moving so swiftly through
space, Geminga creates a shock wave that both compresses the gas in the interstellar medium and
boosts Gemingas magnetic field by a factor of four. Caraveos team calculated that electrons must
get whipped around in the enhanced magnetic field and then shot out, creating the X rays detected.

Geminga can now serve as an interstellar probe. Only about a dozen other radio-quiet pulsars are
known, and Geminga is the only one with tails. The brightness and thickness of the X-ray tails are
a measure of the density of matter in between stars, the vast regions darkness that remain largely
unmeasured. The intensity and angle of the tails confirm earlier measurements of Gemingas
proper motion, velocity, radius, and mass from optical observations. In addition, this observation
of Geminga with an X-ray observatory may provide clues to the nature of unknown gamma-ray
sources.
Giovanni Bignami named Geminga for Gemini gamma-ray source in 1973. In his local Milan
dialect, the name is a pun on gh'e minga, which means it is not there. Indeed, Geminga was
unidentified in other wavelengths until 1993, twenty years after its discovery.
[http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0309/06pulsar/]

Commented [CT2]:

Other objects of note in Gemini are M35 (NGC 2168), NGC 2129, NGC 2158, NGC 2266, NGC
2331, NGC 2355, and NGC 2395.

Gemini is also home to the Geminids meteor shower:

When Gemini Sends Stars to Paranal

From a radiant point in the constellation of the Twins, the annual Geminid meteor shower rain
down on planet Earth. Tonight (2015 December 13), the Geminds reach their peak and could be
quite spectacular. The featured blended image, however, captured the showers impressive peak
in the year 2012. The beautiful skyscape collected Geminis lovely shooting stars in a careful
composite of 30 exposures, each 20 seconds long, from the dark of the Chilean Atacama Desert
over ESOs Paranal Observatory. In the foreground Paranals four Very Large Telescopes, four
Auxillary Telescopes, and the VLT Survey telescope are all open and observing. The skies above
are shared with bright Jupiter (left), Orion, (top left), and the faint light of the Milky Way. Dust

swept up from the orbit of active asteroid 3200 Phaethon, Geminis meteors enter Earths
atmosphere traveling at about 22 kilometers per second.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap151213.html]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_%28constellation%29]

Grus

Grus is a constellation in the southern sky. Its name is Latin for the crane, a type of bird. It is one
of twelve constellations conceived by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon
Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. Grus is bordered by Piscis Austrinus to the north, Sculptor to
the northeast, Phoenix to the east, Tucana to the south, Indus to the southwest, and Microscopium
to the west. The constellations Grus, Pavo, Phoenix and Tucana are collectively known as the
Southern Birds. Covering 366 square degrees, it ranks 45th of the 88 modern constellations in
size and covers 0.887% of the night sky. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension
coordinates of the constellation lie between 21h 27.4m and 23h 27.1m, while the declination
coordinates are between 36.31 and 56.39. Grus is located too far south to be seen by observers

in the British Isles and the northern United States, though it can easily be seen from Florida or
California; the whole constellation is visible to observers south of latitude 33N.

Grus cranes its neck in the Uranographia of Johann Bode (1801)

[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/grus.htm]

The stars that form Grus were originally considered part of the neighboring constellation Piscis
Austrinus (the southern fish), with Gamma Gruis seen as part of the fishs tail. The stars were first
defined as a separate constellation by the Dutch astronomer Petrus Plancius, who created twelve
new constellations based on the observations of the southern sky by the Dutch explorers Pieter
Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman, who had sailed on the first Dutch trading expedition,
known as the Eerste Schipvaart, to the East Indies. Grus first appeared on a 35-cm diameter
celestial globe published in 1598 in Amsterdam by Plancius with Jodocus Hondius. Its first
depiction in a celestial atlas was in the German cartographer Johann Bayers Uranometria of 1603.
De Houtman included it in his southern star catalogue the same year under the Dutch name Den
Reygher, The Heron, but Bayer followed Plancius and Hondius in using Grus.

Keyser and de Houtman assigned twelve stars to the constellation. Bayer depicted Grus on his
chart, but did not assign its stars Bayer designations. French explorer and astronomer Nicolas
Louis de Lacaille labelled them Alpha to Phi in 1756 with some omissions. In 1879, American
astronomer Benjamin Gould added Kappa, Nu, Omicron and Xi, which had all been catalogued
by Lacaille but not given Bayer designations. Lacaille considered them too faint, while Gould
thought otherwise. Xi Gruis had originally been placed in Microscopium. Conversely, Gould
dropped Lacailles Sigma as he thought it was too dim.
An alternative name for the constellation, Phoenicopterus (Latin flamingo), was used briefly
during the early 17th century, seen in the 1605 work Cosmographiae Generalis by Paul Merula of
Leiden University and a c. 1625 globe by Dutch globe maker Pieter van den Keere. Astronomer
Ian Ridpath has reported the symbolism likely came from Plancius originally, who had worked
with both of these people.

The stars that correspond to Grus were generally too far south to be seen from China. In Chinese
astronomy, Gamma and Lambda Gruis may have been included in the tub-shaped asterism Biji,
along with stars from Piscis Austrinus.

In Central Australia, the Arrernte and Luritja people living on a mission in Hermannsburg viewed
the sky as divided between them, east of the Milky Way representing Arrernte camps and west
denoting Luritja camps. Alpha and Beta Gruis, along with Fomalhaut, Alpha Pavonis and the stars
of Musca, were all claimed by the Arrernte.

[http://www.dibonsmith.com/gru_con.htm]

Grus has several bright stars. Marking one wing is Alpha Gruis, a blue-white star of spectral type
B6V and apparent magnitude 1.7, around 101 light-years from Earth. Its traditional name, Alnair,
means the bright one and refers to its status as the brightest star in Grus. Alnair is around 380
times as luminous and has over 3 times the diameter of the Sun.
Lying 5 degrees west of Alnair, denoting the Cranes heart is Beta Gruis, a red giant of spectral
type M5III. It has a diameter of 0.8 AU (if placed in the Solar System it would extend to the orbit
of Venus) located around 170 light-years from Earth. It is a variable star with a minimum
magnitude of 2.3 and a maximum magnitude of 2.0.
Lying in the northwest corner of the constellation and marking the cranes eye is Gamma Gruis, a
blue-white subgiant of spectral type B8III and magnitude 3.0 lying around 211 light-years from
Earth. Also known as Al Dhanab, it has finished fusing its core hydrogen and has begun cooling
and expanding, which will see it transform into a red giant.

There are several naked-eye double stars in Grus. Forming a triangle with Alnair and Beta, Delta
Gruis is an optical double whose components- Delta1 and Delta2- are separated by 45 arcseconds.
Delta1 is a yellow giant of spectral type G7III and magnitude 4.0, 309 light-years from Earth, and
may have its own magnitude 12 orange dwarf companion. Delta2 is a red giant of spectral type
M4.5III and semiregular variable that ranges between magnitudes 3.99 and 4.2, located 325 lightyears from Earth. It has around 3 times the mass and 135 times the diameter of our sun.

Marking the other wing is Theta Gruis, yet another double star, lying 5 degrees east of Delta1 and
Delta2.

Six star systems are thought to have planetary systems. Tau1 Gruis is a yellow star of magnitude
6.0 located around 106 light-years away. It may be a main sequence star or be just beginning to
depart from the sequence as it expands and cools. In 2002 the star was found to have a planetary
companion. The radial velocity measurements suggest that the exoplanet has 1.23 times the mass
of Jupiter. The planets orbit stays inside the systems habitable zone for most of its revolution
around the star.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tau1_Gruis]

HD 215456, with an apparent magnitude of 6.63, is actually a yellow sun-like star located around
124 light-years distant from Earth. It has two planets that are around 32 and 76 times as massive
as the earth that have periods of just under 192 and 2226 days respectively. These were detected
by the HARPS survey in 2011.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_215456]

[http://www.pampaskies.com/gallery3/Deep-Space-Objects/Grus_Quartet]
Northeast of Theta Gruis are four interacting galaxies known as the Grus Quartet. These galaxies
are NGC 7552, NGC 7590, NGC 7599, and NGC 7582. The latter three galaxies occupy an area
of sky only 10 arcminutes across and are sometimes referred to as the Grus Triplet, although all
four are part of a larger loose group of galaxies called the IC 1459 Grus Group. NGC 7552 and
7582 are exhibiting high starburst activity; this is thought to have arisen because of the tidal forces
from interacting. Located on the border of Grus with Piscis Austrinus, IC 1459 is a peculiar E3
giant elliptical galaxy. It has a fast counter-rotating stellar core, and shells and ripples in its outer
region. The galaxy has an apparent magnitude of 11.9 and is around 80 million light years distant.

Grand Spiral Galaxy NGC 7424

The grand, winding arms are almost mesmerizing in this face-on view of NGC 7424, a spiral
galaxy with a prominent central bar. About 40 million light-years distant in the headlong
constellation Grus, this island universe is also about 100,000 light-years across making it
remarkably similar to our own Milky Way. Following along the winding arms, many bright
clusters of massive young stars can be found. The star clusters themselves are several hundred
light-years in diameter. And while massive stars are born in the arms of NGC 7424, they also die
there. Notably, this galaxy was home to a powerful stellar explosion, supernova SN 2001ig, which
faded well before the above image was recorded.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130108.html]

C 5148, nicknamed the Spare Tyre Nebula, taken by the ESO Faint Object Spectrograph and
Camera (EFOSC2) on the New Technology Telescope.

IC 5148 is a planetary nebula located around 1 degree west of Lambda Gruis in the constellation
of Grus. Around 3000 light-years distant, it is expanding at a rate of 50 kilometers a second, one
of the fastest of all planetary nebulae.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IC_5148]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grus_%28constellation%29]

Hercules

Hercules is the fifth largest constellation, but has no first magnitude stars. It occupies an area of
1225 square degrees in the sky. The constellation lies in the third quadrant of the northern
hemisphere (NQ3) and can be seen at latitudes between +90 and -50. The neighboring
constellations are Aquila, Botes, Corona Borealis, Draco, Lyra, Ophiuchus, Sagitta, Serpens
Caput and Vulpecula.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/hercules-constellation/]

Johannes Hevelius Herculese from Uranographia (1690)

Hercules, the son of Alcmene and Zeus, is known for his bravery that placed him among the gods
on Mount Olympus. Before Hercules was conceived, his father, Zeus, was known as an unfaithful
husband. He fell in love with Alcmene and, in turn, a child was born. Alcmene named him
Hercules, which literally means glorious gift of Hera. Zeus wife, Hera, was enraged. She
attempted to kill Hercules by placing snakes in Herculess crib, but this failed as Hercules strangled
the snakes with his bare hands.

Hera, the queen of the gods, knew that she was not strong enough to fight Hercules. Therefore, she
decided to get revenge for Zeus actions by making Herculess life as miserable as anyone could
imagine. As Hercules grew, he became a legendary warrior and fell in love with a woman named
Magera. They married and had two children, and they lived happily together. Hera, who kept to
her plans of misery, instilled a wild rage in Hercules which caused him to kill his family.

When the blaze of madness departed, Hercules realized the bloody atrocity that he committed and
prayed to the Delphic oracle, Apollo. Apollo said to Hercules that he must complete 10 tasks,
which increased to 12 later on, as punishment to cleanse his soul. Hera continued to make life
difficult for Hercules while he completed the 12 adventures. Later on, Apollo told Hercules that
he would not pass in to the underworld, but would become a god.
Herculess ascendance to Mount Olympus started when his second and beautiful wife, Deianira,
gave him a cloak that she wove herself. In the cloak she smeared a magical balm that a centaur
had given her and said that anyone who wore the balm would love her forever. Unfortunately, this
was not true and when Hercules put on the cloak he began to burn with severe pain. When he tried
to take the cloak off, the pain only became worse and he thought he would die. He asked his friends
to build a pyre on Mount Oeta and to light it as he lay on it. But, in the meantime, Zeus had been
able to convince Hera that Hercules had gone through enough pain to satiate her anger. She agreed
with his argument, and Zeus then sent Athena to recover Hercules and bring him to his new home
on Mount Olympus.
[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/constellations/hercules.html]

According to Gavin White, the Greek constellation of Hercules is a distorted version of the
Babylonian constellation known as the Standing Gods (MUL.DINGIR.GUB.BA.MESH). White
argues that this figure was, like the similarly named Sitting Gods, depicted as a man with a
serpents body instead of legs (the serpent element now being represented on the Greek star map
by the figure of Draco that Hercules crushes beneath his feet). He further argues that the original
name of Hercules is a conflation of the two Babylonian constellations of the Sitting and Standing
Gods. Hercules is also sometimes associated with Gilgamesh, a Sumerian mythological a hero.

In Chinese astronomy, the stars that correspond to Hercules are located in two areas: the Purple
Forbidden enclosure (Z Wi Yun) and the Heavenly Market enclosure (Tin Sh Yun).

[http://www.universetoday.com/20859/hercules/]

The traditional visualization imagines Herculis as Herculess head. Herculess left hand then
points toward Lyra from his shoulder ( Herculis), and Herculis forms his other shoulder. His
narrow waist is formed by Herculis and Herculis. Finally, his left leg (with Herculis as the
knee and Herculis the foot) is stepping on Dracos head, the dragon/snake who Hercules has
vanquished and perpetually gloats over for eternities.
A common form found in modern star charts uses the quadrangle formed by Her, Her, Her
and Her (known as the Keystone asterism) as Herculess torso.

Hercules has no first or second magnitude stars. However, it does have several stars above
magnitude 4. Alpha Herculis, traditionally called Rasalgethi, is a binary star resolvable in small
amateur telescopes, 400 light-years from Earth. The primary is an irregular variable star; it is a red
giant with a minimum magnitude of 4 and a maximum magnitude of 3. It has a diameter of 400
solar diameters. The secondary, which orbits every 3600 years, is a blue-green hued star of
magnitude 5.4. Its common name means the kneelers head.

Beta Herculis, also called Kornephoros, is the brightest star in Hercules. It is a yellow giant of
magnitude 2.8, 148 light-years from Earth. Its traditional name means club-bearer.

Gamma Herculis is a double star divisible in small amateur telescopes. The primary is a white
giant of magnitude 3.8, 195 light-years from Earth. The optical companion, widely separated, is
10th magnitude.

Zeta Herculis is a binary star that is becoming divisible in medium-aperture amateur telescopes,
as the components widen to their peak in 2025. The system, 35 light-years from Earth, has a period
of 34.5 years. The primary is a yellow-tinged star of magnitude 2.9 and the secondary is an orange
star of magnitude 5.7.

Delta Herculis is a fourth-magnitude star and it has the traditional name Sarin. It is a complex star
system consisting of at least 2 stars and possibly as many as 5. The main star is an A Type main
sequence subgiant with a stellar classification A3IV. The subgiant has both a mass and radius that
are roughly two times solar yielding a total luminosity of about 18.5 suns. Though it only shines
with an apparent magnitude of 3.12, it the third brightest star in the Hercules constellation. The
most recent Hipparcos data yields a distance estimate of approximately 23.1 parsecs (pc) from
Earth or 75 light years (ly).
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Herculis]

Fifteen stars in Hercules are known to be orbited by extrasolar planets. 14 Herculis has two planets.
The planet 14 Herculis b had the longest period (4.9 years) and widest orbit (2.8 AU) at the time
of discovery. The planet 14 Herculis c orbits much further out with very low eccentricity. HD

149026 has a transiting hot Jupiter planet and is one of the most prominent and studied. HD 154345
has the planet HD 154345 b, a long period (9.095 years) and wide orbit (4.18 AU). HD 164922
has the first long period Saturn-like planet discovered. The mass is 0.36 Jupiter massees and
semimajor axis of 2.11 AU. HD 147506 has the most massive transiting planet HAT-P-2b at the
time of discovery. The mass is 8.65 MJ. HD 155358 has two planets around the lowest metallicity
planet-harboring star (21% Sun). Both planets orbit in mild eccentricities. GSC 03089-00929 has
a short transiting planet TrES-3. The period was 31 hours and undergoing orbital decay. Gliese
649 has a Saturnian planet around the red dwarf star. HD 156668 has a 4.15 Earth mass planet.

Messier 13: The heart of Hercules Globular Cluster

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_13]

Hercules contains two bright globular clusters: M13, the brightest globular cluster in the northern
hemisphere, and M92. M13 lies between the stars Her and Her; it is dim, but it is visible to
both the naked eye and binoculars. It is a globular cluster of the 6th magnitude that contains more
than 300,000 stars and is 25,200 light-years from Earth. It is also very large, with an apparent
diameter of over 0.25 degrees, half the size of the full moon; its physical diameter is more than
100 light-years. Individual stars in M13 are resolvable in a small amateur telescope.

M92 is a globular cluster of magnitude 6.4, 26,000 light-years from earth. It is a Shapley class IV
cluster, indicating that it is quite concentrated at the center; it has a very clear nucleus. M92 is
visible as a fuzzy star in binoculars, like M13; it is denser and smaller than the more celebrated
cluster. The oldest globular cluster known at 14 billion years, its stars are resolvable in a mediumaperture amateur telescope.

A Hubble Space Telescope (HST) image of NGC 6210

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_6210]

NGC 6210 is a planetary nebula of the 9th magnitude, 4000 light-years from Earth visible as a
blue-green elliptical disk in amateur telescopes larger than 75 mm in aperture.

Abell 039

Abell 39 is a low surface brightness planetary nebula. It is estimated to be about 6,800 light-years
from earth and 4,600 light-years above the Galactic plane. It is almost perfectly spherical and also
one of the largest known spheres with a radius of about 2.5 light-years. The central star is classified
as a subdwarf O star, slightly west of center. This offset does not appear to be due to interaction
with the interstellar medium, but instead, it is hypothesized that a small asymmetric mass ejection
has accelerated the central star. The mass of the central star is estimated to be about 0.61 solar
masses, with the material in the planetary nebula comprising about twice as much.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abell_39]

Hercules Cluster
http://www.mistisoftware.com/astronomy/Galaxies_HerculesCluster.htm

The Hercules Cluster (Abell 2151) is a cluster of about 200 galaxies some 500 million light-years
distant in the constellation Hercules. It is rich in spiral galaxies and shows many interacting
galaxies. The cluster is part of the larger Hercules Supercluster, which is itself part of the much
larger Great Wall super-structure.

A giant Hubble mosaic of the massive galaxy cluster MACS J0717.5+3745 using a combination
of 18 images. The significant amount of dark matter in this cluster, shown in light blue, may be
also similar to the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall.

The Hercules- Corona Borealis Great Wall or the Great GRB Wall is a massive galactic
superstructure in a region of the sky seen in the data set mapping of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) that
has been found to have an unusually higher concentration of similarly distanced GRBs than the
expected average distribution. It was discovered in early November 2013 by a team of American
and Hungarian astronomers led by Istvan Horvath, Jon Hakkila and Zsolt Bagoly while analyzing
data from the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission, together with other data from ground-based
telescopes.

The overdensity lies at the Second, Third and Fourth Galactic Quadrants (NQ2, NQ3 and NQ4) of
the sky. Thus, it lies in the Northern Hemisphere, centered on the border of the constellations
Draco and Hercules. The clustering crosses over 20 constellations and covers 125 degrees of the
sky, or almost 15,000 square degrees in total area, which translates to about 18 to 23 billion lightyears (5.5 to 7 billion parsecs) in length, and contains many billions of galaxies, depending on how
they are counted.

Although large superclusters are known in the universe such as our own 520 million-light-year
Laniakea Supercluster, a supercluster would have to be exceptionally immense to explain the
clustering perhaps 30 to 50 times larger and 200 times the volume of expected typical
superclusters. The current most plausible explanation for the existence of the HerculesCorona
Borealis Great Wall clustering is a supercluster within the region that shows a high rate of star
formation. Since GRBs are linked with massive stars, such stars form only in regions with more
matter.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules%E2%80%93Corona_Borealis_Great_Wall]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_%28constellation%29]

Horologium

Horologium is a faint constellation in the southern sky. Covering a total of 248.9 square degrees
or 0.603% of the sky, Horologium ranks 58th in area out of the 88 modern constellations. Its
position in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere means that the whole constellation is visible to
observers south of 23N. Horologium is bordered by five different constellations: Eridanus (the
Po River), Caelum (the chisel), Reticulum (the reticle), Dorado (the dolphinfish/swordfish), and
Hydrus (the male water snake). In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates
of the constellation lie between 02h 12.5m and 04h 20.2m, while the declination coordinates are
between 39.63 and 67.04.

Horologium, shown as Horologium Pendulum, in the Uranographia of Johann Bode (1801)

[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/horologium.htm]

The French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille first described the constellation in 1752, after he
had observed and catalogued almost 10,000 southern stars during a two-year stay at the Cape of
Good Hope. He devised fourteen new constellations in uncharted regions of the Southern Celestial
Hemisphere not visible from Europe. All but one honoured instruments that symbolised the Age
of Enlightenment. Lacaille latinized the name to Horologium on his 1763 chart.

[http://www.dibonsmith.com/graphs_SH.htm]

[http://www.davidmalin.com/fujii/source/afn1-04.html]

Horologium has only one star brighter than apparent magnitude 4, and 41 stars brighter than or
equal to magnitude 6.5. Alpha Horologii, the brightest, is an orange giant of magnitude 3.9, located
about 115.0 light-years distant from Earth.

Beta Horologii is a white giant of magnitude 5.0, 314 light-years from Earth.

Lambda Horologii is an ageing yellow-white giant star of spectral type F2III that spins around at
140 km/second, and is hence mildly oblate. It is about 160 light-years from Earth.

R Horologii is a red giant Mira variable with one of the widest ranges in brightness known, around
700 light-years from Earth. It has a minimum magnitude of 14.3 and a maximum magnitude of
4.7; its period is approximately 13 months.

The inner ring of NGC 1512 as imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)

An ultraviolet image of NGC 1510 and NGC 1512 taken with GALEX. The image shows that
NGC 1512 has spiral arms that extend well beyond its optical disk.

Horologium is also home to many deep-sky objects; there are several globular clusters in the
constellation. NGC 1261 is a globular cluster of 8th magnitude, located 44,000 light-years from
Earth. NGC 1512 is a barred spiral galaxy located about 38 million light-years away from Earth.

The globular cluster Arp-Madore 1 is found in the constellation, the most remotely known globular
cluster in the Milky Way at a distance of 398,000 light years.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horologium_%28constellation%29]

Hydra

[http://dreamview.net/DV/NEW/photos.asp?id=102542&cat=NightSky]

Hydra is the largest of the 88 modern constellations, measuring 1303 square degrees. Also one of
the longest at over 100 degrees, its southern end abuts Libra and Centaurus and its northern end
borders Cancer. It has a long history, having been included among the 48 constellations listed by
the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy. It is commonly represented as a water snake.

Hydra - Celestial Atlas by Alexander Jamieson, 1822

[http://www.peoplesguidetothecosmos.com/constellations/hydra.htm]
Hydra constellation is usually associated with the second of Heracles labours in Greek mythology.
Hydra was a giant multi-headed creature fathered by the monster Typhon and Echidna, who was
half-woman, half-serpent. The dragon Ladon, that guarded the garden of the Hesperides, was
Hydras brother. The dragon, also killed by Heracles, is represented by the constellation Draco,
while the hero is commemorated by the constellation Hercules.

In mythology, Hydra had nine heads and one of them was immortal. The celestial Hydra is depicted
with only one head, presumably the immortal one. The monster lived near the town of Lerna,
where it ravaged the land and killed cattle. Heracles, faced with a difficult task, first shot flaming
arrows into the Hydras lair and smoked it out. Then he fought with it, smashing the creatures
heads one by one with his club. Every time he smashed one, two new heads would grow in its
place.While the two fought, Heracles was distracted by a crab, which crawled out of the swamp
and attacked his foot. Heracles killed the crab and Hera, a sworn enemy of his, placed it among
the stars as the constellation Cancer.

Heracles was able to defeat the Hydra when his charioteer Iolaus helped him by burning the stumps
of each head that Heracles struck off, and eventually Heracles cut off the immortal head and buried
it under a rock. He dipped his arrows in Hydras poisonous blood, which would eventually lead to
his own death.
In a different myth, the constellation Hydra is associated with the water snake on which Apollos
crow blamed its tardiness. The god had sent the bird, represented by the constellation Corvus, to
fetch him some water in a cup. The cup is associated with the constellation Crater. The crow was
distracted by a fig tree and stopped to feast. When it finally returned to Apollo, it said the water
snake was to blame, but the god saw through the birds lie and punished it by placing it into the
sky. Apollo also turned the water snake and the cup into constellations. In the sky, the water snake
(Hydra) eternally prevents the crow (Corvus) from drinking out of the cup (Crater).
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/hydra-constellation/]

The Greek constellation of Hydra is an adaptation of a Babylonian constellation: the MUL.APIN

includes a serpent constellation (MUL.DINGIR.MU) that loosely corresponds to Hydra. It is
one of two Babylonian serpent constellations (the other being the origin of the Greek Serpens),
a mythological hybrid of serpent, lion and bird.

In Hindu Mythology the star that equivalents Hydra is Ashlesha.

In Chinese astronomy, the stars that correspond to Hydra are located within the Vermilion Bird
and the Azure Dragon.

In Japanese culture, the stars are known as Nuriko.

The winding constellation Hydra in the southern April sky, below Cancer, Leo, Virgo, and Libra
[http://oneminuteastronomer.com/1408/constellation-hydra/]

Hydra, the largest of the 88 constellations, consists of mostly faint stars. By good fortune, four
bright luminaries- Spica ( Virginis), Saturn, Regulus ( Leonis) and Mars- parallel the
constellation and serve as guides to help you trace its full length.This map shows the sky as you
face south around 9:45 p.m. (11 May 2010).
[http://astrobob.areavoices.com/2010/05/11/more-cowbell/]

Despite its size, Hydra contains only one reasonably bright star, Alphard, designated Alpha
Hydrae. It is an orange giant of magnitude 2.0, 177 light-years from Earth. Its traditional name
means the solitary one.

Beta Hydrae is a blue-white star of magnitude 4.3, 365 light-years from Earth.

Gamma Hydrae is a yellow giant of magnitude 3.0, 132 light-years from Earth.

The other main named star in Hydra is Sigma, , Hydrae, which also has the name of Minaruja,
from the Arabic for snakes nose. At magnitude 4.54, it is rather dim. The head of the snake
corresponds to the shlesh nakshatra, the lunar zodiacal constellation in Indian astronomy.

Hydra has one bright binary star, Epsilon Hydrae, which is difficult to split in amateur telescopes;
it has a period of 1000 years and is 135 light-years from Earth. The primary is a yellow star of
magnitude 3.4 and the secondary is a blue star of magnitude 6.7. However, there are several
dimmer double stars and binary stars in Hydra.

27 Hydrae is a triple star with two components visible in binoculars and three visible in small
amateur telescopes. The primary is a white star of magnitude 4.8, 244 light-years from Earth. The
secondary, a binary star, appears in binoculars at magnitude 7.0 but is composed of a magnitude 7
and a magnitude 11 star; it is 202 light-years from Earth.

54 Hydrae is a binary star 99 light-years from Earth, easily divisible in small amateur telescopes.
The primary is a yellow star of magnitude 5.3 and the secondary is a purple star of magnitude 7.4.

Hydra is also home to several variable stars. R Hydrae is a Mira variable star 2000 light-years from
Earth; it is one of the brightest Mira variables at its maximum of magnitude 3.5. It has a minimum
magnitude of 10 and a period of 390 days.

V Hydrae is an unusually vivid red variable star 20,000 light-years from Earth. It varies in
magnitude from a minimum of 9.0 to a maximum of 6.6. Along with its notable color, V Hydrae
is also home to at least two exoplanets.

U Hydrae is a semi-regular variable star with a deep red color, 528 light-years from Earth. It has a
minimum magnitude of 6.6 and a maximum magnitude of 4.2; its period is 115 days.

The constellation also contains the radio source Hydra A.

Hubble view of barred spiral galaxy Messier 83

Hydra contains three Messier objects. M83 (NGC 5236), the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, is an 8th
magnitude face-on spiral galaxy located on the border of Hydra and Centaurus. It is easily observed
in skies south of 40N latitude, found by using 1, 2, 3, and 4 Centauri as guide stars. It has been
host to six supernovae, more than any Messier object. Large amateur telescopes- above 12 inches
aperture- reveal its spiral arms, bar, and small, bright nucleus. In a medium-sized amateur
instrument, around 8 inches in aperture, the spiral arms become visible under good conditions. It
is not perfectly symmetrical in the eyepiece, rather, the northwest side is flattened and the nucleus
has a southwest-to-northeast bar. A smaller sister to the Milky Way, it is a grand design spiral
galaxy 40,000 light-years across.

M68 (NGC 4590) is a globular cluster near M83, visible in binoculars and resolvable in medium
amateur telescopes. It is 31,000 light-years from Earth and of the 8th magnitude.

M48 (NGC 2548) is an open star cluster in the western end of the serpent, visible to the naked eye
under dark skies. Its shape has been described as triangular; this 80-star cluster is unusually large,
more than half a degree in diameter, larger than the diameter of the full Moon.

NGC 5694 is another globular cluster in Hydra, of magnitude 10.2, and 105,000 light-years from
Earth. Also called Tombaughs Globular Cluster, it is a Shapley class VII cluster; the
classification indicates that it has intermediate concentration at its nucleus. Though it was
discovered as a non-stellar object in 1784 by William Herschel, its status as a globular cluster was
not ascertained until 1932, when Clyde Tombaugh looked at photographic plates taken of the
region near Pi Hydrae on 12 May 1931. This globular cluster is one of the oldest known globular
clusters in the Milky Way Galaxy, forming nearly 12 billion years ago.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_5694]

NGC 3242 (Ghost of Jupiter/Jupiters Geist) in Hydra

[http://www.capella-observatory.com/ImageHTMLs/PNs/NGC3242.htm]

This planetary nebula NGC 3242 is most frequently called the Ghost of Jupiter due to its similar
size to the planet, but it is also sometimes referred to as the Eye Nebula. The nebula measures
around two light years long from end to end, and contains a central white dwarf with an apparent
magnitude of eleven. The inner layers of the nebula were formed some 1,500 years ago. The two
ends of the nebula are marked by FLIERs, lobes of fasting moving gas. NGC 3242 can easily be
observed with amateur telescopes, and appears bluish-green to most observers. Larger telescopes
can distinguish the outer halo as well.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_3242]

NGC 3314: When Galaxies Overlap

NGC 3314 is actually two large spiral galaxies which just happen to almost exactly line up. The
foreground spiral is viewed nearly face-on, its pinwheel shape defined by young bright star
clusters. But against the glow of the background galaxy, dark swirling lanes of interstellar dust
appear to dominate the face-on spirals structure. The dust lanes are surprisingly pervasive, and
this remarkable pair of overlapping galaxies is one of a small number of systems in which
absorption of light from beyond a galaxy's own stars can be used to directly explore its distribution
of dust. NGC 3314 is about 140 million light-years (background galaxy) and 117 million lightyears (foreground galaxy) away in the multi-headed constellation Hydra. The background galaxy

would span nearly 70,000 light-years at its estimated distance. A synthetic third channel was
created to construct this dramatic new composite of the overlapping galaxies from two color image
data in the Hubble Legacy Archive.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110715.html]

ESO 510-G13, a heavily warped spiral galaxy

ESO 510-G13 is a heavily warped edge-on spiral galaxy about 150 million light-years away in the
southern constellation Hydra. The galaxy illustrates that a galaxys disk is very fragile and can be
easily distorted by gravity caused by interacting galaxies.
The most prominent features in this image are the galaxys heavily warped thin disk of stars, gas,
and dust, its glowing central bulge, composed mostly of old stars, and its bright clusters of blue
stars. The dark clouds of gas and dust in the disk stand out in this picture because they block the
light of background stars, and because they are silhouetted from behind by light from the galaxys
bright, smooth central bulge.

In the outer regions of ESO 510-G13, especially visible on the right-hand side of the image, the
bent disk contains not only dark dust but also bright clusters of blue stars. These clusters are
evidence that hot, young stars are being formed in the disk.

The strong warping of the disk indicates that ESO 510-G13 has recently undergone a collision
with a nearby galaxy and is in the process of swallowing it. The formation of new stars is most
likely triggered by this collision.

When galaxies collide, clouds of dust and gas smash together and are compressed in a process that
takes millions of years, creating a favorable environment for star birth. Eventually the disturbances
will die out, and ESO 510-G13 will become a normal-appearing single galaxy.

Much of ESO 510-G13 appears whitish because it contains stars of many different colors, which
combine to create a white appearance in the image. However, near the dark band of dusty gas
slicing through the middle of this galaxy, the starlight appears redder because the dusty gas blocks
blue light more effectively than red light.
[http://annesastronomynews.com/photo-gallery-ii/galaxies-clusters/eso-510-g13/]

NGC 5068 is a face-on barred spiral galaxy in the Virgo constellation. NGC 5068 is located
approximately 22 million light-years away and has a diameter that exceeds 45 kly.
[http://www.jwinman.com/starcharts/NGC%205068%20chart.htm]

NGC 5068 may be a member of the M83 group, but its identity is disputed. It has a low surface
brightness and has a diameter of 4.5 arcminutes. It is not perfectly circular, rather, it is elliptical
and oriented on a west-northwest/east-southeast axis. However, it is of fairly uniform brightness
throughout.

The Sigma Hydrids are a very active meteor shower with an unknown parent body in Hydra. It
peaks on December 6 The Alpha Hydrids are a minor shower that peaks between January 1 and 7.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_%28constellation%29]

Hydrus

Hydrus is a small constellation in the deep southern sky. It was first depicted on a celestial atlas
by Johann Bayer in his 1603 Uranometria. The French explorer and astronomer Nicolas Louis de
Lacaille charted the brighter stars and gave their Bayer designations in 1756. Its name means male
water snake, as opposed to Hydra, a much larger constellation that represents a female water
snake. It remains below the horizon for most Northern Hemisphere observers.

Irregular in shape, Hydrus is bordered by Mensa to the southeast, Eridanus to the east, Horologium
and Reticulum to the northeast, Phoenix to the north, Tucana to the northwest and west, and Octans

to the south; Lacaille had shortened Hydrus tail to make space for this last constellation he had
drawn up. Covering 243 square degrees and 0.589% of the night sky, it ranks 61st of the 88
constellations in size. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of the
constellation lie between 00h 06.1m and 04h 35.1m, while the declination coordinates are between
57.85 and 82.06. As one of the deep southern constellations, it remains below the horizon at
latitudes north of the 30th parallel in the Northern Hemisphere, and is circumpolar at latitudes
south of the 50th parallel in the Southern Hemisphere. Hydrus culminates at midnight around the
26th of October.

Hydrus shown by Johann Bode in his Uranographia (1801). The object labelled Nubecula Minor,
at centre, is the Small Magellanic Cloud. Part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, Nubecula Major, is
visible in the bottom right corner.

Hydrus was one of the twelve constellations established by the Dutch astronomer Petrus Plancius
from the observations of the southern sky by the Dutch explorers Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and
Frederick de Houtman, who had sailed on the first Dutch trading expedition, known as the Eerste
Schipvaart, to the East Indies. It first appeared on a 35-cm (14 in) diameter celestial globe

published in 1598 in Amsterdam by Plancius with Jodocus Hondius. The first depiction of this
constellation in a celestial atlas was in the German cartographer Johann Bayers Uranometria of
1603. De Houtman included it in his southern star catalogue the same year under the Dutch name
De Waterslang, The Water Snake, it representing a type of snake encountered on the expedition
rather than a mythical creature. The French explorer and astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille
called it lHydre Mle on the 1756 version of his planisphere of the southern skies, distinguishing
it from the feminine Hydra. The French name was retained by Jean Fortin in 1776 for his Atlas
Cleste, while Lacaille Latinised the name to Hydrus for his revised Coelum Australe Stelliferum
in 1763.

[http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/hyi-t.html]

[http://www.shoalhavenastronomers.asn.au/constellations/hydrus/]

Keyzer and de Houtman assigned 15 stars to the constellation in their Malay and Madagascan
vocabulary, with a star that would be later designated as Alpha Hydri marking the head, Gamma
the chest and a number of stars that were later allocated to Tucana, Reticulum, Mensa and
Horologium marking the body and tail.

Located at the northern edge of the constellation and just southwest of Achernar is Alpha Hydri, a
white sub-giant star of magnitude 2.9, situated 72 light-years from Earth. Of spectral type F0IV, it
is beginning to cool and enlarge as it uses up its supply of hydrogen. It is twice as massive and 3.3

times as wide as our sun and 26 times more luminous. A line drawn between Alpha Hydri and
Beta Centauri is bisected by the south celestial pole.

Beta Hydri, the brightest star in Hydrus, is a yellow star of apparent magnitude 2.8, lying 24 lightyears from Earth. It has about 104% of the mass of the Sun and 181% of the Suns radius, with
more than three times the Suns luminosity. The spectrum of this star matches a stellar
classification of G2 IV, with the luminosity class of IV indicating this is a subgiant star. As such,
it is a slightly more evolved star than the Sun, with the supply of hydrogen fuel at its core becoming
exhausted. It is the nearest subgiant star to the Sun and one of the oldest stars in the solar
neighbourhood. Thought to be between 6.4 and 7.1 billion years old, this star bears some
resemblance to what the Sun may look like in the far distant future, making it an object of interest
to astronomers. It is also the closest bright star to the south celestial pole.

In the southeastern corner of the constellation is Gamma Hydri, a red giant of spectral type M2III
located 214 light-years from Earth. It is a semi-regular variable star, pulsating between magnitudes
3.26 and 3.33. Observations over five years were not able to establish its periodicity. An ageing
star, it is around 1.5 to 2 times as massive as our Sun, yet has expanded to have about 60 times the
Suns diameter. It shines with about 655 times the luminosity of our Sun.

There are two notable optical double stars in Hydrus. Pi Hydri, composed of Pi1 Hydri and Pi2
Hydri, is divisible in binoculars. Around 476 light-years distant, Pi1 is a red giant of spectral type
M1III that varies between magnitudes 5.52 and 5.58. Pi2 is an orange giant of spectral type K2III
and shining with a magnitude of 5.7, around 488 light-years from Earth.

Eta Hydri is the other optical double, composed of Eta1 and Eta2. Eta1 is a blue-white main
sequence star of spectral type B9V that was suspected of being variable, and is located just over
700 light-years away. Eta2 has a magnitude of 4.7 and is a yellow giant star of spectral type G8.5III
around 218 light-years distant, which has evolved off the main sequence and is expanding and
cooling on its way to becoming a red giant. Calculations of its mass indicate it was most likely a
white A-type main sequence star for most of its existence, around twice the mass of our Sun. A

planet, Eta2 Hydri b, greater than 6.5 times the mass of Jupiter was discovered in 2005, orbiting
around Eta2 every 711 days at a distance of 1.93 astronomical units (AU).

Three other systems have been found to have planets, most notably the Sun-like star HD 10180,
which has seven planets, plus possibly an additional two for a total of nine- as of 2012 more than
any other system to date, including the Solar System. Lying around 127 light-years (39 parsecs)
from the Earth, it has an apparent magnitude of 7.33.

GJ 3021 is a solar twin- a star very like our own Sun- around 57 light-years distant with a spectral
type G8V and magnitude of 6.7. It has a Jovian planet companion (GJ 3021 b). Orbiting about 0.5
AU from its sun, it has a minimum mass 3.37 times that of Jupiter and a period of around 133 days.
The system is a complex one as the faint star GJ 3021B orbits at a distance of 68 AU; it is a red
dwarf of spectral type M4V.

HD 20003 is a star of magnitude 8.37. It is a yellow main sequence star of spectral type G8V a
little cooler and smaller than our Sun around 143 light-years away. It has two planets that are
around 12 and 13.5 times as massive as the Earth with periods of just under 12 and 34 days
respectively.

Located 3 northeast of Gamma is the VW Hydri, a dwarf nova of the SU Ursae Majoris type. It
is a close binary system that consists of a white dwarf and other star, the former drawing off matter
from the latter into a bright accretion disk. These systems are characterised by frequent eruptions
and less frequent supereruptions. The former are smooth, while the latter exhibit short
superhumps of heightened activity. One of the brightest dwarf novae in the sky, it has a baseline
magnitude of 14.4 and can brighten to magnitude 8.4 during peak activity.

Hydrus contains only faint deep-sky objects. IC 1717 was a deep-sky object discovered by the
Danish astronomer John Louis Emil Dreyer in the late 19th century. However, the object at the
coordinate Dreyer observed is no longer there, and is now a mystery. It was very likely to have
been a faint comet.

The beautiful, petal-like shells of galaxy PGC 6240 are captured in intricate detail by the
NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, as seen in this stunning space wallpaper. PGC 6240 is an
elliptical galaxy in the southern constellation of Hydrus (The Water Snake). It is orbited by a
number of globular clusters that contain both young and old stars- thought to be a result of a
galactic merger in the recent past. This image was released Oct. 10, 2013.
[http://www.space.com/23190-pgc-6240-space-wallpaper.html]

Known as the white rose galaxy, PGC 6240 is a giant spiral galaxy surrounded by shells resembling
rose petals, located around 345 million light years from the Solar System. Unusually, it has cohorts
of globular clusters of three distinct ages suggesting bouts of post-starburst formation following a
merger with another galaxy. The constellation also contains a spiral galaxy NGC 1511 that lies
edge on to observers on Earth and is readily viewed in amateur telescopes.

Located mostly in Dorado, the Large Magellanic Cloud extends into Hydrus. The globular cluster
NGC 1466 is an outlying component of the galaxy, and contains many RR Lyrae-type variable
stars. It has a magnitude of 11.59 and is thought to be over 12 billion years old. Two stars, HD
24188 of magnitude 6.3 and HD 24115 of magnitude 9.0, lie nearby in its foreground.

NGC 602: Taken Under the Wing of the Small Magellanic Cloud
The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is one of the Milky Ways closest galactic neighbors. Even
though it is a small, or so-called dwarf galaxy, the SMC is so bright that it is visible to the unaided
eye from the Southern Hemisphere and near the equator. Many navigators, including Ferdinand
Magellan who lends his name to the SMC, used it to help find their way across the oceans.

Modern astronomers are also interested in studying the SMC (and its cousin, the Large Magellanic
Cloud), but for very different reasons. Because the SMC is so close and bright, it offers an
opportunity to study phenomena that are difficult to examine in more distant galaxies.

New Chandra data of the SMC have provided one such discovery: the first detection of X-ray
emission from young stars with masses similar to our Sun outside our Milky Way galaxy. The new
Chandra observations of these low-mass stars were made of the region known as the Wing of the
SMC. In this composite image of the Wing the Chandra data is shown in purple, optical data from
the Hubble Space Telescope is shown in red, green and blue and infrared data from the Spitzer
Space Telescope is shown in red.

Astronomers call all elements heavier than hydrogen and helium- that is, with more than two
protons in the atoms nucleus- metals. The Wing is a region known to have fewer metals
compared to most areas within the Milky Way. There are also relatively lower amounts of gas,
dust, and stars in the Wing compared to the Milky Way.

Taken together, these properties make the Wing an excellent location to study the life cycle of
stars and the gas lying in between them. Not only are these conditions typical for dwarf irregular
galaxies like the SMC, they also mimic ones that would have existed in the early Universe.

Most star formation near the tip of the Wing is occurring in a small region known as NGC 602,
which contains a collection of at least three star clusters. One of them, NGC 602a, is similar in
age, mass, and size to the famous Orion Nebula Cluster. Researchers have studied NGC 602a to
see if young stars- that is, those only a few million years old - have different properties when they
have low levels of metals, like the ones found in NGC 602a.

Using Chandra, astronomers discovered extended X-ray emission, from the two most densely
populated regions in NGC 602a. The extended X-ray cloud likely comes from the population of
young, low-mass stars in the cluster, which have previously been picked out by infrared and optical
surveys, using Spitzer and Hubble respectively. This emission is not likely to be hot gas blown
away by massive stars, because the low metal content of stars in NGC 602a implies that these stars

should have weak winds. The failure to detect X-ray emission from the most massive star in NGC
602a supports this conclusion, because X-ray emission is an indicator of the strength of winds
from massive stars. No individual low-mass stars are detected, but the overlapping emission from
several thousand stars is bright enough to be observed.

The Chandra results imply that the young, metal-poor stars in NGC 602a produce X-rays in a
manner similar to stars with much higher metal content found in the Orion cluster in our galaxy.
The authors speculate that if the X-ray properties of young stars are similar in different
environments, then other related properties- including the formation and evolution of disks where
planets form- are also likely to be similar.

X-ray emission traces the magnetic activity of young stars and is related to how efficiently their
magnetic dynamo operates. Magnetic dynamos generate magnetic fields in stars through a process
involving the stars speed of rotation, and convection, the rising and falling of hot gas in the stars
interior.

The combined X-ray, optical and infrared data also revealed, for the first time outside our Galaxy,
objects representative of an even younger stage of evolution of a star. These so-called young
stellar objects have ages of a few thousand years and are still embedded in the pillar of dust and
gas from which stars form, as in the famous Pillars of Creation of the Eagle Nebula. A labeled
version shows the location of these young stellar objects (the small circle in the image above).
[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2013/ngc602/]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrus]

Indus

Indus constellation is located in the southern hemisphere. It is the 49th constellation in size,
occupying an area of 294 square degrees. It lies in the fourth quadrant of the southern hemisphere
(SQ4) and can be seen at latitudes between +15 and -90. The neighboring constellations are
Grus, Microscopium, Octans, Pavo, Sagittarius, Telescopium and Tucana.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/indus-constellation/]

Indus and Pavo in Corbinianus Thomas, Firmamentum firmianum, 1730

[http://www.constellationsofwords.com/Constellations/Indus.htm]

The constellation was one of twelve created by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter
Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman and it first appeared on a 35-cm diameter celestial
globe published in 1597 (or 1598) in Amsterdam by Plancius with Jodocus Hondius. The first
depiction of this constellation in a celestial atlas was in Johann Bayers Uranometria of 1603.
Plancius portrayed the figure as a nude male with arrows in both hands but no bow.

[http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/ind-t.html]

[http://www.solstation.com/stars/eps-indi.htm]

Indus does not contain any bright stars. Alpha Indi is the brightest star in Indus. It is an orange
giant of magnitude 3.1, 101 light-years from Earth.

Beta Indi is an orange giant of magnitude 3.7, 600 light-years from Earth.

Delta Indi is a white star of magnitude 4.4, 185 light-years from Earth.

Epsilon Indi is one of the closest stars to Earth, approximately 11.8 light years away. It is an orange
dwarf of magnitude 4.7, meaning that the yellow dwarf Sun is slightly hotter and larger. The
system has been discovered to contain a pair of binary brown dwarfs, and has long been a prime
candidate in SETI studies.

Indus is home to one bright binary star. Theta Indi is a binary star divisible in small amateur
telescopes, 97 light-years from Earth. Its primary is a white star of magnitude 4.5 and its secondary
is a white star of magnitude 7.0.

T Indi is the only bright variable star in Indus. It is a semi-regular, deeply coloured red giant with
a period of 11 months, 1900 light-years from Earth. Its minimum magnitude is 7 and its maximum
magnitude is 5.

Galaxies include: NGC 7090 (spiral) and NGC 7049 (elliptical).

NGC 7090 image taken using the Wide Field Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys
aboard the Hubble Space Telescope and combines orange light (colored blue here), infrared
(colored red) and emissions from glowing hydrogen gas (also in red).

NGC 7090 is a spiral galaxy lying in the southern constellation of Indus and located about thirty
million light-years from the Sun. Astronomer John Herschel first observed this galaxy on 4
October 1834.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_7090]

NGC 7049 - image from the Hubble Space Telescopes Advanced Camera for Surveys

NGC 7049 is a galaxy that spans about 150 000 light-years and lies about 100 million light-years
away from Earth in the inconspicuous southern constellation of Indus.
NGC 7049s unusual appearance is largely due to a prominent rope-like dust ring which stands out
against the starlight behind it. These dust lanes are usually seen in young galaxies with active starforming regions. NGC 7049 shows the features of both an elliptical galaxy and a spiral galaxy,
and has relatively few globular clusters. The bright star at the top of the ring is in our own Galaxy.
Not visible is an unusual central polar ring of gas circling out of the plane near the galaxys center.
NGC 7049 is the brightest (BCG) of the Indus triplet of galaxies (NGC 7029, NGC 7041, NGC
7049), and its structure might have arisen from several recent galaxy collisions. Typical BCGs are
some of the oldest and most massive galaxies.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_7049]

All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN) in 2015 detected a superluminous
supernova, named ASASSN-15lh (also designated SN 2015L). Based on the study conducted by
Subo Dong and team from the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (KIAA) at Peking
University, ASAS-SN-15lh was two times more luminous than any supernova previously
discovered, and at peak was almost 50 times more luminous than the entire Milky Way galaxy:

An artists impression of the record-breakingly powerful, superluminous supernova ASASSN15lh as it would appear from an exoplanet located about 10,000 light-years away in the host galaxy
of the supernova.

Records are made to be broken, as the expression goes, but rarely are records left so thoroughly in
the dust. Stunned astronomers have witnessed a cosmic explosion about 200 times more powerful
than a typical supernova- events which already rank amongst the mightiest outbursts in the
universe- and more than twice as luminous as the previous record-holding supernova.

At its peak intensity, the explosion- called ASASSN-15lh- shone with 570 billion times the
brightness of the Sun. If that statistic does not impress, consider that this luminosity level is
approximately 20 times the entire output of the 100 billion stars comprising our Milky Way galaxy.
The record-breaking blast is thought to be an outstanding example of a superluminous supernova,
a recently discovered, supremely rare variety of explosion unleashed by certain stars when they

die. Scientists are frankly at a loss, though, regarding what sorts of stars and stellar scenarios might
be responsible for these extreme supernovae.

ASASSN-15lh is amongst the closest superluminous supernovae ever beheld, at around 3.8 billion
light-years away. Given its uncanny brightness and closeness, ASASSN-15lh might offer key clues
in unlocking the secrets of this baffling class of celestial detonations.
One of the best hypotheses is that superluminous supernovaes stupendous energy comes from
highly magnetised, rapidly spinning neutron stars called magnetars, which are the leftover, hypercompressed cores of massive, exploded stars. But ASASSN-15lh is so potent that this compelling
magnetar scenario just falls short of the required energies. Instead, ASASSN-15lh-esque
supernovae might be triggered by the demise of incredibly massive stars that go beyond the top
tier of masses most astronomers would speculate are even attainable.
The honest answer is at this point that we do not know what could be the power source for
ASASSN-15lh, said study lead author Subo Dong. ASASSN-15lh may lead to new thinking and
new observations of the whole class of superluminous supernova, and we look forward to plenty
more of both in the years ahead.
[https://astronomynow.com/2016/01/14/possibly-the-most-powerful-supernova-ever-seen/]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_%28constellation%29]

Lacerta

Lacerta is one of the 88 modern constellations defined by the International Astronomical Union.
Its name is Latin for lizard. A small, faint constellation, it was created in 1687 by the astronomer
Johannes Hevelius. Its brightest stars form a W shape similar to that of Cassiopeia, and it is thus
sometimes referred to as Little Cassiopeia. It is located between Cygnus, Cassiopeia and
Andromeda on the northern celestial sphere. The northern part lies on the Milky Way.

Lacerta slithers between Cygnus, top right, and the obsolete constellation of Honores Friderici
(now part of Andromeda), bottom, as seen on Chart IV in the Uranographia of Johann Bode (1801).
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/lacerta.htm]

Centred on a region of the sky without apparently bright stars, Lacerta was apparently not regarded
as a constellation by ancient Western astronomers. Johannes Hevelius created the constellation in
1687 and initially christened it Stellio (the stellion), a newt with star-like dorsal spots found along
the Mediterranean coast.

Other Europeans who sought to name this new constellation included Augustin Royer, who created
Sceptrum et Manus Iustitiae (the Hand of Justice and Sceptre) to honor Louis XIV in 1670, and
Johann Elert Bode, who created Frederici Honores (Fredericks Glory) to honor Frederick the
Great in 1787. Both Sceptrum and Frederici Honores are now obsolete, while Lacerta still survives.

Although not included in ancient star charts of Europe and the Near East, the stars of Lacerta,
along with some in the eastern portion of Cygnus, were coincidentally combined by early Chinese

astronomers into their Flying Serpent. Similarly, the Chumash people of California call this part
of the sky Lizard and include it in multiple stories.

[http://www.dibonsmith.com/lac_con.htm]

[http://www.davidmalin.com/fujii/source/Lac.html]

Lacerta is typical of Milky Way constellations: no bright galaxies, nor globular clusters, but instead
open clusters, for example NGC 7243, the faint planetary nebula IC 5217 and quite a few double
stars. It also contains the prototypic blazar BL Lacertae. Lacerta contains no Messier objects.
Lacertas brightest star, alpha Lacertae, is a blue-white hued main-sequence star of magnitude 3.8,
102 light-years from Earth. It has a spectral type of A1 V and is an optical double star.

Beta Lacertae is far dimmer, a yellow giant of magnitude 4.4, 170 light-years from Earth.

Roe 47 is a multiple star consisting of five components (magnitudes 5.8, 9.8, 10.1, 9.4, 9.8).

ADS 16402 is a binary star system in Lacerta, around which a planet orbits with some unusual
properties. The Jupiter-sized planet exhibits an unexpectedly low density, about the same as cork.
This planet is dubbed HAT P-1.

EV Lacertae is a rapidly spinning magnitude 10 red dwarf with a strong magnetic field. It is a flare
star that can emit powerful flares potentially visible to the naked eye, thousands of times more
energetic than any from Earths sun.

NGC 7243

NGC 7243, also Caldwell 16, is an open cluster and Caldwell object in the constellation Lacerta.
It shines at magnitude +6.4. Its celestial coordinates are RA 22h 15.3m, dec +49 53. It is located
near the naked-eye stars Alpha Lacertae, 4 Lacertae, an A-class double star, and planetary nebula
IC 5217. It lies approximately 2,800 light-years away, and is thought to be just over 100 million
years old, consisting mainly of white and blue stars.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_7243]

BL Lacertae

A BL Lacertae object (BL Lac object) is a type of active galactic nucleus (AGN) characterized by
a nearly featureless spectrum (i.e., virtually devoid of spectral lines), rapid, marked variability at
radio, infrared, and optical wavelengths (often by several magnitudes over a few days or weeks),
and strong, variable polarization at radio and optical wavelengths. The prototype, in the
constellation Lacerta, was originally classified as a variable star.

BL Lac objects belong to the category of AGN now known as blazars and are believed to be
essentially quasars viewed directly down the axis of their powerful jets.
[http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/B/BL_Lacertae_object.html]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacerta

Leo

Leo is the 12th largest constellation in size, occupying an area of 947 square degrees. It is located
in the second quadrant of the northern hemisphere (NQ2) and can be seen at latitudes between
+90 and -65. The neighboring constellations are Cancer, Coma Berenices, Crater, Hydra, Leo
Minor, Lynx, Sextans, Ursa Major and Virgo.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/leo-constellation/]

Leo is also the fifth astrological sign of the zodiac, originating from the constellation of Leo. It
comes after Cancer and before Virgo. It spans the 120-150th degree of the Tropical zodiac,

between 125.25 and 152.75 degree of celestial longitude. Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun
transits this area on average between July 23 and August 22 each year, and under the sidereal
zodiac, the Sun currently transits this area from approximately August 16 to September 15. The
symbol of the lion is based on the Nemean lion, a lion with an impenetrable hide.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_%28astrology%29]

[http://www.astronomytrek.com/leo-the-lion/]

Leo is a highly recognizable constellation, as it is one of the few constellations that resemble its
namesake. It is fairly easy to find because the pointer stars of the Big Dipper point to Leo. March
does come in with a lion. The constellation becomes visible in the Northern Hemisphere around
the spring equinox and is easily identifiable through May.

[http://www.davidmalin.com/fujii/source/Leo.html]

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Leo_constellation_map.png]
The constellation can be found by looking for the sickle starting at the Regulus star. Regulus, Al
Jabbah (Heta Leonis), and Algieba (Gamma Leonis), together with the fainter stars Leo
(Adhafera), Leo (Ras Elased Borealis), and Leo (Ras Elased Australis), constitute the sickle.
A triangle of stars forms the lions haunches, with the brightest star of this trio being Denebola,
which means tail of the lion.
[http://www.space.com/16845-leo-constellation.html]

Leo, Uranias Mirror 1825

[http://www.constellationsofwords.com/Constellations/Leo.html]

In Greek mythology, Leo was identified as the Nemean Lion which was killed by Heracles
(Hercules to the Romans) during the first of his twelve labours. The Nemean Lion would take
women as hostages to its lair in a cave, luring warriors from nearby towns to save the damsel in
distress, to their misfortune. The Lion was impervious to any weaponry; thus, the warriors clubs,
swords, and spears were rendered useless against it. Realizing that he must defeat the Lion with
his bare hands, Hercules slipped into the Lions cave and engaged it at close quarters. When the
Lion pounced, Hercules caught it in midair, one hand grasping the Lion's forelegs and the other its
hind legs, and bent it backwards, breaking its back and freeing the trapped maidens. Zeus
commemorated this labor by placing the Lion in the sky.

The Roman poet Ovid called it Herculeus Leo and Violentus Leo. Bacchi Sidus (star of Bacchus)
was another of its titles, the god Bacchus always being identified with this animal. However,
Manilius called it Jovis et Junonis Sidus (Star of Jupiter and Juno).

Modern astronomers, including Tycho Brahe in 1602, excised a group of stars that once made up
the tuft of the lions tail and used them to form the new constellation Coma Berenices, although
there was precedent for that designation among the ancient Greeks and Romans.

Leo was one of the earliest recognized constellations, with archaeological evidence that the
Mesopotamians had a similar constellation as early as 4000 BCE.

The Persians called Leo Ser or Shir; the Turks, Artan; the Syrians, Aryo; the Jews, Arye; the
Indians, Simha, all meaning lion.

Some mythologists believe that in Sumeria, Leo represented the monster Humbaba, who was killed
by Gilgamesh. In Babylonian astronomy, the constellation was called UR.GU.LA, the Great
Lion; the bright star Regulus was known as the star that stands at the Lions breast. Regulus also
had distinctly regal associations, as it was known as the King Star.

Also it has been said that the Great Sphinx in Egypt represents the constellation Leo. The Great
Sphinx is commonly accepted by Egyptologists to represent King Khafra (about 2500 BCE).
Because the limited evidence giving provenance to Khafra is ambiguous and circumstantial, the
idea of who built the Sphinx, and when, continues to be the subject of debate. An argument put
forward by Robert Bauval and Graham Hancock is that the construction of the Great Sphinx was
begun in 10,500 BCE; that the Sphinxs lion-shape is a definitive reference to the constellation of
Leo; and that the layout and orientation of the Sphinx, the Giza pyramid complex and the Nile
River are an accurate reflection or map of the constellations of Leo, Orion (specifically, Orions
Belt) and the Milky Way, respectively. The date of 10,500 BCE is chosen because they maintain
this is the only time in the precession of the equinoxes when the astrological age was Leo and
when that constellation rose directly east of the Sphinx at the vernal equinox.

The theory that the Sphinx is actually far older has received some support from geologists. Most
famously, Robert M. Schoch has argued that the effects of water erosion on the Sphinx and its
surrounding enclosure mean that parts of the monument must originally have been carved at the
latest between 7000- 5000 BCE. Schochs analysis has been broadly corroborated by another
geologist, David Coxill, who agrees that the Sphinx has been heavily weathered by rainwater and
therefore must have been carved in pre-dynastic times. A third geologist, Colin Reader, has
suggested a date only several hundred years prior to the commonly accepted date for construction.
These views have been almost universally rejected by mainstream Egyptologists who together with
a number of geologists stand by the conventional dating for the monument. Their analyses attribute
the apparently accelerated wear on the Sphinx variously to modern industrial pollution, qualitative
differences between the layers of limestone in the monument itself, scouring by wind-borne sand,
or temperature changes causing the stone to crack.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_correlation_theory#Leo_and_the_Sphinx]

In traditional Chinese uranography, the modern constellation Leo lies across one of the quadrants
symbolized by the The Vermillion Bird of the South (Nn Fng Zh Qu), and Three Enclosures
(Sn Yun), that divide the sky. The name of the western constellation in modern Chinese is sh
zi zu, which means the lion constellation.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_%28Chinese_astronomy%29]

[http://www.nakedeyeplanets.com/zodiac-constellations/cnc-leo-vir.htm]

[https://www.pa.msu.edu/people/horvatin/Astronomy_Facts/constellation_pages/leo.htm]

Leo contains many bright stars, many of which were individually identified by the ancients:

Regulus, designated Alpha Leonis, is a blue-white main-sequence star of magnitude 1.34, 77.5
light-years from Earth. It is a double star divisible in binoculars, with a secondary of magnitude
7.7. Its traditional name (Regulus) means the little king.

Beta Leonis, called Denebola, is at the opposite end of the constellation to Regulus. It is a bluewhite star of magnitude 2.23, 36 light-years from Earth. The name Denebola means the lions
tail.

Algieba, Gamma Leonis, is a binary star with a third optical component; the primary and secondary
are divisible in small telescopes and the tertiary is visible in binoculars. The primary is a gold yellow giant star of magnitude 2.61 and the secondary is similar but at magnitude 3.6; they have a
period of 600 years and are 126 light-years from Earth. The unrelated tertiary, 40 Leonis, is a
yellow-tinged star of magnitude 4.8. Its traditional name, Algieba, means the forehead.

Delta Leonis is a blue-white star of magnitude 2.58, 58 light-years from Earth. It has the traditional
names Zosma (or Zozma) and Duhr. The name Zosma means girdle in ancient Greek, referring to
the stars location in its constellation, on the hip of the lion.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Leonis]

Epsilon Leonis is a yellow giant of magnitude 3.0, 251 light-years from Earth. The star has the
traditional names Ras Elased (Australis), Asad Australis and Algenubi, all of which derive from
the Arabic rs al-asad al-janb, which means the southern (star) of the lions head, and
australis which is Latin for southern.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_Leonis]

Zeta Leonis, called Adhafera, is an optical triple star. The brightest and only star designated Zeta
Leonis, is a white giant star of magnitude 3.65, 260 light-years from Earth. The second brightest,
39 Leonis, is widely spaced to the south and of magnitude 5.8. 35 Leonis is to the north and of
magnitude 6.0. Its traditional name (Aldhafera, Adhafara), from the Arabic al-afrah, the

braid/curl, is a reference to its position in the lions mane. It forms the second star (after Gamma
Leonis) in the blade of The Sickle.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeta_Leonis]

Leo is also home to one bright variable star, the red giant R Leonis. It is a Mira variable with a
minimum magnitude of 10 and normal maximum magnitude of 6; it periodically brightens to
magnitude 4.4. R Leonis, 330 light-years from Earth, has a period of 310 days and a diameter of
450 solar diameters.

The star Wolf 359 (CN Leonis), one of the nearest stars to Earth at 7.8 light-years away, is in Leo.
Wolf 359 is a red dwarf of magnitude 13.5; it periodically brightens by one magnitude or less
because it is a flare star.

Gliese 436, a faint star in Leo about 33 light years away from the Sun, is orbited by a transiting
Neptune-mass extrasolar planet.

The Leo Triplet Galaxies

This popular group is famous as the Leo Triplet- a gathering of three magnificent galaxies in one
field of view. Crowd pleasers when imaged with even modest telescopes, these galaxies can be
introduced individually as NGC 3628 (left), M66 (bottom right), and M65 (top right). All three are
large spiral galaxies. They tend to look dissimilar because their galactic disks are tilted at different
angles to our line of sight. NGC 3628 is seen edge-on, with obscuring dust lanes cutting across the
plane of the galaxy, while the disks of M66 and M65 are both inclined enough to show off their
spiral structure. Gravitational interactions between galaxies in the group have also left telltale
signs, including the warped and inflated disk of NGC 3628 and the drawn out spiral arms of M66.
This gorgeous deep view of the region was taken by the new VLT Survey Telescope (VST) and

spans about one degree (two full moons) on the sky. The field covers over 500 thousand lightyears at the trios estimated distance of 30 million light-years.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110803.html]

M96 Group: M95 (left) and M96 (right)

The M96 Group is located physically near the Leo Triplet. The M96 Group (also known as the
Leo I Group) is a group of galaxies in the constellation Leo. This group contains between 8 and
24 galaxies, including three Messier objects (M95, M96 and M105). The group is one of many
groups that lies within the Virgo Supercluster (i.e. the Local Supercluster). These two groups (the
M96 Group and the Leo Triplet) may actually be separate parts of a much larger group, and some
group identification algorithms actually identify the Leo Triplet as part of the M96 Group.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Triplet]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M96_Group]

NGC 2903: A Missing Jewel in Leo

Barred spiral galaxy NGC 2903 is only some 20 million light-years distant. Popular among
amateur astronomers, it shines in the northern spring constellation Leo, near the top of the lions
head. That part of the constellation is sometimes seen as a reversed question mark or sickle. One
of the brighter galaxies visible from the northern hemisphere, NGC 2903 is surprisingly missing
from Charles Messiers catalog of lustrous celestial sights. This colorful image from a small
ground-based telescope shows off the galaxys gorgeous spiral arms traced by young, blue star
clusters and pinkish star forming regions. Included are intriguing details of NGC 2903s bright
core, a remarkable mix of old and young clusters with immense dust and gas clouds. In fact, NGC
2903 exhibits an exceptional rate of star formation activity near its center, also bright in radio,

infrared, ultraviolet, and x-ray bands. Just a little smaller than our own Milky Way, NGC 2903 is
about 80,000 light-years across.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150410.html]

NGC 2903 was discovered by William Herschel in 1784. It is very similar in size and shape to the
Milky Way. In its core, NGC 2903 has many hotspots, which have been found to be near regions
of star formation. The star formation in this region is thought to be due to the presence of the dusty
bar, which sends shock waves through its rotation to an area with a diameter of 2,000 light-years.
The outskirts of the galaxy have many young open clusters.

Hubble Peers into the Mouth of Leo A

At first glance, this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image seems to show an array of
different cosmic objects, but the speckling of stars shown here actually forms a single body- a
nearby dwarf galaxy known as Leo A. Its few million stars are so sparsely distributed that some
distant background galaxies are visible through it. Leo A itself is at a distance of about 2.5 million

light-years from Earth and a member of the Local Group of galaxies; a group that includes the
Milky Way and the well-known Andromeda galaxy.

Astronomers study dwarf galaxies because they are very numerous and are simpler in structure
than their giant cousins. However, their small size makes them difficult to study at great distances.
As a result, the dwarf galaxies of the Local Group are of particular interest, as they are close enough
to study in detail.

As it turns out, Leo A is a rather unusual galaxy. It is one of the most isolated galaxies in the Local
Group, has no obvious structural features beyond being a roughly spherical mass of stars, and
shows no evidence for recent interactions with any of its few neighbors. However, the galaxys
contents are overwhelmingly dominated by relatively young stars, something that would normally
be the result of a recent interaction with another galaxy. Around 90% of the stars in Leo A are less
than eight billion years old- young in cosmic terms! This raises a number of intriguing questions
about why star formation in Leo A did not take place on the usual timescale, but instead waited
until it was good and ready.
[https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2016/hubble-peers-into-the-mouth-of-leo-a]

Hubble captures a lucky galaxy alignment

An interesting galaxy has been circled in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image. The
galaxy- one of a group of galaxies called Luminous Red Galaxies- has an unusually large mass,
containing about ten times the mass of the Milky Way. However, its actually the blue horseshoe
shape that circumscribes the red galaxy that is the real prize in this image.

This blue horseshoe is a distant galaxy that has been magnified and warped into a nearly complete
ring by the strong gravitational pull of the massive foreground Luminous Red Galaxy. To see such
a so-called Einstein Ring required the fortunate alignment of the foreground and background
galaxies, making this objects nickname the Cosmic Horseshoe particularly apt.

The Cosmic Horseshoe is one of the best examples of an Einstein Ring. It also gives us a tantalising
view of the early Universe: the blue galaxys redshift- a measure of how the wavelength of its light
has been stretched by the expansion of the cosmos- is approximately 2.4. This means we see it as
it was about 3 billion years after the Big Bang. The Universe is now 13.7 billion years old.

Astronomers first discovered the Cosmic Horseshoe in 2007 using data from the Sloan Digital Sky
Survey. But this Hubble image, taken with the Wide Field Camera 3, offers a much more detailed
view of this fascinating object.
This picture was created from images taken in visible and infrared light on Hubbles Wide Field
Camera 3. The field of view is approximately 2.6 arcminutes wide.
[https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1151a/]

Besides the Cosmic Horseshoe, the Leo Ring is another intriguing formation in the constellation
Leo:

The Leo ring: deep image in the optical domain with the distribution of the gas in HI in yelloworange. The thumbnails on the right are a three of the dense areas of the ring with their optical
counterparts.

In the current theories on galaxy formation, the accretion of cold primordial gas is a key-process
in the early steps of galaxy growth. This primordial gas is characterized by two main features: it
has never sojourned in any galaxy and it does not satisfy the conditions required to form stars. Is
such an accretion process still ongoing in nearby galaxies? To answer the question, large sky
surveys are undertaken attempting to detect the primordial gas.

The Leo ring, a giant ring of cold gas 650,000 light-years wide surrounding the galaxies of the Leo
group, is one of the most dramatic and mysterious clouds of intergalactic gas. Since its discovery
in the 80s, its origin and its nature were debated. Last year, studies of the metal abundances in the
gas led to the belief that the ring was made of this famous primordial gas.

Thanks to the sensitivity of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope MegaCam camera, the

international team observed for the first time the optical counterpart of the densest regions of the
ring, in visible light instead of radio waves. Emitted by massive young stars, this light points to
the fact that the ring gas is able to form stars.

A ring of gas and stars surrounding a galaxy immediately suggests another kind of ring: a so-called
collisional ring, formed when two galaxies collide. Such a ring is seen in the famous Cartwheel
galaxy. Would the Leo ring be a collisional ring too?

In order to secure this hypothesis, the team used numerical simulations (performed on
supercomputers at CEA) to demonstrate that the ring was indeed the result of a giant collision
between two galaxies more than 38 million light-years apart: at the time of the collision, the disk
of gas of one of the galaxies is blown away and will eventually form a ring outside of the galaxy.
The simulations allowed the identification of the two galaxies which collided: NGC 3384, one of
the galaxies at the center of the Leo group, and M96, a massive spiral galaxy at the periphery of
the group. They also gave the date of the collision: more than a billion years ago!

The gas in the Leo ring is definitely not primordial. The hunt for primordial gas is still open!
[http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/en/news/LeoRing/]

Above: Map of the Huge-LQG noted by black circles, adjacent to the Clowes-Campusano LQG in
red crosses. Map is by Roger Clowes of University of Central Lancashire. Bottom: Image of the
bright quasar 3C 273. Each black circle and red cross on the map is a quasar similar to this one.

Leo is also home to some of the largest structures in the observable universe. Some of the structures
found in the constellation are the Clowes-Campusano LQG (Large Quasar Group), U1.11, U1.54,
and the Huge Large Quasar Group, (Huge-LQG, also called U1.27). The latter is a possible
structure or pseudo-structure of 73 quasars that measures about 4 billion light-years across. At its
discovery, it was identified as the largest and the most massive known structure in the observable
universe, though it has been superseded by the Hercules- Corona Borealis Great Wall at 10 billion
light-years.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huge-LQG]

Leonids Over Monument Valley

Whats happening in the sky over Monument Valley? A meteor shower. Over the past weekend
the Leonid meteor shower has been peaking. The image actually a composite of six exposures of
about 30 seconds each- was taken in (November 19) 2012, a year when there was a much more
active Leonids shower. At that time, Earth was moving through a particularly dense swarm of
sand-sized debris from Comet Tempel-Tuttle, so that meteor rates approached one visible streak
per second. The meteors appear parallel because they all fall to Earth from the meteor shower
radiant- a point on the sky towards the constellation of the Lion (Leo). Although the predicted peak
of this years Leonid meteor shower is over, another peak may be visible early tomorrow morning.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap121119.html]

The Leonids do occur in November, peaking on November 14-15, and have a radiant close to
Gamma Leonis. Its parent body is Comet Tempel-Tuttle, which causes significant outbursts every

35 years. The normal peak rate is approximately 10 meteors per hour. The January Leonids are a
minor shower that peaks between January 1 and 7.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_%28constellation%29]

Leo Minor

Leo Minor is a small and faint constellation in the northern celestial hemisphere. Its name is Latin
for the smaller lion, in contrast to Leo, the larger lion. A dark area of the sky with a triangle of
brighter stars just visible to the naked eye in good conditions, it is a small constellation bordered
by Ursa Major to the north, Lynx to the west, Leo to the south, and touching the corner of Cancer
to the southwest. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of the
constellation lie between 9h 22.4m and 11h 06.5m, while the declination coordinates are between
22.84 and 41.43. Ranked 64th out of 88 constellations in size, Leo Minor covers an area of 232.0
square degrees, or 0.562 percent of the sky. It culminates each year at midnight on February 24,
and at 9 p.m. on May 24.

Leo Minor above the head of Leo, as depicted in Uranias Mirror, a set of constellation cards
published in London c. 1825.

The classical astronomers Aratus and Ptolemy had noted the region of what is now Leo Minor to
be undefined and not containing any distinctive pattern; Ptolemy classified the stars in this area as
amorphtoi (not belonging to a constellation outline) within the constellation Leo.

Johannes Hevelius first depicted Leo Minor in 1687 when he outlined ten new constellations in
his star atlas Firmamentum Sobiescianum, and included 18 of its objects in the accompanying
Catalogus Stellarum Fixarum. Hevelius decided upon Leo Minor or Leo Junior as a depiction that
would align with its beastly neighbours the Lion and the Great Bear. In 1845, English astronomer
Francis Baily revised the catalogue of Heveliuss new constellations, and assigned a Greek letter
known as Bayer designation to stars brighter than apparent magnitude 4.5. Richard A. Proctor gave
the constellation the name Leaena the Lioness in 1870, explaining that he sought to shorten the
constellation names to make them more manageable on celestial charts.

German astronomer Christian Ludwig Ideler posited that the stars of Leo Minor had been termed
Al Thib' wa-Aulduh, Gazelle with her Young on a 13th-century Arabic celestial globe,
recovered by Cardinal Stefano Borgia and housed in the prelates museum at Velletri. Arabist
Friedrich Wilhelm Lach describes a different view, noting that they had been seen as Al Haud,
the Pon, which the Gazelle jumps into.
In Chinese astronomy, the stars Beta, 30, 37 and 46 Leonis Minoris made up Neiping, a Court of
Judge or Mediator, or Shi Court Eunuch or were combined with stars of the neighbouring Leo
to make up a large celestial dragon or State Chariot. A line of four stars was known as Shaowei; it
represented four Imperial advisors and may have been located in Leo Minor, Leo or adjacent
regions.

[http://www.go-astronomy.com/constellations.php?Name=Leo%20Minor]

[http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/LMi.html]

There are only three stars in the constellation brighter than magnitude 4.5, and 37 stars with a
magnitude brighter than 6.5. Leo Minor does not have a star designated Alpha because Baily erred
and allocated a Greek letter to only one star, Beta. It is unclear whether he intended to give 46
Leonis Minoris a Bayer designation, as he recognised Beta and 46 Leonis Minoris as of the
appropriate brightness in his catalogue. He died before revising his proofs, which might explain
this stars omission.

At magnitude 3.8, the brightest star in Leo Minor is an orange giant of spectral class K0III named
46 Leonis Minoris or Praecipua; its colour is evident when seen through binoculars. Situated 95

light-years (29 parsecs) from Earth, it has around 32 times the luminosity and is 8.5 times the size
of the Sun. It was also catalogued and named as o Leonis Minoris by Johann Elert Bode, which
has been misinterpreted as Omicron Leonis Minoris. More confusion occurred with its proper
name Praecipua, which appears to have been originally applied to 37 Leonis Minoris in the 1814
Palermo Catalogue of Giuseppe Piazzi, who mistakenly assessed the latter star as the brighter. This
name was later connected by Allen with 46 Leonis Minoris- an error perpetuated by subsequent
astronomers. The original Praecipua, 37 Leonis Minoris, has an apparent magnitude of 4.69, but
is a distant yellow supergiant of spectral type G2.5IIa and absolute magnitude of 1.84, around
578 light-years (177 parsecs) distant.

Beta Leonis Minoris is a binary star system. The primary is a giant star of spectral class G8 and
apparent magnitude of 4.4. It has around double the mass, 7.8 times the radius and is 36 times the
luminosity of the Earths Sun. Separated by 11 seconds of arc from the primary, the secondary is
a yellow-white main sequence star of spectral type F8. The two orbit around a common centre of
gravity every 38.62 years, and lie 154 light-years (47 parsecs) away from the Solar System.

Around 98 light-years (30 parsecs) away and around 10 times as luminous as the Sun, 21 Leonis
Minoris is a rapidly rotating white main-sequence star, spinning on its axis in less than 12 hours
and very likely flattened in shape. Of average apparent magnitude 4.5 and spectral type A7V, it is
a Delta Scuti variable. These are short period (six hours at most) pulsating stars which have been
used as standard candles and as subjects to study asteroseismology.

SX Leonis Minoris is a dwarf nova of the SU Ursae Majoris type that was identified in 1994. It
consists of a white dwarf and a donor star, which orbit each other every 97 minutes. The white
dwarf sucks matter from the other star onto an accretion disc and heats up to between 6000 and
10000 K. The dwarf star erupts every 34 to 64 days, reaching magnitude 13.4 in these outbursts
and remaining at magnitude 16.8 when quiet. Leo Minor contains another dwarf nova, RZ Leonis
Minoris, which brightens to magnitude 14.2 from a baseline magnitude of around 17 but does so
at shorter intervals than other dwarf novae.

Two stars with planetary systems have been found. HD 87883 is an orange dwarf of magnitude
7.57 and spectral type K0V 18 parsecs distant from Earth. With a diameter three quarters that of
Earths sun, it is only 31 percent as luminous. It is orbited by a planet around 1.78 times the mass
of Jupiter every 7.9 years, and there are possibly other smaller planets. HD 82886 is a yellow dwarf
of spectral type G0 and visual magnitude 7.63. A planet 1.3 times the mass of Jupiter and orbiting
every 705 days was discovered in 2011.

NGC 3344 taken in visible and near-infrared light, using Hubbles Advanced Camera for Surveys.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_3344]

In terms of deep-sky objects, Leo Minor contains many galaxies viewable in amateur telescopes.
Located 3 degrees southeast of 38 Leonis Minoris, NGC 3432 is seen nearly edge on. Known as
the knitting needle galaxy, it is of apparent magnitude 11.7 and measures 6.8 by 1.4 arcminutes.

Located 42 million light years away, it is moving away from the Solar System at a rate of 616 km
per second. In 2000, a star within the galaxy brightened to magnitude 17.4, and has since been
determined to be a luminous blue variable and supernova impostor. NGC 3003, a SBbc barred
spiral galaxy with an apparent magnitude of 12.3 and an angular size of 5.8 arcminutes, is seen
almost edge-on. NGC 3344, 25 million light years distant, is face-on towards Earth. Measuring 7.1
by 6.5 arcminutes in size, it has an apparent magnitude of 10.45. NGC 3504 is a starburst barred
spiral galaxy of apparent magnitude 11.67 and measuring 2.1 by 2.7 arcminutes. It has hosted
supernovae in 1998 and 2001. It and the spiral galaxy NGC 3486 are also almost face-on towards
Earth; the latter is of magnitude 11.05 and measures 7.1 by 5.2 arcminutes. NGC 2859 is an SB0type lenticular galaxy.

Interacting Galaxy Pair Arp 107

NASAs Spitzer Space Telescopes sensitive infrared detectors map out faint regions of new star
formation in this pair of colliding galaxies known as Arp 107. Like a beautiful pearl necklace,
young star clusters have formed along the ring-like tidal arm in this system. Spitzer images at 8
microns (middle picture) provide a clear view of these clumps of young stars. In contrast, in the
shorter wavelength 3.6 micron band (left picture), the older stars in the small companion to the
northeast and the bridge connecting the two galaxies are bright. The color -coded multi-band

picture (right picture; red=8.0 microns, blue=3.6 microns) emphasizes this difference in stellar
ages. North is up and east is to the left on these images. The field of view is 3 arcminutes.
[http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/images/2344-sig05-006a-Interacting-Galaxy-Pair-Arp-107]

Arp 107 (NGC 3395 and NGC 3396) is a pair of galaxies in the process of merging, located 450
million light years away. NGC 3395 and NGC 3396 are a spiral and irregular barred spiral galaxy
respectively that are interacting, located 1.33 degrees southwest of 46 Leonis Minoris.

Hannys Voorwerp
Hannys Voorwerp, Dutch for Hannys Object, is enormous, about the size of our own Milky
Way Galaxy. Glowing strongly in the greenish light produced by ionized oxygen atoms, the
mysterious voorwerp is below spiral galaxy IC 2497 in this view from the Hubble Space Telescope.
Both lie at a distance of some 650 million light-years in the faint constellation Leo Minor. In fact,
the enormous green cloud is now suspected to be part of a tidal tail of material illuminated by a
quasar inhabiting the center of IC 2497. Powered by a massive black hole, the quasar suddenly
turned off, leaving only galaxy and glowing voorwerp visible in telescopes at optical wavelengths.
The sharp Hubble image also resolves a star forming region in the voorwerp, seen in yellow on the
side near IC 2497. That region was likely compressed by an outflow of gas driven from the
galaxys core. The remarkable mystery object was discovered by Dutch schoolteacher Hanny van
Arkel in 2007 while participating online in the Galaxy Zoo project. Galaxy Zoo enlists the public
to help classify galaxies found in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and more recently in deep Hubble
imagery.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110210.html]

The Leonis Minorid meteor shower, discovered by Dick McCloskey and Annette Posen of the
Harvard Meteor Program in 1959, peaks between October 18 and October 29. The showers parent
body is the long period comet C/1739 K1 (Zanotti). It is a minor shower, and can only be seen
from the Northern Hemisphere.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Minor]

Lepus

Lepus is a constellation lying just south of the celestial equator. Its name is Latin for hare. Although
the hare does not represent any particular figure in Greek mythology, Lepus was one of the 48
constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy. It is located below the constellation
Orion (the hunter), and is sometimes represented as a hare being chased by Orion or, alternatively,
by Orions hunting dogs.

Lepus Constellation, Hevelius, 1687

Lepus is most often represented as a rabbit being hunted by Orion, whose hunting dogs (Canis
Major and Canis Minor) pursue it. The constellation is also associated with some lunar mythology,
including the Moon rabbit.
Four stars of this constellation (, , , Lep) forming a quadrilateral are known as Arsh alJawz, the Throne of Jawz or Kursiyy al-Jawz al-Mu'akhkhar, the Hindmost Chair of
Jawz and al-Nihl, the Camels Quenching Their Thirst in Arabic.

[http://www.absoluteaxarquia.com/nightsky/lepus.html]

[http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/Lep.html]

There are a fair number of bright stars, both single and double, in Lepus. Alpha Leporis, the
brightest star of Lepus, is a white supergiant of magnitude 2.6, 1300 light-years from Earth. Its
traditional name, Arneb, means hare.
Beta Leporis, called Nihal, quenching their thirst, is a yellow giant of magnitude 2.8, 159 lightyears from Earth.

Gamma Leporis is a double star divisible in binoculars. The primary is a yellow star of magnitude
3.6, 29 light-years from Earth. The secondary is an orange star of magnitude 6.2.

Delta Leporis is a yellow giant of magnitude 3.8, 112 light-years from Earth.
There are several variable stars in Lepus. R Leporis is a Mira variable star also called Hinds
Crimson Star for its striking red color. It varies in magnitude from a minimum of 9.8 to a
maximum of 7.3, with a period of 420 days. R Leporis is at a distance of 1500 light-years. The
color intensifies as the star brightens. It can be as dim as magnitude 12 and as bright as magnitude
5.5. It was named for John Russell Hind.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_79]

There is one Messier object in Lepus, M79. It is a globular cluster of magnitude 8.0, 42,000 lightyears from Earth. One of the few globular clusters visible in the Northern Hemisphere winter, it is
a Shapley class V cluster, which means that it has an intermediate concentration towards its center.
It is often described as having a starfish shape. M79 was discovered in 1780 by Pierre Mchain.

Libra

Libra is a constellation of the zodiac. Its name is Latin for weighing scales. It is fairly faint, with
no first magnitude stars, and is bordered by the head of Serpens to the north, Virgo to the northwest,
Hydra to the southwest, the corner of Centaurus to the southwest, Lupus to the south, Scorpius to
the east and Ophiuchus to the northeast. Covering 538.1 square degrees and 1.304% of the night
sky, it ranks 29th of the 88 constellations in size. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right
ascension coordinates of the constellation lie between 14h 22m 08.08s and 16h 02m 17.23s, while
the declination coordinates are between -0.47 and +30.00. The whole constellation is visible to
observers south of latitude 60N.

In astrology, Libra is the seventh astrological sign in the Zodiac. It spans the 180-210th degree of
the zodiac, between 180 and 207.25 degree of celestial longitude. Under the tropical zodiac, Sun
transits this area on average between (northern autumnal equinox) September 23 and October 22,
and under the sidereal zodiac, the sun currently transits the constellation of Libra from
approximately October 16 to November 17. The symbol of the scales is based on the Scales of
Justice held by Themis, the Greek personification of divine law and custom. She became the
inspiration for modern depictions of Lady Justice. The ruling planet of Libra is Venus. Libra is the
only constellation in the sky represented by an inanimate object. The other eleven signs are
represented either as an animal or mythological characters throughout history.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libra_%28astrology%29]

Libra as depicted in Uranias Mirror, a set of constellation cards published in London c.1825
Libra was known in Babylonian astronomy as MUL Zibanu (the scales or balance), or
alternatively as the Claws of the Scorpion. The scales were held sacred to the sun god Shamash,

who was also the patron of truth and justice. It was also seen as the Scorpions Claws in ancient
Greece. Since these times, Libra has been associated with law, fairness and civility. In Arabic
zubn means scorpions claws, and likely similarly in other Semitic languages: this
resemblance of words may be why the Scorpions claws became the Scales. It has also been
suggested that the scales are an allusion to the fact that when the sun entered this part of the ecliptic
at the autumnal equinox, the days and nights are equal. Libras status as the location of the equinox
earned the equinox the name First Point of Libra, though this location ceased to coincide with
the constellation in 730 because of the precession of the equinoxes.

Libra is a constellation not mentioned by Eudoxus or Aratus. It is mentioned by Manetho (3rd

century B.C.) and Geminus (1st century B.C.), and included by Ptolemy in his 48 asterisms.
Ptolemy catalogued 17 stars, Tycho Brahe 10, and Johannes Hevelius 20. It only became a
constellation in ancient Rome, when it began to represent the scales held by Astraea, the goddess
of justice, associated with Virgo.

[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/libra-constellation/]
Overall, there are 83 stars within the constellations borders brighter than or equal to apparent
magnitude 6.5. The brightest stars in Libra form a quadrangle that distinguishes it for the unaided
observer. Traditionally, Alpha and Beta Librae are considered to represent the scales balance
beam, while Gamma and Sigma are the weighing pans.

Alpha Librae, called Zubenelgenubi, is a multiple star system divisible into two stars when seen
through binoculars, The primary (Alpha2 Librae) is a blue-white star of magnitude 2.7 and the
secondary (Alpha1 Librae) is a white star of magnitude 5.2 and spectral type F3V that is about 75
light-years from Earth. Its traditional name means the southern claw.

Zubeneschamali (Beta Librae) is the corresponding northern claw to Zubenelgenubi. The

brightest star in Libra, it is a green-tinged star of magnitude 2.6, 160 light-years from Earth.
Gamma Librae is called Zubenelakrab, which means the scorpions claw, completing the suite
of names referring to Libras archaic status. It is an orange giant of magnitude 3.9, 152 light-years
from Earth.

Sigma Librae was formerly known as Gamma Scorpii despite being well inside the boundaries of
Libra. It was not redesignated as Sigma Librae until 1851 by Benjamin A. Gould. It has the Latin
names Brachium arm and Cornu horn.

Libra is home to the star Gliese 581, a star of spectral type M3V (a red dwarf) about 20 light years
away from Earth. Gliese 581 has a planetary system consisting of at least 6 planets. Both Gliese
581 d, and Gliese 581 g are debatably the most promising candidates for life, although Gliese 581
gs existences has been disputed and has not been entirely confirmed or agreed on in the scientific
community. Gliese 581 c is considered to be the first Earth-like extrasolar planet to be found within
its parent stars habitable zone. Gliese 581 e is possibly the smallest mass exoplanet orbiting a
normal star found to date. All of these exoplanets are of significance for establishing the likelihood
of life outside of the Solar System.

Digitized Sky Survey image of HD 140283, the oldest star with a well-determined age in our
galaxy.
A team of astronomers using NASAs Hubble Space Telescope has taken an important step closer
to finding the birth certificate of a star thats been around for a very long time. The star could be
as old as 14.5 billion years.
This Methuselah star, cataloged as HD 140283, has been known about for more than a century
because of its fast motion across the sky. The high rate of motion is evidence that the star is simply
a visitor to our stellar neighborhood. Its orbit carries it down through the plane of our galaxy from
the ancient halo of stars that encircle the Milky Way, and will eventually slingshot back to the
galactic halo.

This conclusion was bolstered by the 1950s astronomers who were able to measure a deficiency
of heavier elements in the star as compared to other stars in our galactic neighborhood. The halo
stars are among the first inhabitants of our galaxy and collectively represent an older population
from the stars, like our sun, that formed later in the disk. This means that the star formed at a very
early time before the universe was largely polluted with heavier elements forged inside stars
through nucleosynthesis. (The Methuselah star has an anemic 1/250th as much of the heavy
element content of our sun and other stars in our solar neighborhood.)

HD 140283 has seen many changes over its long life. It was likely born in a primeval dwarf galaxy.
The dwarf galaxy eventually was gravitationally shredded and sucked in by the emerging Milky
Way over 12 billion years ago.
The star retains its elongated orbit from that cannibalism event. Therefore, its just passing through
the solar neighborhood at a rocket-like speed of 800,000 miles per hour. It takes just 1,500 years
to traverse a piece of sky with the angular width of the full Moon. The star's proper motion angular
rate is so fast (0.13 milliarcseconds an hour) that Hubble could actually photograph its movement
in literally a few hours.

The star, which is at the very first stages of expanding into a red giant, can be seen with binoculars
as a 7th-magnitude object in the constellation Libra. Hubbles observational prowess was used to
refine the distance to the star, which comes out to be 190.1 light-years.
[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/hd140283.html]

NGC 5792: This picture takes its charm from the combination of the bright foreground star (magV
9.5, spectral type M0), the galaxy itself and those hundreds of dim background galaxies, the
number of which exceeds the number of foreground stars by far.
[http://www.capella-observatory.com/ImageHTMLs/Galaxies/NGC5792.htm]

Deep-sky objects in Libra include: NGC 5792, a barred spiral galaxy in Libra. It has an apparent
visual magnitude of 12.1 and is approximately 83 million light years distant from the Sun. NGC
5890, an unbarred lenticular galaxy in Libra. It was discovered by the American astronomer
Ormond Stone in April 1785. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 14. NGC 5897, a relatively
large globular cluster in Libra. It has an integrated magnitude of 9 and is approximately 40,000
light years distant from the solar system. NGC 5885, another barred spiral galaxy in Libra. It has
an apparent visual magnitude of 11.8. The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on May 9,
1784.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/libra-constellation/]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libra_%28constellation%29]

Lupus

Lupus is a constellation located in the deep southern sky. Its name is Latin for wolf. Lupus is
bordered by six different constellations, although one of them (Hydra) merely touches at the
corner. The other five are Scorpius (the scorpion), Norma (the right angle), Circinus (the compass),
Libra (the balance scale), and Centaurus (the centaur). Covering 333.7 square degrees and 0.809%
of the night sky, it ranks 46th of the 88 modern constellations. In the equatorial coordinate system,
the right ascension coordinates of the constellation lie between 14h 17m 48.0635s and 16h 08m
36.6735s, while the declination coordinates are between 29.83 and 55.58. The whole
constellation is visible to observers south of latitude 34N.

Lupus: Hevelius, Firmamentum, 1690

[http://www.constellationsofwords.com/Constellations/Lupus.htm]

In ancient times, the constellation was considered an asterism within Centaurus, and was
considered to have been an arbitrary animal, killed, or about to be killed, on behalf of, or for,
Centaurus. An alternative visualization, attested by Eratosthenes, saw this constellation as a
wineskin held by Centaurus. It was not separated from Centaurus until Hipparchus of Bithynia
named it Therion (meaning beast) in the 3rd century BCE. No particular animal was associated
with it until the Latin translation of Ptolemys work identified it with the wolf.

The Greek constellation is probably based on the Babylonian figure known as the Mad Dog
(UR.IDIM). This was a strange hybrid creature that combined the head and torso of a man with
the legs and tail of a lion (the cuneiform sign UR simply refers to a large carnivore; lions, wolves
and dogs are all included). It is often found in association with the sun god and another mythical
being called the Bison-man, which is supposedly related to the Greek constellation of Centaurus.

According to traditional Chinese uranography, the modern constellation Lupus is located within
the eastern quadrant of the sky, which is symbolized as the Azure Dragon of the East (Dng Fng
Qng Lng). The name of the western constellation in modern Chinese is chi lng zu, meaning
the ravenous wolf constellation.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupus_%28Chinese_astronomy%29]

[http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/Lup.html]
Overall, there are 127 stars within the constellations borders brighter than or equal to apparent
magnitude 6.5. Most of the brightest stars in Lupus are massive members of the nearest OB
association (loose star cluster), Scorpius-Centaurus.

Alpha Lupi is the brightest star in Lupus constellation. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 2.30
and is approximately 460 light years distant from Earth. It is a blue-white giant star with the stellar
classification B1.5III. It is ten times more massive than the Sun and about 25,000 times more
luminous. Alpha Lupi is classified as a Beta Cephei variable. It exhibits periodic variations in
luminosity, by about 0.03, as a result of pulsations in the atmosphere. It has a period of 0.29585
days, which translates into about 7 hours and 6 minutes.

Beta Lupi is the second brightest star in the constellation. It has an apparent visual magnitude of
2.68 and is approximately 383 light years distant from Earth. The star can easily be seen without
binoculars. Like Alpha Lupi, it is classified as a Beta Cephei variable. It is a multi-period variable,
with a dominant period of 0.232 days. Beta Lupi is a blue-white giant belonging to the stellar class
B2 III. It is believed to be about 25 million years old. The star has about 8.8 solar masses and a
relatively high proper motion. It is located near the supernova remnant SN 1006.

Gamma Lupi is a blue-white subgiant star in Lupus. It is the third brightest star in Lupus. It belongs
to the stellar class B2 IV. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 2.77 and is approximately 420
light years distant from the solar system. It is in fact a close binary system in which the primary
component is itself a spectroscopic binary star, one that has an orbital period of 2.8081 days.

Delta Lupi is another blue-white subgiant with the stellar classification B1.5 IV. It has an apparent
magnitude of 3.22 and is approximately 900 light years distant from the Sun. The star is about
10,000 times more luminous than the Sun and has 12 times the mass. It has a radius 6.1 times solar.
The star is believed to be about 15 million years old. Delta Lupi is also classified as a Beta Cephei
variable. It has a period of 0.1655 days, or six cycles per day.

Nu Lupi is a designation shared by two stars, Nu-1 Lupi and Nu-2 Lupi. Nu-1 Lupi is a yellowwhite star halfway between the subgiant and giant evolutionary stage. It has the stellar
classification of F6III-IV. The star has an apparent visual magnitude of 5.00 and is approximately
111 light years distant from the solar system. Nu-2 Lupi is a yellow main sequence star only 48.3
light years from Earth. It is very similar to the Sun, but has a significantly lower metallicity. Nu-2

Lupi has an abnormally high velocity. It has a mass 1.02 times solar and a radius 1.01 solar. It is
0.99 times as luminous as the Sun and has a rotational velocity of 2 km/s.

Three planets were discovered orbiting Nu-2 Lupi in September 2011. The innermost and
outermost ones are super-Earths, with masses 5.28 and 9.59 times that of the Earth. Super-Earths
are extrasolar planets that are more massive than Earth, but substantially less massive than the
smaller gas giants in the solar system (Uranus and Neptune). The middle planet is too massive to
be a super-Earth, with a mass 11.38 times that of our planet. All three planets orbit the star within
0.5 astronomical units, which means that they are likely too hot for life.

Lupus-TR-3 is a dim orange main sequence star in Lupus. It has an apparent magnitude of 17.4
and is approximately 8,950 light years distant from Earth. It has the stellar classification of K1V.
An exoplanet, Lupus-TR-3 b, was discovered in the stars orbit in 2007. The planet has 0.81 times
the mass of Jupiter and orbits the star with a period of 3.91405 days. It is the faintest transiting
planet ever detected using ground-based methods (transit method).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GQ_Lupi]

GQ Lupi is an orange main sequence star classified as a T Tauri variable. It has an apparent visual
magnitude of 11.40 and is approximately 500 light years distant from Earth. The star has about 70
percent of the Suns mass and is less than 2 million years old. A substellar object, GQ Lupi b, was
discovered orbiting the star in 2005. It was one of the first extrasolar planet candidates to be
directly imaged.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/lupus-constellation/]

Towards the north of the constellation are globular clusters NGC 5824 and NGC 5986, and close
by the dark nebula B 228. To the south are two open clusters, NGC 5822 and NGC 5749, as well
as globular cluster NGC 5927 on the eastern border with Norma. On the western border are two
spiral galaxies and the Wolf-Rayet planetary nebula IC 4406 containing some of the hottest stars
in existence. IC 4406, also called the Retina Nebula, is a cylindrical nebula at a distance of 5,000
light-years. Another planetary nebula, NGC 5882, is towards the center of the constellation. ESO
274-1 is a spiral galaxy seen from edge-on that requires an amateur telescope with at least 12
inches of aperture to view. It can be found by using Lambda Lupi and Mu Lupi as markers, and
can only be seen under very dark skies. It is 9 arcminutes by 0.7 arcminutes with a small, elliptical
nucleus. The historic supernova SN 1006 is described by various sources as appearing on April 30
to May 1, 1006, in the constellation of Lupus.

The Retina Nebula

A dying star, IC 4406, dubbed the Retina Nebula is revealed in this Hubble Heritage image. Like
many other so-called planetary nebulae, IC 4406 exhibits a high degree of symmetry; the left and
right halves of the Hubble image are nearly mirror images of the other. If we could fly around
IC4406 in a starship, we would see that the gas and dust form a vast donut of material streaming
outward from the dying star. From Earth, we are viewing the donut from the side. This side view
allows us to see the intricate tendrils of dust that have been compared to the eyes retina. In other
planetary nebulae, like the Ring Nebula (NGC 6720), we view the donut from the top.

The donut of material confines the intense radiation coming from the remnant of the dying star.
Gas on the inside of the donut is ionized by light from the central star and glows. Light from
oxygen atoms is rendered blue in this image; hydrogen is shown as green, and nitrogen as red. The
range of color in the final image shows the differences in concentration of these three gases in the
nebula. Unseen in the Hubble image is a larger zone of neutral gas that is not emitting visible light,
but which can be seen by radio telescopes.

One of the most interesting features of IC 4406 is the irregular lattice of dark lanes that criss-cross
the center of the nebula. These lanes are about 160 astronomical units wide (1 astronomical unit is
the distance between the Earth and Sun). They are located right at the boundary between the hot
glowing gas that produces the visual light imaged here and the neutral gas seen with radio
telescopes. We see the lanes in silhouette because they have a density of dust and gas that is a
thousand times higher than the rest of the nebula. The dust lanes are like a rather open mesh veil
that has been wrapped around the bright donut.
The fate of these dense knots of material is unknown. Will they survive the nebulas expansion
and become dark denizens of the space between the stars or simply dissipate?
[http://www.wolaver.org/Space/squarenebula.htm]

NGC 5882: A Small Planetary Nebula

Will most stars one day look like this? Pictured above is the planetary nebula NGC 5882, captured
by the Hubble Space Telescope. Although planetary nebulae can appear similar to planets like
Uranus and Neptune, they are actually gas clouds surrounding stars typically hundreds of light
years away. Planetary nebula form when a typical star completes fusion in its core and ejects an
outer envelope of gas - usually about 10 percent of the stars initial mass. This gas shell dims in
about 50,000 years- short compared to the lifetimes of stars. Therefore, although only about 1000

planetary nebula are known in our Galaxy, it is thought that most stars go through this phase. Green
light is emitted when oxygen ions acquire electrons from the surrounding gas.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap960828.html]

Lupus is also home to the historic supernova SN 1006, which has been described by various
sources as appearing on April 30 to May 1, 1006:

SN 1006 Supernova Remnant

A new star, likely the brightest supernova in recorded human history, lit up planet Earths sky in
the year 1006 AD. The expanding debris cloud from the stellar explosion, found in the southerly
constellation of Lupus, still puts on a cosmic light show across the electromagnetic spectrum. In
fact, this composite view includes X-ray data in blue from the Chandra Observatory, optical data
in yellowish hues, and radio image data in red. Now known as the SN 1006 supernova remnant,
the debris cloud appears to be about 60 light-years across and is understood to represent the
remains of a white dwarf star. Part of a binary star system, the compact white dwarf gradually
captured material from its companion star. The buildup in mass finally triggered a thermonuclear
explosion that destroyed the dwarf star. Because the distance to the supernova remnant is about
7,000 light-years, that explosion actually happened 7,000 years before the light reached Earth in
1006. Shockwaves in the remnant accelerate particles to extreme energies and are thought to be a
source of the mysterious cosmic rays.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140712.html]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupus_%28constellation%29]

Lynx

[http://www.redorbit.com/reference/lynx_constellation/]

Lynx, named after the animal, is a constellation in the northern sky. This constellation is mostly
very faint, with its brightest stars forming a zigzag line. Lynx is bordered by Camelopardalis to
the north, Auriga to the west, Gemini to the southwest, Cancer to the south, Leo to the east and
Ursa Major to the northeast. Covering 545.4 square degrees and 1.322% of the night sky, it ranks
28th of the 88 constellations in size. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension
coordinates of the constellation lie between 06h 16m 13.76s and 09h 42m 50.22s, while the
declination coordinates are between +32.97 and +61.96. On dark nights, the brighter stars can
be seen as a crooked line extending roughly between Camelopardalis and Leo, and north of the
bright star Castor. Lynx is most readily observed from the late winter to late summer to northern

hemisphere observers, culminating at midnight on 20 January. The whole constellation is visible

to observers north of latitude 28S.

Johannes Hevelius is credited with the creation of this constellation saying that anyone wishing to
study the stars in this area would need the eyes of a Lynx.
[http://umich.edu/~lowbrows/guide/lynx.html]

Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius formed the constellation in the 17th century from 19 faint
stars that he observed with the unaided eye between the constellations Ursa Major and Auriga.
Naming it Lynx because of its faintness, he challenged future stargazers to see it, declaring that
only the lynx-eyed (those of good sight) would have been able to recognize it. Hevelius gave it the
alternate name of Tiger in his catalogue as well as Lynx, but kept the latter name only in his atlas.
John Flamsteed adopted the constellation in his catalogue and atlas. According to amateur

astronomer Richard Hinckley Allen, the chief stars in Lynx might well have been utilized by the
modern constructor, whoever he was, of our Ursa Major to complete the quartette of feet.

[http://www.dibonsmith.com/lyn_con.htm]

Francis Baily gave a single star a Bayer designation- Alpha Lyncis- while Flamsteed numbered 44
stars, though several lie across the boundary in Ursa Major. Overall, there are 97 stars within the
constellations borders brighter than or equal to apparent magnitude 6.5.

The brightest star in this constellation is Alpha Lyncis, an orange giant of spectral type K7III
located about 200 light-years distant from Earth. Around twice as massive as the Sun, it has
exhausted the hydrogen at its core and has evolved away from the main sequence. It has swollen
to about 55 times the Suns radius and it is emitting roughly 673 times the luminosity of the Sun.
It has cooled and has a surface temperature of 3,880 K.

Lynx is rich in double stars. The second brightest star in the constellation is 38 Lyncis at magnitude
3.8. When viewed through a moderate telescope, the two components- a brighter blue-white star
of magnitude 3.9 and a fainter star of magnitude 6.1 that has been described as lilac as well as
blue-white- can be seen.

10 Ursae Majoris is the third brightest star in Lynx. Originally in the neighbouring constellation
Ursa Major, it became part of Lynx with the official laying down of the constellation borders.
Appearing to be of magnitude 3.97, it can be split by a telescope to reveal a yellow-white main
sequence star of spectral type F4V of magnitude 4.11 and a star very similar to the Sun of spectral
class G5V and magnitude 6.18. The two are 10.6 au apart and orbit each other every 21.78 years.
The system is about 53 light-years distant from Earth.

The red supergiant Y Lyncis is a popular target among amateur astronomers, as it is a semiregular
variable ranging in brightness from magnitude 6.2 to 8.9. Its changes in brightness are complex,
with a shorter period of 110 days due to the stars pulsations, and a longer period of 1400 days
possibly due to the star's rotation or convectively induced oscillatory thermal (COT) mode. It has
an estimated diameter around 580 times that of the Sun, is around 1.5 to 2 times as massive, and
has a luminosity around 25,000 times that of the Sun.

The only named star is Alsciaukat (from the Arabic for thorn), also known as 31 Lyncis, located
about 380 light-years distant. It is also an evolved giant star around twice the Suns mass that has
swollen and cooled since exhausting its core hydrogen. It is anywhere from 59 to 75 times as wide
as the Sun, and 740 times as luminous.

Six star systems have been found to contain exoplanets, of which two were discovered by the
Doppler method and four by the transit method. 6 Lyncis is an orange subgiant that spent much of
its life as an A-type or F-type main sequence star. It is orbited by a planet with a minimum mass
of 2.4 Jupiter masses and period of 899 days.

HD 75898 is a yellow subgiant that has a planet 2.51 Jupiter masses orbiting with a period of
around 418 days.

Three star systems were found to have planets that were observed as they passed in front of them
by the XO Telescope in Hawaii. XO-2 is a binary star system, both the stars of which are slightly
less massive and cooler than the Sun and have planetary companions: XO-2S has a Saturn-mass
planet at 0.13 au distance with a period of around 18 days, and one a little more massive than
Jupiter at a distance of 0.48 au and with a period of around 120 days, while XO-2N has a hot
Jupiter with around half Jupiters mass that has an orbit of only 2.6 days.

XO-4 is an F-type main sequence star that is a little hotter and more massive than the Sun that has
a hot Jupiter orbiting with a period of around 4.1 days.

XO-5 is a Sun-like star with a hot jupiter about as massive as Jupiter that takes around 4.2 days to
complete an orbit.

WASP-13, a sunlike star that has begun to swell and cool off the main sequence, had a transiting
planet discovered by the SuperWASP program in 2009. The planet is around half as massive as
Jupiter and takes 4.35 days to complete a revolution.

NGC 2419: Intergalactic Wanderer

Three objects stand out in this thoughtful telescopic image, a view toward the mostly stealthy
constellation Lynx. The two brightest (the spiky ones) are nearby stars. The third is the remote
globular star cluster NGC 2419, at distance of nearly 300,000 light-years. NGC 2419 is sometimes
called the Intergalactic Wanderer, an appropriate title considering that the distance to the Milky
Ways satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, is only about 160,000 light-years. Roughly
similar to other large globular star clusters like Omega Centauri, NGC 2419 is itself intrinsically
bright, but appears faint because it is so far away. NGC 2419 may really have an extragalactic
origin as, for example, the remains of a small galaxy captured and disrupted by the Milky Way.
But its extreme distance makes it difficult to study and compare its properties with other globular
clusters that roam the halo of our Milky Way galaxy.

Massive Nearby Spiral Galaxy NGC 2841

It is one of the more massive galaxies known. A mere 46 million light-years distant, spiral galaxy
NGC 2841 can be found in the northern constellation of Ursa Major. This sharp view of the
gorgeous island universe shows off a striking yellow nucleus and galactic disk. Dust lanes, small,
pink star-forming regions, and young blue star clusters are embedded in the patchy, tightly wound
spiral arms. In contrast, many other spirals exhibit grand, sweeping arms with large star-forming
regions. NGC 2841 has a diameter of over 150,000 light-years, even larger than our own Milky
Way and captured by this composite image merging exposures from the orbiting 2.4-meter Hubble
Space Telescope and the ground-based 8.2-meter Subaru Telescope. X-ray images suggest that
resulting winds and stellar explosions create plumes of hot gas extending into a halo around NGC
2841.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150428.html]

The NGC 2841 group is a group of galaxies that lie in Lynx and neighbouring Ursa Major. It
includes the loose triplet NGC 2541, NGC 2500, and NGC 2552 within Lynx. NGC 2841 itself
lies in Ursa Major.

Supernova Factory NGC 2770

The stellar explosions known as supernovae are among the most powerful events in the universe.
Triggered by the collapsing core of a massive star or the nuclear demise of a white dwarf,
supernovae occur in average spiral galaxies only about once every century. But the remarkable
spiral galaxy NGC 2770 has lately produced more than its fair share. Two still bright supernovae
and the location of a third, originally spotted in 1999 but now faded from view, are indicated in
this image of the edge-on spiral. All three supernovae are now thought to be of the core-collapse
variety, but the most recent of the trio, SN2008D, was first detected by the Swift satellite at more
extreme energies as an X-ray flash (XRF) or possibly a low-energy version of a gamma-ray burst
on January 9th. Located a mere 90 million light-years away in the northern constellation Lynx,
NGC 2770 is now the closest galaxy known to host such a powerful supernova event.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080118.html]
It is possible that NGC 2770s interactions with a suspected companion galaxy may have created
the massive stars causing this activity.

UGC 4904 is another galaxy located in Lynx, about 77 million light-years from Earth. On 20
October 2004, a supernova impostor was observed by Japanese amateur astronomer Koichi Itagaki
within the galaxy. This same star may have changed from a LBV star to a Wolf-Rayet star shortly
before it was observed as blowing up as hypernova SN 2006jc on October 11, 2006.
NGC 2537, known as the Bears Paw Galaxy, lies about 3 degrees northnorthwest of 31 Lyncis. It
is a blue compact dwarf galaxy that is somewhere between 17 and 30 million light-years away
from Earth.

Close by is IC 2233, a very flat and thin spiral galaxy that is between 26 and 40 million light-years
away from Earth. A comparatively quiet galaxy with a low rate of star formation (less than one
solar mass every twenty years), it was long thought to be possibly interacting with the Bears Paw
galaxy. However, this is now considered highly unlikely.

APM 08279+5255 is a very distant, broad absorption line quasar discovered in 1998 and initially
considered the most luminous object yet found. It is magnified and split into multiple images by
the gravitational lensing effect of a foreground galaxy through which its light passes. It appears to
be a giant elliptical galaxy with a supermassive black hole around 23 billion times as massive as
the Sun and associated accretion disk that has a diameter of 3600 light years. It possesses large
regions of hot dust and molecular gas, as well as regions with starburst activity. It has a redshift of
3.911. While observing the quasar, ESAs XMM Newton and the Large Binocular Telescope
(LBT) in Arizona in 2008 discovered the huge galaxy cluster 2XMM J083026+524133.

The Lynx Supercluster, with a redshift of 1.261.27, was the most distant supercluster known at
the time of its discovery in 1999. It is made up of two main clusters of galaxies- RX J0849+4452
or Lynx E and RX J0848+4453 or Lynx W- and several smaller clumps. Further still lies the Lynx
Arc:

Located behind a cluster of galaxies in northern constellation Lynx around 12 billion light-years
(ly) away, the Lynx Arc is a distant supercluster of extremely hot, young stars. Roughly one million
times brighter than the well-known Orion Nebula, the Lynx Arc contains a million blue stars that
are twice as hot as similar stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Only visible through gravitational lensing
by a closer cluster of galaxies, the Arc is a feature of the early days of the universe, when furious

firestorms of star birth were more common. It may be going through a short-lived luminous phase
that may have lasted for as little as a few million years.

Within constellation Lynx, the very young supercluster was found in an image of the Lynx galaxy
cluster, located within the center box.

The Arc was discovered during a systematic study of distant galaxy clusters using major X-ray,
optical, and infrared telescopes. An international team of astronomers found the stretched and
magnified image of a huge cluster of stars appearing as a red arc behind the already distant, Lynx
galaxy double cluster of CL J0848.8+4455 (z=0.543) and RX J0848+4456 (z=0.570), which are
located around 5.4 billion light-years away in northern constellation Lynx. The Arc was eventually
determined to be located about 12 billion light-years away (at a redshift of z=3.357).

The young supercluster is visible as a red object located to the right of the Lynx cluster of galaxies,
within the boxed area.

Although the largest known star-birth clusters in the Milky Way are the Arches clusters in the
galactic center, the Carina Nebula in the Constellation Fornax, and the 30 Doradus cluster in the
Large Magellanic Cloud, these clusters contain only hundreds or thousands of super-hot stars, only
a fraction of the size of the Lynx Arc megacluster.

The reddish arc is really a stretched and magnified image of a distant mega-cluster of stars lying
far behind the Lynx galaxy cluster about 12 billion light-year away.

Analysis of the color and intensity of light from the Arc indicates that much of its light started out
as ultraviolet light from the hottest stars and was stretched to red light (red-shifted) after
travelling 12 billion light-years. As the hotter a star is, the bluer and more massive it is, and so the
intensity of the ultraviolet radiation emitted suggests that the stars of the Lynx Arc are among the
most massive stars seen ever detected in the universe. The spectrum of the Arc suggests that its
stars are more than twice as hot as the Orion Nebulas central stars, with surface temperatures up
to 144,000 degrees Fahrenheit (80,000 degrees Celsius)- hotter and brighter than Theta1 Orionis
C (of spectral and luminosity type O7 V), the brightest of the four central stars of the Trapezium
Cluster in Orion. Although there are larger and brighter star-forming regions than the Orion Nebula
in the nearby universe, none are as bright as the Lynx arc, nor do they contain such large numbers
of hot stars. Even the most massive, normal nearby stars are no hotter than around 72,000 degrees

Fahrenheit (40,000 degrees Celsius). However, stars formed from primordial clouds of extemely
metal-poor, hydrogen and helium gas in the early universe can be more massive and consequently
much hotter than those created today- perhaps up to 215,000 degrees Fahrenheit (120,000 degrees
Celsius).

Hotter than Theta1 Orionis C, the brightest of the four central stars of the Trapezium Cluster in
Orion (at left), the bright O-type stars of the Lynx Arc were brighter and bluer than any of the stars
of the Solar neighborhood known to be located within 100 light-years of Sol.

Although many of the first generation of stars (Population III) in the cosmos may each have been
as much as several hundred Solar-masses, but the comparatively metal-rich, chemical makeup of
the universe today prevents stars from forming beyond about 100 Solar-masses. Such primordial
super-hot stars are thought to be the first luminous objects to condense after the Big Bang cooled.
Astronomers believe that these first stars formed considerably earlier than those observed in the
Lynx Arc- up to 1.8 billion years earlier. While the nebular material around the Arc is not
extremely metal-poor, there is considerable evidence that the ionizing stellar cluster is
considerably more metal-poor. The apparent overabundance of silicon in the nebula of the star

cluster could indicate enrichment by past pair-instability supernovae. Because the stars of the
Lynx Arc were also very massive, however, most probably exploded as supernovae within a few
million years or so, to blast their own, newly created stock of heavy elements into intergalactic
space. Some of this material was recycled into subsequent generations of stars, while surviving
stars may have coalesced with other clusters to form the earliest galaxies.
[http://www.solstation.com/x-objects/lynx-arc.htm]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynx_%28constellation%29]

Lyra

Lyra (Latin for lyre, from Greek ) is a small constellation. It is one of 48 listed by the 2nd
century astronomer Ptolemy, and is one of the 88 constellations recognized by the International
Astronomical Union. Lyra was often represented on star maps as a vulture or an eagle carrying a
lyre, and hence sometimes referred to as Aquila Cadens or Vultur Cadens. Beginning at the north,
Lyra is bordered by Draco, Hercules, Vulpecula, and Cygnus. Lyra is visible from the northern
hemisphere from spring through autumn, and nearly overhead, in temperate latitudes, during the
summer months. From the southern hemisphere, it is visible low in the northern sky during the
winter months.

Lyra is bordered by Vulpecula to the south, Hercules to the east, Draco to the north, and Cygnus
to the west. Covering 286.5 square degrees, it ranks 52nd of the 88 modern constellations in size.
It appears prominently in the northern sky during the Southern Hemispheres summer, and the
whole constellation is visible for at least part of the year to observers north of latitude 42S. Its
main asterism consists of six stars, and 73 stars in total are brighter than magnitude 6.5. In the
equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of the constellation lie between 18h
14m and 19h 28m, while the declination coordinates are between +25.66 and +47.71.
Vega, Lyras brightest star is one of the brightest stars in the night sky, and forms a corner of the
famed Summer Triangle asterism.

Lyra was frequently visualized as an eagle or vulture as well as a lyre; both are shown on this
engraving from the Uranographia of Johann Bode (1801). Near the tip of the vultures beak is the
bright star Vega, here spelt Wega; Bode also gave it the alternative name Testa in reference to the
tortoise shell from which the lyre was supposedly made by Hermes.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/lyra.htm]

In Greek mythology, Lyra represents the lyre of Orpheus. Made by Apollo from a tortoise shell, it
was said to be the first lyre ever produced. Orpheuss music was said to be so great that even
inanimate objects such as trees, streams, and rocks could be charmed. Joining Jason and the
Argonauts, his music was able to quell the voices of the dangerous Sirens, who sang tempting
songs to the Argonauts.

At one point, Orpheus married Eurydice, a nymph. While fleeing from an attack by Aristaeus, she
stepped on a snake that bit her, killing her. To reclaim her, Orpheus entered the Underworld, where
the music from his lyre charmed Hades. Hades relented and let Orpheus bring Eurydice back, on
the condition that he never once look back until outside. Unfortunately, near the very end, Orpheus
faltered and looked back, causing Eurydice to be left in the Underworld forever. Orpheus spent the
rest of his life strumming his lyre while wandering aimlessly through the land, rejecting all
marriage offers from women.

There are two competing myths relating to the death of Orpheus. According to Eratosthenes,
Orpheus failed to make a necessary sacrifice to Dionysus due to his regard for Apollo as the
supreme deity instead. Dionysus then sent his followers to rip Orpheus apart. Ovid tells a rather
different story, saying that women, in retribution for Orpheus's rejection of marriage offers, ganged
up and threw stones and spears. At first, his music charmed them as well, but eventually their
numbers and clamor overwhelmed his music and he was hit by the spears. Both myths then state
that his lyre was placed in the sky by the muses.

Vega and its surrounding stars are also treated as a constellation in other cultures. The area
corresponding to Lyra was seen by the Arabs as a vulture or an eagle carrying a lyre, either
enclosed in its wings, or in its beak. In Wales, Lyra is known as King Arthurs Harp (Talyn

Arthur), and King Davids harp. The Persian poet Hafiz called it the Lyre of Zurah. In Australian
Aboriginal astronomy, Lyra is known by the Boorong people in Victoria as the Malleefowl
constellation. Lyra was known as Urcuchillay by the Incas and was worshipped as an animal deity.

In Chinese astronomy Lyra is located within the northern quadrant of the sky, which is symbolized
as the Black Tortoise of the North (Bi Fng Xun W). The name of the western constellation in
modern Chinese is (tin qn zu), meaning the celestial zither constellation.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyra_%28Chinese_astronomy%29]

[https://thecuriousastronomer.wordpress.com/tag/galilean-moons/]

The Summer Triangle, and the globular cluster M13 in Hercules, as seen at 10 p.m. on July 20
[http://oneminuteastronomer.com/4253/easy-summer-stargazing/]

This shot is of the Summer Triangle. Brilliant Vega in Lyra is at the top of the frame. Deneb in
Cygnus is at lower left. Altair in Aquila is at lower right. The rich star clouds and dark nebulas of
the Milky Way in Cygnus dominate the image. The Great Rift runs through the star clouds above
Aquila through Cygnus in the center of the frame. Le Gentil 3, a large dark nebula, is to the left of
Deneb. The North America Nebula is just below Deneb. Brocchis Cluster, also known as the
Coathanger is also visible in Vulpecula.
[http://www.astropix.com/HTML/BEGINNER/Summer_Triangle.HTM]

Vega

Vega (Alpha Lyrae) is the brightest star in the constellation Lyra, the fifth brightest star in the
night sky and the second brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere, after Arcturus. It is a
relatively close star at only 25 light-years from Earth, and, together with Arcturus and Sirius, one
of the most luminous stars in the Suns neighborhood.

Vega has been extensively studied by astronomers, leading it to be termed the next most important
star in the sky after the Sun. It was the northern pole star around 12,000 BCE and will be so again
around the year 13,727 when the declination will be +8614'. Vega was the first star other than the
Sun to be photographed and the first to have its spectrum recorded. It was one of the first stars
whose distance was estimated through parallax measurements.

Vega is only about a tenth of the age of the Sun, but since it is 2.1 times as massive its expected
lifetime is also one tenth of that of the Sun; both stars are at present approaching the midpoint of
their life expectancies. Vega has an unusually low abundance of the elements with a higher atomic

number than that of helium. It is also a suspected variable star that may vary slightly in magnitude
in a periodic manner. It is rotating rapidly with a velocity of 274 km/s at the equator. This is causing
the equator to bulge outward because of centrifugal effects, and, as a result, there is a variation of
temperature across the stars photosphere that reaches a maximum at the poles. From Earth, Vega
is being observed from the direction of one of these poles.

Based on an observed excess emission of infrared radiation, Vega appears to have a circumstellar
disk of dust. This dust is likely to be the result of collisions between objects in an orbiting debris
disk, which is analogous to the Kuiper belt in the Solar System. Stars that display an infrared
excess because of dust emission are termed Vega-like stars.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega]

Besides the Summer Triangle asterism, Vega also forms one vertex of a much smaller triangle,
along with Epsilon and Zeta Lyrae. Zeta forms a wide binary star visible in binoculars, consisting
of an Am star and an F-type subgiant. The Am star has an additional close companion, bringing
the total number of stars in the system to three.

Epsilon is a more famous wide binary that can even be separated by the naked eye under good
conditions. Both components are themselves close binaries which can be seen with telescopes to
consist of A- and F-type stars, and a faint star was recently found to orbit component C as well,
for a total of five stars.

In contrast to Zeta and Epsilon Lyrae, Delta Lyrae is an optical double, with the two stars simply
lying along the same line of sight east of Zeta. The brighter and closer of the two, Delta2 Lyrae, is
a 4th-magnitude red bright giant that varies semiregularly by around 0.2 magnitudes[20] with a
dominant period of 79 days, while the fainter Delta1 Lyrae is a spectroscopic binary consisting of
a B-type primary and an unknown secondary. Both systems, however, have very similar radial
velocities, and are the two brightest members of a sparse open cluster known as the Delta Lyrae
cluster.

South of Delta is Gamma Lyrae, a blue giant and the second-brightest star in the constellation.
Around 190 parsecs distant,[12] it has been referred to as a superficially normal star.
The final star forming the lyres figure is Beta Lyrae, also a binary composed of a blue bright giant
and an early B-type star. In this case, the stars are so close together that the larger giant is
overflowing its Roche lobe and transferring material to the secondary, forming a semidetached
system. The secondary, originally the less massive of the two, has accreted so much mass that it is
now substantially more massive, albeit smaller, than the primary, and is surrounded by a thick
accretion disk. The plane of the orbit is aligned with Earth and the system thus shows eclipses,
dropping nearly a full magnitude from its 3rd-magnitude baseline every 13 days, although its
period is increasing by around 19 seconds per year. It is the prototype of the Beta Lyrae variables,
eclipsing semidetached binaries of early spectral types in which there are no exact onsets of
eclipses, but rather continuous changes in brightness.

Another easy-to-spot variable is the bright R Lyrae, north of the main asterism. Also known as 13
Lyrae, it is a 4th-magnitude red giant semiregular variable that varies by several tenths of a
magnitude. Its periodicity is complex, with several different periods of varying lengths, most
notably one of 46 days and one of 64 days.

In the extreme east is RR Lyrae, the prototype of the large class of variables known as RR Lyrae
variables, which are pulsating variables similar to Cepheids, but are evolved population II stars of
spectral types A and F. Such stars are usually not found in a galaxys thin disk, but rather in the
galactic halo. Such stars serve as standard candles, and thus are a reliable way to calculate distances
to the globular clusters in which they reside. RR Lyrae itself varies between magnitudes 7 and 8.

In orbit around the orange subgiant star HD 177830 is one of the earliest exoplanets to be detected.
A jovian-mass planet, it orbits in an eccentric orbit with a period of 390 days. A second planet
closer to the star was discovered in 2011. Visible to the naked eye are HD 173416, a yellow giant
hosting a planet over twice the mass of Jupiter discovered in 2009; and HD 176051, a low-mass
binary star containing another high-mass planet. Just short of naked-eye visibility is HD 178911,
a triple system consisting of a close binary and a visually separable sunlike star. The sunlike star

has a planet with over 6 Jupiter masses discovered in 2001, the second found in a triple system
after that of 16 Cygni.

One of the most-studied exoplanets in the night sky is TrES-1b, in orbit around the star GSC
02652-01324. Detected from a transit of its parent star, the planet has around 3/4 the mass of
Jupiter, yet orbits its parent star in only three days. The transits have been reported to have
anomalies multiple times. Originally thought to be possibly due to the presence of an Earth-like
planet, it is now accepted that the irregularities are due to a large starspot.

Also discovered by the transit method is WASP-3b, with 1.75 times the mass of Jupiter. At the
time of its discovery, it was one of the hottest known exoplanets, in orbit around the F-type mainsequence star WASP-3. Similar to TrES-1b, irregularities in the transits had left open the
possibility of a second planet, although this now appears unlikely as well.

Lyra is one of three constellations (along with neighboring Cygnus and Draco) to be in the Kepler
Missions field of view, and as such it contains many more known exoplanets than most
constellations. One of the first discovered by the mission is Kepler-7b, an extremely low-density
exoplanet with less than half the mass of Jupiter, yet nearly 1.5 times the radius. Almost as sparse
is Kepler-8b, only slightly more massive and of a similar radius. The Kepler-20 system contains
five known planets; three of them are only slightly smaller than Neptune, and two while the other
two are some of the first Earth-sized exoplanets to be discovered. Kepler-37 is another star with
an exoplanet discovered by Kepler; the planet is the smallest known extrasolar planet known as of
February 2013.

In April 2013, it was announced that of the five planets orbiting Kepler-62, at least two- Kepler62e and Kepler-62f- are within the boundaries of the habitable zone of that star, where scientists
think liquid water could exist, and are both candidates for being a solid, rocky, earth-like planet.
The exoplanets are 1.6 and 1.4 times the diameter of Earth respectively, with their star Kepler-62
at a distance of 1,200 light-years.

M57: The Ring Nebula

Except for the rings of Saturn, the Ring Nebula (M57) is probably the most famous celestial band.
Its classic appearance is understood to be due to our own perspective, though. The recent mapping
of the expanding nebulas 3-D structure, based in part on this clear Hubble image, indicates that
the nebula is a relatively dense, donut-like ring wrapped around the middle of a football-shaped
cloud of glowing gas. The view from planet Earth looks down the long axis of the football, faceon to the ring. Of course, in this well-studied example of a planetary nebula, the glowing material

does not come from planets. Instead, the gaseous shroud represents outer layers expelled from the
dying, once sun-like star, now a tiny pinprick of light seen at the nebulas center. Intense ultraviolet
light from the hot central star ionizes atoms in the gas. In the picture, the blue color in the center
is ionized helium, the cyan color of the inner ring is the glow of hydrogen and oxygen, and the
reddish color of the outer ring is from nitrogen and sulfur. The Ring Nebula is about one light-year
across and 2,000 light-years away.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130605.html]
M57, also known as the Ring Nebula and NGC 6720, is one of the best known planetary nebulae
and the second to be discovered; its integrated magnitude is 8.8. It was discovered in 1779 by
Antoine Darquier, 15 years after Charles Messier discovered the Dumbbell Nebula. Astronomers
have determined that it is between 6,000 and 8,000 years old. The central star itself is a white
dwarf with a temperature of 120,000 Kelvin. The nebula can be found halfway between Gamma
Lyrae and Beta Lyrae.

Lyra is also home to M56 (NGC 6779), a globular cluster in the constellation Lyra, at a distance
of about 32,900 light-years from Earth, and measures roughly 84 light-years across, with a
combined mass some 230,000 times that of the Sun. It is about 31-32 kly (9.59.8 kpc) from the
Galactic Center and 4.8 kly (1.5 kpc) above the galactic plane. This cluster has an estimated age
of 13.70 billion years and is following a retrograde orbit through the Milky Way. The properties
of this cluster suggest that it may have been acquired during the merger of a dwarf galaxy, of which
Omega Centauri forms the surviving nucleus. It was discovered by Charles Messier on January
19, 1779. The cluster is located almost midway along an imaginary line between Albireo ( Cygni)
and Sulafat ( Lyrae). The brightest stars in M56 are of 13th magnitude, while it contains only
about a dozen known variable stars. The cluster can be resolved using a telescope with an aperture
of 8 in (20 cm) or larger.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_56]

Another planetary nebula in Lyra is Abell 46. The central star, V477 Lyrae, is an eclipsing postcommon-envelope binary, consisting of a white dwarf primary and an oversized secondary
component due to recent accretion. The nebula itself is of relatively low surface brightness

compared to the central star, and is undersized for the primary's mass for reasons not yet fully
understood.

A Galaxy Collision in NGC 6745

Galaxies dont normally look like this. NGC 6745 actually shows the results of two galaxies that
have been colliding for only hundreds of millions of years. Just off the above digitally sharpened
photograph to the lower right is the smaller galaxy, moving away. The larger galaxy, pictured
above, used to be a spiral galaxy but now is damaged and appears peculiar. Gravity has distorted

the shapes of the galaxies. Although it is likely that no stars in the two galaxies directly collided,
the gas, dust, and ambient magnetic fields do interact directly. In fact, a knot of gas pulled off the
larger galaxy on the lower right has now begun to form stars. NGC 6745 spans about 80 thousand
light-years across and is located about 200 million light-years away.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120930.html]

A remarkable long-duration gamma-ray burst was GRB 050525A, which flared in 2005. The
afterglow re-brightened at 33 minutes after the original burst, only the third found to exhibit such
an effect in the timeframe, and unable to be completely explained by known phenomena. The light
curve observed over the next 100 days was consistent with that of a supernova or even a hypernova,
dubbed SN 2005nc. The host galaxy proved elusive to find at first, although it was subsequently
identified.

Meteor over Crater Lake

One of the more common questions during a meteor shower occurs because the time it takes for a
meteor to flash is typically less than the time it takes for a head to turn. Possibly, though, the glory

of seeing bright meteors shoot across and knowing that they were once small pebbles on another
world might make it all worthwhile, even if your observing partner(s) could not share in every
particular experience. Peaking over the past few days, a dark moonless sky allowed the Lyrids
meteor shower to exhibit as many as 30 visible meteors per hour from some locations. A bright
Lyrid meteor streaks above picturesque Crater Lake in Oregon, USA, in the above composite of
nine exposures taken last week (2012 April 25). Snow covers the foreground, while the majestic
central band of our home galaxy arches well behind the serene lake. Other meteor showers this
year include the Perseids in mid-August and the Leonids in mid-November, both expected to also
dodge the glare of a bright Moon in 2012.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120425.html]

The Lyrids last from April 16 to April 26 each year. The radiant of the meteor shower is located
near Lyras brightest star, Vega, and the source is particles of dust shed by the long-period Comet
C/1861 G1 Thatcher.

The shower usually peaks on around April 22 and the morning of April 23. Counts typically range
from 5 to 20 meteors per hour, averaging around 10, and the meteors are usually around magnitude
+2. However, some meteors can be brighter, known as Lyrid fireballs, cast shadows for a split
second and leave behind smokey debris trails that last minutes.

Occasionally, the shower intensifies when the planets steer the one-revolution dust trail of the
comet into Earths path, an event that happens about once every 60 years. In 1982, amateur
astronomers counted 90 April Lyrids per hour at the peak and similar rates were seen in 1922. A
stronger storm of up to 700 per hour occurred in 1803, while the shower has been observed for the
past 2,600 years.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyrids]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyra]

Mensa

Mensa is a small constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere between Scorpius and
Centaurus, one of twelve drawn up in the 18th century by French astronomer Nicolas Louis de
Lacaille. Its name is Latin for table, though it originally depicted Table Mountain and was known
as Mons Mensae. It covers a keystone-shaped wedge of sky stretching from approximately 4h to
7.5h of right ascension, and 71 to 85.5 degrees of declination. Other than the south polar
constellation of Octans, it is the most southerly of constellations. As a result, it is essentially
unobservable from the Northern Hemisphere.

Mensa is bordered by Dorado to the north, Hydrus to the northwest and west, Octans to the south,
Chamaeleon to the east and Volans to the northeast. Covering 153.5 square degrees and 0.372%
of the night sky, it ranks 75th of the 88 constellations in size. In the equatorial coordinate system,
the right ascension coordinates of the constellation lie between 03h 12m 55.9008s and 07h 36m
51.5289s, while the declination coordinates are between 69.75 and 85.26. The whole
constellation is visible to observers south of latitude 5N.

Mensa, introduced by Lacaille under the name Mons Mensae, as illustrated on Chart XX of the
Uranographia of Johann Bode (1801). Nubecula Major is the Large Magellanic Cloud,
representing the cloud that caps the real Table Mountain.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/mensa.htm]

Initially known as Mons Mensae, Mensa was created by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille out of dim
Southern Hemisphere stars in honor of Table Mountain, a South African mountain overlooking
Cape Town. He recalled that the Magellanic Clouds were sometimes known as Cape Clouds, and
that Table Mountain was often covered in cloud when a southeasterly stormy wind blew. Hence

he made a table in the sky under the clouds. Lacaille had observed and catalogued 10,000
southern stars during a two-year stay at the Cape of Good Hope. He devised 14 new constellations
in uncharted regions of the Southern Celestial Hemisphere not visible from Europe. Mensa was
the only constellation that did not honor an instrument that symbolised the Age of Enlightenment.
John Herschel proposed shrinking the name to one word in 1844, noting that Lacaille himself had
abbreviated his constellations thus on occasion.

Although the stars of Mensa do not feature in any ancient mythology, the mountain it is named
after has a rich mythology. Called Tafelberg in Dutch and German, the mesa (Portuguese and
Spanish for table) has two neighboring mountains called Devils Peak and Lions Head. Table
Mountain features in the mythology of the Cape of Good Hope, notorious for its storms- the
explorer Bartolomeu Dias saw the mesa as a mythical anvil for storms. Another myth relating to
its dangers comes from Sinbad the Sailor, an Arabic folk hero who saw the mountain as a magnet
pulling his ships to the bottom of the sea.

[http://www.dibonsmith.com/men_con.htm]

[http://www.southernskyphoto.com/constellations/south_celestial_pole.htm]

Lacaille labelled eleven stars with Bayer designations Alpha through to Lambda (excluding
Kappa). Gould later added Kappa, Mu, Nu, Xi and Pi Mensae. Stars as dim as these were not
generally given designations; however, Gould felt their closeness to the South Celestial Pole
warranted naming. Overall, there are 22 stars within the constellations borders brighter than or
equal to apparent magnitude 6.5

Alpha Mensae is the brightest star in the constellation. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 5.09
and is 33.1 light years distant from Earth. It is the dimmest of all lucidae (constellations brightest
stars). The star is a yellow main sequence dwarf with the stellar classification of G5 V. It has
roughly the same mass and radius as the Sun, and 83 percent of the Suns luminosity. It has a red
dwarf companion at a separation of 3.05 arcseconds.

Gamma Mensae is the second brightest star in Mensa. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 5.18
and is approximately 101 light years distant from the Sun. Gamma Mensae is a double star with
the stellar classifcation K4III, which means that the primary component in the system is an orange
giant.

Beta Mensae is the third brightest star in the constellation. It has an apparent magnitude of 5. 302
and is approximately 640 light years distant. It is a yellow giant star belonging to the stellar class
G8III.

W Mensae is a yellow-white supergiant star with the stellar classification of F8Iabp. It is classified
as an R Coronae Borealis type variable star. The star is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud
galaxy, approximately 168,000 light years from earth. It has a maximum apparent magnitude of
13.8 and can only be seen in a larger telescope. R Coronae Borealis variables are a rare class of
stars, often called inverse novae because they exhibit sudden and dramatic drops in brightness.
When at minumum, W Mensae has a visual magnitude of only 18.3. The stars variability was
discovered by the Dutch-American astronomer W. J. Luyten in 1927.

Pi Mensae is a yellow subgiant belonging to the stellar class G1IV. It has a visual magnitude of
5.67 and is 59.7 light years distant from Earth. The star has a high proper motion. The star has 1.1
times the Suns mass, 2.1 times the radius, and is 4.73 times more luminous than the Sun. It is one
of the top 100 target stars for the planned Terrestrial Planet Finder mission.

An extrasolar planet was discovered orbiting the star in October 2001. It is a massive superjovian
planet, with a mass at least 10.27 times that of Jupiter, which makes it one of the most massive
planets known. It orbits the star every 2,151 days (5.89 years). It has an eccentric orbit and passes
through the habitable zone over the course of its orbit, so if there were any Earth-like planets there,
the planet would likely have disrupted their orbits and maybe even thrown them into the star or
out of the system, into the interstellar medium.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/mensa-constellation/]

The first images taken by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory were of PKS 0637-752, a quasar in
Mensa with a large gas jet visible in both optical and x-ray wavelengths.
[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/1999/0064/]

PKS 0637-72 is so distant that we see it as it was 6 billion years ago. It is a luminous quasar that
radiates with the power of 10 trillion suns from a region smaller than our solar system. The source
of this prodigious energy is believed to be a supermassive black hole.

Radio observations of PKS 0637-752 show that it has an extended radio jet that stretches across
several hundred thousand light years. Chandras x-ray image reveals a powerful x-ray jet of similar
size that is probably due to a beam of extremely high-energy particles.

The x-ray jet observed for the first time by Chandra in PKS 0637-752, is a dramatic example of a
cosmic jet. It has blasted outward from the quasar into intergalactic space for a distance of at least
200,000 light years! The jet's presence means that electromagnetic forces are continually
accelerating electrons to extremely high energies over enormous distances. Chandra observations,
combined with radio observations, should provide insight into this important cosmic energy
conversion process.
[http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/background/facts/PKS_0637-752_Fact_Sheet.html]

Mensa also contains part of the Large Magellanic Cloud (the rest being in Dorado).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensa_%28constellation%29]

Microscopium

Microscopium is a minor constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere, one of twelve created
in the 18th century by French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille and one of several depicting
scientific instruments. Its name is a Latinized form of the Greek word for microscope. Its stars are
faint and hardly visible from most of the non-tropical Northern Hemisphere. It is bordered by
Capricornus to the north, Piscis Austrinus and Grus to the west, Sagittarius to the east, and Indus
to the south, touching on Telescopium to the southeast. In the equatorial coordinate system, the
right ascension coordinates of the constellation lie between 20h 27.3m and 21h 28.4m, while the
declination coordinates are between 27.45 and 45.09. The whole constellation is visible to

observers south of latitude 45N. Given that its brightest stars are of fifth magnitude, the
constellation is invisible to the naked eye in areas with polluted skies.

Microscopium shown on Chart XVI of the Uranographia of Johann Bode (1801). For Lacailles
original depiction of the constellation, click here. Next to it on this chart lies the obsolete
constellation Globus Aerostaticus, the hot-air balloon.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/microscopium.htm]

The stars that comprise Microscopium are in a region previously considered the hind feet of
Sagittarius, a neighbouring constellation. John Ellard Gore wrote that al-Sufi seems to have
reported that Ptolemy had seen the stars but he (Al Sufi) did not pinpoint their positions.
Microscopium itself was introduced in 1751-52 by Lacaille with the French name le Microscope,
after he had observed and catalogued 10,000 southern stars during a two-year stay at the Cape of
Good Hope. He devised fourteen new constellations in uncharted regions of the Southern Celestial
Hemisphere not visible from Europe. All but one honoured instruments that symbolised the Age

of Enlightenment. Commemorating the compound microscope, the Microscopes name had been
Latinized by Lacaille to Microscopium by 1763.

[http://www.dibonsmith.com/mic_con.htm]

Commented [CT3]:

[http://www.davidmalin.com/fujii/source/Mic.html]

Gamma Microscopii is the brightest star in Microscopium. It has an apparent visual magnitude of
4.68 and is approximately 229 light years distant from Earth. It is a yellow giant star with the
stellar classification of G6 III. It has a visual companion with an apparent magnitude of 13.7 at an
angular separation of 26 arcseconds. Gamma Microscopii has 2.5 times the Suns mass, 10 times
the solar radius, and is about 64 times more luminous than the Sun.

Epsilon Microscopii is the second brightest star in Microscopium. It has a visual magnitude of 4.72
and is approximately 165 light years distant from the solar system. It is a white main sequence
dwarf with the stellar classification A1V.

Theta Microscopii consists of a wide double star, Theta-1 Microscopii and Theta-2 Microscopii,
which can both be seen without binoculars. Both components belong to the spectral class A and
are white magnetic spectrum variable stars that have strong metallic lines. Theta Microscopii is
the third brightest star in the constellation and marks the microscopes specimen slide. It has an
apparent visual magnitude of 4.81 and is approximately 186 light years distant from the Sun.
Theta-1 Microscopii is classified as an Alpha-2 Canum Venaticorum type variable.

Alpha Microscopii is only the fourth brightest star in the constellation. It is a variable star with an
apparent magnitude that ranges from 4.88 to 4.94. The star is approximately 380 light years distant
from Earth. Alpha Microscopii is a yellow giant belonging to the stellar class G7III. It has a visual
companion with an apparent magnitude of 10 at a separation of 20.4 seconds of arc. The companion
can be seen in a small telescope.

Lacaille 8760 (AX Microscopii) is one of the nearest stars to the Sun. It is only 12.87 light years
distant and has an apparent visual magnitude of 6.67, too faint to be seen without binoculars. It is
classified as a flare star and has the variable designation AX Microscopii. The star only erupts less
than once a day on average. It has a mass about 60 percent that of the Sun and a radius 0.51 times
solar. It is one of the largest and brightest red dwarfs known. Lacaille 8760 has the stellar
classification M0 Ve. It was discovered by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille from the Cape of Good Hope
in South Africa in the early 1750s. The star was closest to the Sun about 20,000 years ago, when
it came within 12 light years.

AU Microscopii is another variable star in Microscopium. It is a flare star with the stellar
classification of M1 Ve. It has an apparent magnitude of 8.73 and is 32.3 light years distant from
the solar system. It is too faint to be seen with the naked eye. The star has a circumstellar dust disk
about 200 astronomical units in radius and is believed to be only 12 million years old. It is a red
dwarf with a mass 0.31 times that of the Sun and a radius 0.84 times solar. It has only 9 percent of
the Suns luminosity. AU Microscopii is a member of the Beta Pictoris Moving Group of stars.

BO Microscopii is another flare star in Microscopium. It is an orange star with the stellar
classification of K3Ve, approximately 170 light years distant from Earth. It has a visual magnitude
of 9.39. It has a mass 82 percent that of the Sun and 1.06 times the solar radius. The star is
sometimes called Speedy Mic because it is a very fast spinner. It has a projected rotational
velocity of 135 km/s and completes a rotation every 0.380 days.

WASP-7 (HD 197286) is a yellow-white main sequence dwarf with the stellar classification of
F5V. It has an apparent magnitude of 9.51 and is approximately 456 light years distant from the
solar system. The star can be seen through a small telescope. It has a mass 1.28 times that of the
Sun and 1.236 times the Suns radius. An extrasolar planet, WASP-7b, was disovered orbiting the
star in 2008. The planet is a hot Jupiter, with a mass 0.96 times that of Jupiter, and it orbits the star
with a period of 4.954658 days.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/microscopium-constellation/]

[http://www.bosssupernova.com/publishedwork.htm]
Describing Microscopium as totally unremarkable, astronomer Patrick Moore concluded there
was nothing of interest for amateur observers. NGC 6925 is a barred spiral galaxy of apparent
magnitude 11.3 which is lens-shaped, as it lies almost edge-on to observers on Earth, 3.7 degrees
west-northwest of Alpha Microscopii. SN 2011ei, a Type II Supernova in NGC 6925, was
discovered by Stu Parker in New Zealand in July 2011. NGC 6923 lies nearby and is a magnitude
fainter still. The Microscopium Void is a roughly rectangular region of relatively empty space,
bounded by incomplete sheets of galaxies from other voids. The Microscopium Supercluster is an
overdensity of galaxy clusters that was first noticed in the early 1990s. The component Abell
clusters 3695 and 3696 are likely to be gravitationally bound, while the relations of Abell clusters
3693 and 3705 in the same field are unclear.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microscopium]

Monoceros

Monoceros (Greek: ) is a faint constellation on the celestial equator. Its name is Greek
for unicorn. Its definition is attributed to the 17th-century Dutch cartographer Petrus Plancius. It
is bordered by Orion to the west, Gemini to the north, Canis Major to the south and Hydra to the
east. Other bordering constellations include Canis Minor, Lepus and Puppis.

The constellation Monoceros, from Uranias Mirror, a set of star charts from 1825. Includes Canis
Minor and the obsolete constellation Atelier Typographique.

In Western astronomy, Monoceros is a relatively modern constellation. Its first certain appearance
was on a globe created by the Dutch cartographer Petrus Plancius in 1612 or 1613 and it was later
charted by German astronomer Jakob Bartsch as Unicornu on his star chart of 1624.

German astronomers Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers and Ludwig Ideler indicate that the constellation
may be older, quoting an astrological work from 1564 that mentioned the second horse between
the Twins and the Crab has many stars, but not very bright; these references may ultimately be
due to the 13th century Scotsman Michael Scot, but refer to a horse and not a unicorn, and its
position does not quite match. Joseph Scaliger is reported to have found Monoceros on an ancient
Persian sphere. French astronomer Camille Flammarion believed that a former constellation,
Neper (the Auger), occupied the area of the sky now home to Monoceros and Microscopium, but
this is disputed.
Chinese asterisms Sze Fh, the Four Great Canals; Kwan Kew; and Wae Choo, the Outer Kitchen,
all lay within the boundaries of Monoceros.

[http://www.davidmalin.com/fujii/source/Mon.html]

[http://www.dibonsmith.com/mon_con.htm]

Monoceros is not easily seen with the naked eye, containing only a few fourth magnitude stars.
Alpha Monocerotis has a visual magnitude of 3.93, slightly brighter than Gamma Monocerotis at
3.98.

However, Monoceros does have some interesting features to observe with the aid of a small
telescope. Beta Monocerotis is an impressive triple star system, the three stars forming a triangle

which seems to be fixed. The visual magnitudes of the stars are 4.7, 5.2 and 6.1. William Herschel
discovered it in 1781 and commented that it is one of the most beautiful sights in the heavens.

Epsilon Monocerotis is a fixed binary, with visual magnitudes of 4.5 and 6.5.

S Monocerotis, or 15 Monocerotis, is a bluish white variable star and is located at the center of
NGC 2264. The variation in its magnitude is slight (4.24.6). It has a companion star of visual
magnitude 8.

Light Echoes from V838 Mon

What caused this outburst of V838 Mon? For reasons unknown, star V838 Mons outer surface
suddenly greatly expanded with the result that it became the brightest star in the entire Milky Way
Galaxy in January 2002. Then, just as suddenly, it faded. A stellar flash like this had never been
seen before- supernovas and novas expel matter out into space. Although the V838 Mon flash

appears to expel material into space, what is seen in the above image from the Hubble Space
Telescope is actually an outwardly moving light echo of the bright flash.

In a light echo, light from the flash is reflected by successively more distant rings in the complex
array of ambient interstellar dust that already surrounded the star. V838 Mon lies about 20,000
light years away toward the constellation of the unicorn (Monoceros), while the light echo above
spans about six light years in diameter.
[https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2472.html]

V838 Monocerotis, a variable red supergiant star, had an outburst starting on January 6, 2002; in
February of that year, its brightness increased by a factor of 10,000 in one day. After the outburst
was over, the Hubble Space Telescope was able to observe a light echo, which illuminated the dust
surrounding the star.
Monoceros also contains Plasketts Star, which is a massive binary system whose combined mass
is estimated to be that of almost 100 Suns put together.

Monoceros contains two super-Earth exoplanets in one planetary system: COROT-7b was detected
by the COROT satellite and COROT-7c was detected by HARPS from ground-based telescopes.
Until the announcement of Kepler-10b in January 2011, COROT-7b was the smallest exoplanet to
have its diameter measured, at 1.58 times that of the Earth (which would give it a volume 3.95
times Earths). Both planets in this system were discovered in 2009.

Monoceros contains many clusters and nebulae, most notable among them:

The Rosette Nebula

The Rosette Nebula is not the only cosmic cloud of gas and dust to evoke the imagery of flowersbut it is the most famous. At the edge of a large molecular cloud in Monoceros, some 5,000 light
years away, the petals of this rose are actually a stellar nursery whose lovely, symmetric shape is
sculpted by the winds and radiation from its central cluster of hot young stars. The stars in the
energetic cluster, cataloged as NGC 2244, are only a few million years old, while the central cavity
in the Rosette Nebula, cataloged as NGC 2237, is about 50 light-years in diameter. The nebula can
be seen firsthand with a small telescope toward the constellation of the Unicorn (Monoceros).
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120214.html]

A Fox Fur, a Unicorn, and a Christmas Tree

What do the following things have in common: a cone, the fur of a fox, and a Christmas tree?
Answer: they all occur in the constellation of the unicorn (Monoceros). Pictured as a star forming
region cataloged as NGC 2264, the complex jumble of cosmic gas and dust is about 2,700 lightyears distant and mixes reddish emission nebulae excited by energetic light from newborn stars
with dark interstellar dust clouds. Where the otherwise obscuring dust clouds lie close to the hot,
young stars they also reflect starlight, forming blue reflection nebulae. The image spans about 3/4

degree or nearly 1.5 full moons, covering 40 light-years at the distance of NGC 2264. Its cast of
cosmic characters includes the Fox Fur Nebula, whose convoluted pelt lies below center, bright
variable star S Mon immersed in the blue-tinted haze, and the Cone Nebula near the trees top. Of
course, the stars of NGC 2264 are also known as the Christmas Tree star cluster. The triangular
tree shape traced by the stars appears here with its apex at the Cone Nebula and its broader base
centered near S Mon.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120410.html]

Hubbles Variable Nebula (NGC 2261)

Hubbles variable nebula is named (like the Hubble telescope itself) after the American astronomer
Edwin P. Hubble, who carried out some ofthe early studies of this object. It is a fan-shaped cloud
of gas and dust which is illuminated by R Monocerotis (R Mon), the bright star at the bottom end
of the nebula. Dense condensations of dust near the star cast shadows out into the nebula, and as
they move the illumination changes, giving rise to the variations first noted by Hubble. The star
itself, lying about 2,500 light-years from Earth, cannot be seen directly, but only through light
scattered off of dust particles in the surrounding nebula. R Mon is believed to have a mass of about
10 times that of the Sun, and to have an age of only 300,000 years. There is probably a symmetrical
counterpart of the fan-shaped nebula on the southern side of the star, but it is heavily obscured
from view by dust lying between this lobe and our line of sight.
[https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9935c/]

The Red Rectangle Nebula from Hubble

How was the unusual Red Rectangle nebula created? At the nebulas center is an aging binary star
system that surely powers the nebula but does not, as yet, explain its colors. The unusual shape of
the Red Rectangle is likely due to a thick dust torus which pinches the otherwise spherical outflow
into tip-touching cone shapes. Because we view the torus edge-on, the boundary edges of the cone
shapes seem to form an X. The distinct rungs suggest the outflow occurs in fits and starts. The
unusual colors of the nebula are less well understood, however, and speculation holds that they are
partly provided by hydrocarbon molecules that may actually be building blocks for organic life.
The Red Rectangle nebula lies about 2,300 light years away towards the constellation of the
Unicorn (Monoceros). The nebula is shown above in great detail as recently reprocessed image
from Hubble Space Telescope. In a few million years, as one of the central stars becomes further
depleted of nuclear fuel, the Red Rectangle nebula will likely bloom into a planetary nebula.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130521.html]

Detailed view of IC 2177 produced by the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre
telescope.

IC 2177 is a region of nebulosity that lies along the border between the constellations Monoceros
and Canis Major. It is a roughly circular H II region centered on the Be star HD 53367. This nebula
was discovered by Welsh amateur astronomer Isaac Roberts and was described by him as, pretty
bright, extremely large, irregularly round, very diffuse.

The name Seagull Nebula is sometimes applied by amateur astronomers to this emission region,
although it more properly includes the neighboring regions of star clusters, dust clouds and
reflection nebulae. This latter region includes the open clusters NGC 2335 and NGC 2343.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoceros]

Musca

Musca (Latin: fly) is a small constellation in the deep southern sky. It was one of twelve
constellations created by Petrus Plancius. It was also known as Apis (Latin: bee) for two hundred
years. Musca remains below the horizon for most Northern Hemisphere observers.

Musca is bordered by Crux to the north, Carina to the west, Chamaeleon to the south, Apus and
Circinus to the east and Centaurus to the northeast. Covering 138 square degrees and 0.335% of
the night sky, it ranks 77th of the 88 constellations in size. In the equatorial coordinate system, the
right ascension coordinates of the constellation lie between 11h 19.3m and 13h 51.1m, while the

declination coordinates are between 64.64 and 75.68. The whole constellation is visible to
observers south of latitude 14N.

Musca Borealis crawls across Chart XI from the Uranographia of Johann Bode (1801)
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/muscaborealis.htm]

Musca was one of the twelve constellations established by the Dutch astronomer Petrus Plancius
from the observations of the southern sky by the Dutch explorers Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and
Frederick de Houtman, who had sailed on the first Dutch trading expedition, known as the Eerste
Schipvaart, to the East Indies. De Houtman included it in his southern star catalogue in 1598 under
the Dutch name De Vlieghe, The Fly. They assigned four stars to the constellation, with a star
that would be later designated as Beta Muscae marking the head, Gamma the body, and Alpha and
Delta the left and right wings respectively. It first appeared on a 35-cm (14 in) diameter celestial
globe published in 1598 in Amsterdam by Plancius with Jodocus Hondius, though was unnamed.
The first depiction of this constellation in a celestial atlas was in the German cartographer Johann
Bayers Uranometria of 1603, though Bayer termed it Apis- the Bee, a name by which it was
known for the next two centuries. A 1603 celestial globe by Willem Blaeu depicts it as providing
nourishment for the nearby constellation Chamaeleon- its tongue trying to catch the insect.

The French explorer and astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille called it la Mouche on the 1756
version of his planisphere of the southern skies. Jean Fortin retained the French name in 1776 for
his Atlas Cleste, while Lacaille Latinised the name for his revised Coelum Australe Stelliferum
in 1763. Lacaille renamed it to Musca Australis, the Southern Fly- Australis, since it counterparted
the now discarded constellation of Musca Borealis composed of a few stars in Aries, and to avoid
confusion with Apus. Today the name is simply Musca. It is the only official constellation
depicting an insect.

The Kalapalo people of Mato Grosso state in Brazil called Alpha and Beta Muscae (along with
Beta and Kappa Crucis) Kutsu anangag, Ornate Hawk-Eagles double flutes.

The Wardaman people of the Northern Territory in Australia perceived the main stars of Musca as
a ceremonial boomerang, part of the Central Arena- a sacred area surrounding the constellation
Crux that depicts the lightning creation beings and where they teach Wardaman customs; Alpha
and Beta also signified a ceremonial headband, while Gamma and Delta represented two
armbands. In Central Australia, the Arrernte and Luritja people living in on a mission in
Hermannsburg viewed the sky as divided between them, east of the Milky Way representing
Arrernte camps and west denoting Luritja camps. The stars of Musca, along with Fomalhaut, Alpha
Pavonis, and Alpha and Beta Gruis were all claimed by the Arrernte.

[http://www.davidmalin.com/fujii/source/Mus.html]

[http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/Mus.html]
Many of the constellations brighter stars are members of the Scorpius- Centaurus Association, a
loose group of hot blue-white stars that appear to share a common origin and motion across the
Milky Way. The pattern of the brightest stars resembles that of Ursa Minor, in that the stars form
a pattern reminiscent of a bowl with a handle.

Lying south-southeast of Acrux in neighbouring Crux is Alpha Muscae. It is the brightest star in
the constellation with an apparent magnitude of 2.7. Lying around 310 light-years away, it is a
blue-white star of spectral type B2IV-V that is around 4520 times as luminous and 8 times as
massive as the Sun. The star is a Beta Cephei variable with about 4.7 times the Suns diameter,
and pulsates every 2.2 hours, varying by 1% in brightness. A nearby star of magnitude 13 may or
may not be a companion star.

Marking the flys tail is Gamma Muscae, a blue-white star of spectral type B5V that varies between
magnitudes 3.84 and 3.86 over a period of 2.7 days. It is a variable of a different type, classed as
a Slowly pulsating B star, a type of variable. It is around five times as massive as our Sun.

Beta Muscae is a binary star system around 341 light-years distant that is composed of two bluewhite main sequence stars of spectral types B2V and B3V that orbit each other every 194 years.
They are eight and six times as massive as the Sun respectively, and have about 3.5 times its
diameter.

Zeta2 Muscae is a white main sequence star of spectral type A5V around 330 light-years distant
from Earth. It is part of a triple star system with faint companions at 0.5 and 32.4 arc seconds
distance.

Eta Muscae is a multiple star system, the two main components forming an eclipsing binary that
has a combined spectral type of B8V and magnitude of 4.77 that dips by 0.05 magnitude every
2.39 days.

Alpha, Beta, Gamma, HD 103079, Zeta2 and (likely) Eta are all members of the Lower Centaurus
Crux subgroup of the Scorpius-Centaurus Association, a group of predominantly hot blue-white
stars that share a common origin and proper motion across the galaxy.
Delta and Epsilon mark the flys left wing and right wing respectively. With an apparent magnitude
of 3.62, Delta is an orange giant of spectral type K2III located around 91 light-years away. Epsilon
Muscae is a red giant of spectral type M5III and semiregular variable that ranges between
magnitudes 3.99 and 4.31 over approximately 40 days. It has expanded to 130 times the Sun's
diameter and 1800 to 2300 its luminosity. It was a star originally 1.5 to 2 times as massive as our
Sun. Although of a similar distance- around 302 light-years- to the stars of the Lower Centaurus
Crux subgroup, it is moving much faster at around 100 km/s and does not share a common origin.

To the northwest lies Mu Muscae, an orange giant of spectral type K4III that varies between
apparent magnitude is 4.71 and 4.76 and has been classified as a slow irregular variable. Near Mu
is Lambda Muscae, the third brightest star in the constellation and a white main sequence star of
spectral type A7V around 128 light-years distant from Earth.

Located near Alpha is R Muscae, a Classical Cepheid variable ranging from apparent magnitude
5.93 to 6.73 over 7.5 days. It is a yellow-white supergiant ranging between spectral types F7Ib and
G2Ib, located around 2037 light-years away. S Muscae is likewise a Classical Cepheid, a yellowwhite supergiant ranging between spectral types F6Ib and G0Ib and magnitudes 5.89 to 6.49 over
a period of 9.66 days. A luminous star around 5.9 times as massive as the Sun, it is a binary star
with a blue-white main sequence star companion likely to be of spectral type B3V to B5V with a
mass of just over 5 solar masses, one of the hottest and brightest companions of a Cepheid known.
The two stars orbit each other every 505 days.

Theta Muscae is a triple star system thought to be around 7,500 light-years distant. It consists of a
spectroscopic binary system composed of the Wolf-Rayet star (spectral type: WC5 or 6) and an
O-type main-sequence star (spectral type: O6 or O7) that orbit each other every 19 days and a blue
supergiant (spectral type: O9.5/B0Iab) set about 46 milliarcseconds apart from them. If the
systems estimated distance from Earth is accurate, the binary stars are about 0.5 astronomical
units (AU) apart and the supergiant about 100 AU apart from them. All three are highly luminous:
combined, they are likely to be over a million times as luminous as the Sun. TU Muscae is a binary
star system located around 15,500 light-years away made up of two hot luminous blue main
sequence stars of spectral types O7.5V and O9.5V, with masses 23 and 15 times that of the Sun.
The stars are so close that they are in contact with each other (overcontact binary) and are classed
as a Beta Lyrae variable as their light varies from Earth as they eclipse each other. The system
ranges from apparent magnitude 8.17 to 8.75 over around 1.4 days.

Also known as Nova Muscae 1983, GQ Muscae is a binary system consisting of a white dwarf and
small star that is about 10% as massive as the Sun. The two orbit each other every 1.4 hours. The
white dwarf accumulates material from its companion star via its accretion disc. After a certain
amount has accumulated the star erupts, as it did in 1983, reaching a magnitude of 7.2. Discovered

with a magnitude of 7.1 on 18 January 1983, it was the first nova from which X-rays were detected.
The soft X-ray transient GRS 1124-683 (also known as Nova Muscae 1991) is a binary object
consisting of an orange main-sequence star (GU Muscae) of spectral type K3VK4V and a black
hole of around 6 solar masses. During the 1991 outburst which led to its discovery, radiation was
produced through a process of positron annihilation. GR Muscae is an X-ray source composed of
a neutron star of between 1.2 and 1.8 times the mass of our Sun and a low-mass star likely to be
around the mass of the Sun in close orbit. Finally, SY Muscae is a symbiotic star system composed
of a red giant and white dwarf, where although the larger star is transferring mass to the smaller,
there is no periodic eruption nor accretion disc formed. The star system varies in magitude from
10.2 to 12.7 over a period of 624.5 days.

Three star systems have been discovered to have exoplanets. HD 111232 is a yellow main sequence
star around 78% as massive as the Sun around 95 light-years distant. It has a planet (HD 111232
b) around 6.8 times the mass of Jupiter that has an orbital period of around 1143 days. HD 112410
is a yellow giant of spectral type G8III located around 439 light-years distant. With around 1.54
times the mass of our Sun, it is cooling and expanding along the red giant branch, having left the
main sequence after exhausting its core supply of hydrogen fuel. It has a substellar companion
calculated to have a mass 9.2 times that of Jupiter and an orbital period of 124.6 days at a distance
of approximately 0.57 AU. Yet another member of the Lower Centaurus Crux subgroup, HD
100546 is a young blue-white Herbig Ae/Be star of spectral type B9V that has yet to settle on the
main sequence- the closest of these stars to Earth at around 320 light-years distant. It is surrounded
by a circumstellar debris disk from a distance of 0.2 to 4 AU, and again from 13 AU out to a few
hundred AU, with evidence for a protoplanet forming at a distance of around 47 AU. There is a
gap between 4 and 13 AU, which appears to contain a large planet around 20 times the mass of
Jupiter, although further examination of the disk profile indicates it might be a more massive object
such as a brown dwarf or more than one planet. LP 145-141 is a white dwarf located 15 light-years
distant- the fourth-closest to the Solar System. It is considered a good candidate to look for Jupiterlike planets, on account if its proximity and mass.

NGC 5189: An Unusually Complex Planetary Nebula

Why is this nebula so complex? When a star like our Sun is dying, it will cast off its outer layers,
usually into a simple overall shape. Sometimes this shape is a sphere, sometimes a double lobe,
and sometimes a ring or a helix. In the case of planetary nebula NGC 5189, however, no such
simple structure has emerged. To help find out why, the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope
recently observed NGC 5189 in great detail. Previous findings indicated the existence of multiple

epochs of material outflow, including a recent one that created a bright but distorted torus running
horizontally across image center. Results appear consistent with a hypothesis that the dying star is
part of a binary star system with a precessing symmetry axis. Given this new data, though, research
is sure to continue. NGC 5189 spans about three light years and lies about 3,000 light years away
toward the southern constellation of the Fly (Musca).
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap121219.html]

The Hourglass Nebula

This is an image of MyCn18, a young planetary nebula located about 8,000 light-years away, taken
with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) aboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).

This Hubble image reveals the true shape of MyCn18 to be an hourglass with an intricate pattern
of etchings in its walls. This picture has been composed from three separate images taken in the
light of ionized nitrogen (represented by red), hydrogen (green), and doubly-ionized oxygen (blue).

The results are of great interest because they shed new light on the poorly understood ejection of
stellar matter which accompanies the slow death of Sun-like stars. In previous ground-based
images, MyCn18 appears to be a pair of large outer rings with a smaller central one, but the fine
details cannot be seen.
[https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9607a/]

NGC 4372 and the Dark Doodad

The delightful Dark Doodad Nebula drifts through southern skies, a tantalizing target for
binoculars in the constellation Musca, The Fly. The dusty cosmic cloud is seen against rich
starfields just south of the prominent Coalsack Nebula and the Southern Cross. Stretching for about
3 degrees across this scene the Dark Doodad is punctuated at its southern tip (lower left) by
globular star cluster NGC 4372. Of course NGC 4372 roams the halo of our Milky Way Galaxy,
a background object some 20,000 light-years away and only by chance along our line-of-sight to
the Dark Doodad. The Dark Doodads well defined silhouette belongs to the Musca molecular
cloud, but its better known alliterative moniker was first coined by astro-imager and writer Dennis
di Cicco in 1986 while observing Comet Halley from the Australian outback. The Dark Doodad is
around 700 light-years distant and over 30 light-years long.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150910.html]

Another dark nebula in the constellation is BHR 71.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musca]

Norma

Norma is a small constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere between Scorpius and
Centaurus, one of twelve drawn up in the 18th century by French astronomer Nicolas Louis de
Lacaille and one of several depicting scientific instruments. Its name is Latin for normal, referring
to a right angle, and is variously considered to represent a rule, a carpenters square, a set square
or a level. It remains one of the 88 modern constellations

Norma is bordered by Scorpius to the north, Lupus to the northwest, Circinus to the west,
Triangulum Australe to the south and Ara to the east. Covering 165.3 square degrees and 0.401%
of the night sky, it ranks 74th of the 88 constellations in size. In the equatorial coordinate system,

the right ascension coordinates of the constellation lie between 15h 12m 13.6119s and 16h 36m
08.3235s, while the declination coordinates are between 42.27 and 60.44. The whole
constellation is visible to observers south of latitude 29N.

Norma, shown under the name Norma et Regula in the Uranographia of Johann Bode (1801)
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/norma.htm]
Norma was introduced in 175152 by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille with the French name lEquerre
et la Regle, the Square and Rule, after he had observed and catalogued 10,000 southern stars
during a two-year stay at the Cape of Good Hope. He devised 14 new constellations in uncharted
regions of the Southern Celestial Hemisphere not visible from Europe. All but one honored
instruments that symbolised the Age of Enlightenment. Lacaille portrayed the constellations of

Norma, Circinus and Triangulum Australe, respectively, as a set square and ruler, a compass, and
a surveyors level in a set of draughtsman instruments, in his 1756 map of the southern stars. The
level was dangling from the apex of a triangle, leading some astronomers to conclude he was
renaming lEquerre et la Regle to le Niveau, the level. In any case, the constellations name
had been shortened and Latinized by Lacaille to Norma by 1763.

[http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/Nor.html]

[http://www.davidmalin.com/fujii/source/Cen.html]

Lacaille charted and designated ten stars with the Bayer designations Alpha through to Mu in 1756,
however his Alpha Normae was transferred into Scorpius and left unnamed by Francis Baily,
before being named N Scorpii by Benjamin Apthorp Gould, who felt its brightness warranted
recognition. Though Beta Normae was depicted on his star chart, it was inadvertently left out of
Lacailles 1763 catalogue, was likewise transferred to Scorpio by Baily and named H Scorpii by
Gould.
Four of Normas brighter stars-Gamma, Delta, Epsilon and Eta- make up a square in the field of
faint stars. Gamma2 Normae is the brightest star with an apparent magnitude of 4.0. Gamma1 and
Gamma2 Normae are an optical double, and not a true binary star system. Located about 130 lightyears away from Earth, Gamma2 Normae is a yellow giant of spectral type G8III around 2 to 2.5

times as massive as the Sun. It has swollen to a diameter 10 times that of the Sun and shines with
45 times the Suns luminosity. It also is half of a close optical double, with a magnitude 10
companion star related by line of sight only. Gamma1 Normae is a yellow-white supergiant,
located much further away at around 1500 light-years from Earth.

Delta Normae is a white, A-class star about 123 light years from Earth. It has an apparent visual
magnitude of 4.73.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/norma-constellation/]

Epsilon Normae is a spectroscopic binary, with two blue-white main sequence stars of almost
equal mass and spectral type (B3V) orbiting each other every 3.26 days. There is a third star
separated by 22 arcseconds, which has a magnitude of 7.5 and is likely a smaller B-type main
sequence star of spectral type B9V. The system is 530 20 light-years distant from Earth.

Eta Normae is a yellow giant of spectral type G8III with an apparent magnitude of 4.65. It shines
with a luminosity approximately 66 times that of the Sun.

Iota1 Normae is a multiple star system. The AB (mag 5.2 and 5.76) pair orbit each other with a
period of 26.9 years; they are 2.77 and 2.71 times as massive as the Sun respectively. The pair are
about 130 light-years distant from Earth. A third component is a yellow main sequence star of
spectral type G8V with an apparent magnitude of 8.02.

Mu Normae is a remote blue supergiant of spectral type O9.7Iab, one of the most luminous stars
known. QU Normae is another hot blue-white star that is a variable, ranging from magnitude 5.27
to 5.41 over 4.8 days. Lying near Eta Normae is R Normae, a Mira variable. Its visual magnitude
range is 6.513.9 and its average period is 507.5 days. Located halfway between Eta Normae and
Gamma Circini is T Normae, another Mira variable. It ranges from magnitude 6.2 to 13.6, with a
period of 244 days.S Normae is a well-known Cepheid variable with a magnitude range of 6.12
6.77 and a period of 9.75411 days. It is located at the centre of the open cluster NGC 6087. It is a
yellow-white supergiant of spectral type F8-G0Ib that is 6.3 times as massive as the Sun. A binary,
it has a 2.4 solar mass companion that is a blue-white main sequence star of spectral type B9.5V.

IM Normae is one of only ten recurrent novae known in the Milky Way. It has erupted in 1920
and 2002, reaching magnitude 8.5 from a baseline of 18.3. It was poorly monitored after the first
eruption, so it is possible that it erupted in between. QV Normae, a faint object of magnitude 16,
is a high mass X-ray binary star system 15,00020,000 light-years distant from Earth. It is
composed of a neutron star orbiting a blue-white supergiant approximately 20 times as massive as
the Sun. The stellar wind from the more massive star is drawn to the magnetic poles of the neutron
star, forming an accretion column and producing X-rays. QX Normae, located 19,000 light-years
away, is an active low mass x-ray binary composed of a neutron star and its companion star that is
smaller and cooler than the Sun. The neutron star is about 1.8 times as massive as the Sun, yet its
radius is about 10 km. Norma also hosts two faint R Coronae Borealis variable stars of magnitude
10- RT Normae and RZ Normae- rare degenerate stars thought to have formed from the merger of
two white dwarfs that fade by several magnitudes periodically as they eject large amounts of
carbon dust.

Four star systems are known to harbor planets. HD 330075 is a sunlike star around 164 light-years
distant that is orbited by a hot Jupiter every 3.4 days. Announced in 2004, it was the first planet
discovered by the HARPS spectrograph. HD 148156 is a star about 170 light-years distant. Slightly
larger and hotter than the Sun, it was found to have a roughly Jupiter-size planet with an orbital
period of 2.8 years. HD 143361 is a binary star system composed of a sunlike star and a faint red
dwarf separated by 30.9 AU. A planet roughly triple the mass of Jupiter orbits the brighter star
about every 1000 days. HD 142415 is approximately 113 light-years distant and has a Jupitersized planet with an orbital period of around 386 days.

Due to its location on the Milky Way, Norma contains many deep-sky objects such as star clusters,
including eight open clusters visible through binoculars. NGC 6087 is the brightest of the open
clusters in Norma with a magnitude of 5.4. It lies in the southeastern corner of the constellation
between Alpha Centauri and Zeta Arae. Thought to be around 100 million years old, it is about
3300 light-years away and is around 14 light-years in diameter. Its brightest member is the Cepheid
variable S Normae.

Fine Ring Nebula- captured here by the ESO Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera mounted on
the New Technology Telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile.

Shapley 1 (Fine Ring Nebula) is an annular planetary nebula in the constellation of Norma with a
magnitude of +12.6. As viewed from Earth, it is peculiar in that it seems to be a non-bipolar, torusshaped planetary nebula. However, it is thought that this is due to the viewpoint of looking directly
down on a binary system whose orbit is perpendicular to Earth. Discovered in 1936 by Harlow
Shapley, it is approximately 4900 light years from Earth, and is around 8700 years old. At the
center of the nebula is a magnitude 14 white dwarf star. It has an angular diameter of 1.1 arc
minutes, which makes it about one-third (.32) of a light year across.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapley_1]

Planetary Nebula Mz3: The Ant Nebula

Why isnt this ant a big sphere? Planetary nebula Mz3 is being cast off by a star similar to our Sun
that is, surely, round. Why then would the gas that is streaming away create an ant-shaped nebula
that is distinctly not round? Clues might include the high 1000-kilometer per second speed of the
expelled gas, the light-year long length of the structure, and the magnetism of the star visible above
at the nebulas center. One possible answer is that Mz3 is hiding a second, dimmer star that orbits
close in to the bright star. A competing hypothesis holds that the central stars own spin and
magnetic field are channeling the gas. Since the central star appears to be so similar to our own
Sun, astronomers hope that increased understanding of the history of this giant space ant can
provide useful insight into the likely future of our own Sun and Earth.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150426.html]

Hubble Focuses on the Great Attractor

A busy patch of space has been captured in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space
Telescope. Scattered with many nearby stars, the field also has numerous galaxies in the
background.

Located on the border of Triangulum Australe (The Southern Triangle) and Norma (The
Carpenters Square), this field covers part of the Norma Cluster (Abell 3627) as well as a dense
area of our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

The Norma Cluster is the closest massive galaxy cluster to the Milky Way, and lies about 220
million light-years away. The enormous mass concentrated here, and the consequent gravitational
attraction, mean that this region of space is known to astronomers as the Great Attractor, and it
dominates our region of the Universe.

The largest galaxy visible in this image is ESO 137-002, a spiral galaxy seen edge on. In this image
from Hubble, we see large regions of dust across the galaxys bulge. What we do not see here is
the tail of glowing X-rays that has been observed extending out of the galaxy- but which is invisible
to an optical telescope like Hubble.

Observing the Great Attractor is difficult at optical wavelengths. The plane of the Milky Wayresponsible for the numerous bright stars in this image- both outshines (with stars) and obscures
(with dust) many of the objects behind it. There are some tricks for seeing through this infrared
or radio observations, for instance but the region behind the center of the Milky Way, where
the dust is thickest, remains an almost complete mystery to astronomers.
This image consists of exposures in blue and infrared light taken by Hubbles Advanced Camera
for Surveys.
[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/great-attractor.html]

The Norma Cluster (Abell 3627), it is one of the most massive galaxy clusters known to exist, at
ten times the average cluster mass. Abell 3627 is thus theorized to be the Great Attractor that is
pulling the Local Group, the Virgo Supercluster, and the Hydra-Centaurus Supercluster towards
its location at 600-1000 kilometres per second.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norma_%28constellation%29]

Octans

Octans is a faint constellation located in the deep southern sky. Its name is Latin for the eighth part
of a circle, but it is named after the octant, a navigational instrument. The constellation was devised
by French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1752, and it remains one of the 88 modern
constellations.

Octans is bordered by seven different constellations, most of which are far more prominent than
itself: Apus (the bird-of-paradise), Mensa (the table), Chamaeleon (the chamaeleon), Pavo (the
peacock), Indus (the Indian), Tucana (the toucan), and Hydrus (the male water snake). Covering
291 square degrees, Octans ranks 50th in area out of the 88 modern constellations.

Because the constellation is circumpolar to the South Celestial Pole, it can be seen throughout the
entire Southern Hemisphere at any given time of the year. The three brightest stars, (Nu, Beta, and
Delta) are at their highest point in the sky during October and early November.

Octans encompasses the south celestial pole, as shown on Chart XX of Johann Bodes
Uranographia star atlas, where it was called Octans Nautica. The octant was the forerunner of the
modern sextant.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/octans.htm]

Octans was one of 14 constellations created by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille during his expedition to
the Cape of Good Hope, and was originally named lOctans de Reflexion, French for the
reflecting octant. It was part of his catalogue of the southern sky, the Coelum Australe Stelliferum,
which was published posthumously in 1763. In Europe, it became more widely known as Octans
Hadleianus, in honor of English mathematician John Hadley, who invented the octant in 1730.
There is no real mythology related to Octans, partially due to its faintness and relative recentness,
but mostly because of its extreme southerly latitude.

This map shows the sky from Sydney, Australia looking due south around 1:30-2 a.m. in late
February. Southern observers can use the axis of the Southern Cross (Crux) to point them to the
southern polestar. LMC and SMC stand for the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, small satellite
galaxies of the Milky Way.
[http://astrobob.areavoices.com/2010/02/24/polar-inequities/]

[http://astronomia-para-amadores.blogspot.gr/2012/09/octans-octante.html]

Stars in Octans include:

Nu Octantis is the brightest star in the constellation. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 3.76
and is approximately 69 light years distant from the solar system. The star is an orange giant with
the stellar classification K1III. It is one of the least luminous giant stars known, with a luminosity
only 16 times that of the Sun. It is also a relatively small giant, with a radius only 5.9 times solar
and a mass 1.4 times that of the Sun. The star will eventually expand and, in about 100 million
years, it will become 15 times larger and 60 times brighter than it is now. The stars estimated age
is about 12.1 billion years. Nu Octantis has a binary companion, a K7-M1 class dwarf with a mass
0.5 times solar. The two are separated by 2.55 astronomical units and orbit each other with a period

of 2.9 years. The primary star, Nu Octantis A, has an unconfirmed planet with a mass at least 2.5
times that of Jupiter in its orbit.

Beta Octantis is a white star halfway between the dwarf and subgiant stage of evolution. It has the
stellar classification of A9IV-V. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 4.14 and is approximately
140 light years distant from the Sun. It is the second brightest star in Octans constellation.

Delta Octantis is an orange giant star belonging to the stellar class K2III. It has an apparent visual
magnitude of 4.31 and is approximately 279 light years distant from the solar system. The star has
a mass 1.2 times that of the Sun and a radius 25 times solar. Its estimated age is the same as the
Suns, about 4.3 billion years.

A trapezoidal asterism within the constellation Octans, useful for locating Sigma Octantis

Sigma Octantis is currently the southern pole star, and is sometimes known by the name Polaris
Australis. It is the counterpart to Polaris in Ursa Minor, the northern pole star. Sigma Octantis is
25 times fainter than the North Star, which makes it is too dim to be used for navigation, so it is
the Southern Cross, which is usually used for establishing the position of the South Celestial Pole.

The star is a yellow-white giant star belonging to the stellar class F0III. It has an apparent visual
magnitude of 5.42 and is approximately 270 light years distant from the Sun. It has about 2 solar
masses. Sigma Octantis is classified as a Delta Scuti variable, which is to say a variable star that
exhibits variations in brightness as a result of both radial and non-radial pulsations of its surface.
These stars are used as standard candles for determining the distances to deep sky objects such as
globular and open star clusters and the Galactic centre. Sigma Octantis exhibits a variation of 0.03
magnitudes over a period of 2.3 hours.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/octans-constellation/]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octans]

Ophiuchus

Ophiuchus is a large constellation located around the celestial equator. Its name is from the Greek
, serpent-bearer, and it is commonly represented as a man grasping the snake that is
represented by the constellation Serpens. Ophiuchus was one of the 48 constellations listed by the
2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy. It was formerly referred to as Serpentarius /srpntris/ and
Anguitenens.

Ophiuchus is located between Aquila, Serpens and Hercules, northwest of the center of the Milky
Way. The southern part lies between Scorpius to the west and Sagittarius to the east. In the northern

hemisphere, it is best visible in summer. It is located opposite Orion in the sky. As Ophiuchus is
depicted as a man grasping a serpent, the interposition of his body divides the snake constellation
Serpens into two parts, Serpens Caput and Serpens Cauda, which are nonetheless counted as one
constellation.

Ophiuchus straddles the equator but lies predominately to its south. However, Rasalhague, a fairly
conspicuous star in its north, is circumpolar north of 78 north latitude. The constellation extends
southward to 30 declination. Segments of the ecliptic that lie within Ophiuchus lie south of 20
declination. A determination of exactly where these stars are visible on Earth would depend on
atmospheric refraction, the Novaya Zemlya effect, mountains and clouds.

In contrast to Orion, it is in the period NovemberJanuary (summer in the Southern Hemisphere,

winter in the Northern Hemisphere) when Ophiuchus is in the daytime sky and thus not visible at
most latitudes. However for much of the Arctic Circle in the Northern Hemispheres winter
months, the Sun is below the horizon even at midday. Stars (and thus parts of Ophiuchus,
especially Rasalhague) are then visible at twilight for a few hours around local noon, low in the
South. In the Northern Hemispheres spring and summer months, when Ophiuchus is normally
visible in the night sky, the constellation is actually not visible, at those times and places in the
Arctic when midnight sun obscures the stars. In countries close to the equator Ophiuchus appears
overhead in June around midnight and in the October evening sky.

Ophiuchus is one of thirteen constellations that cross the ecliptic. It has therefore been called the
13th sign of the zodiac. However, this confuses sign with constellation. The signs of the zodiac
are a twelve-fold division of the ecliptic, so that each sign spans 30 of celestial longitude,
approximately the distance the Sun travels in a month, and (in the Western tradition) are aligned
with the seasons so that the March equinox always falls on the boundary between Pisces and Aries.

Constellations, on the other hand, are unequal in size and are based on the positions of the stars.
The constellations of the zodiac have only a loose association with the signs of the zodiac, and do
not in general coincide with them. In Western astrology the constellation of Aquarius, for example,
largely corresponds to the sign of Pisces. Similarly, the constellation of Ophiuchus occupies most

(November 29 December 18) of the sign of Sagittarius (November 23 December 21). The
differences are due to the fact that the time of year that the sun passes through a particular zodiac
constellations position has slowly changed (because of the precession of the equinoxes) over the
centuries from when the Greeks, Babylonians and the Dacians through Zamolxis originally
developed the Zodiac.

18th century star map illustrating how the feet of Ophiuchus cross the ecliptic
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiuchus_%28astrology%29]

There is no evidence of the constellation preceding the classical era, and in Babylonian astronomy,
a Sitting Gods constellation seems to have been located in the general area of Ophiuchus.
However, Gavin White proposes that Ophiuchus may in fact be remotely descended from this
Babylonian constellation, representing Nirah, a serpent-god who was sometimes depicted with his
upper half human but with serpents for legs.

The earliest mention of the constellation is in Aratus, informed by the lost catalogue of Eudoxus
of Cnidus (4th century BCE). To the ancient Greeks, the constellation represented the god Apollo
struggling with a huge snake that guarded the Oracle of Delphi. Later myths identified Ophiuchus
with Laocon, the Trojan priest of Poseidon, who warned his fellow Trojans about the Trojan
Horse and was later slain by a pair of sea serpents sent by the gods to punish him.

According to Roman era mythography, the figure represents the healer Asclepius, who learned the
secrets of keeping death at bay after observing one serpent bringing another healing herbs. To
prevent the entire human race from becoming immortal under Asclepius care, Jupiter killed him
with a bolt of lightning, but later placed his image in the heavens to honor his good works.
In medieval Islamic astronomy (Azophis Uranometry, 10th century), the constellation was known
as Al-awwa the snake-charmer.

Aratus describes Ophiuchus as trampling on Scorpius with his feet. This is depicted in Renaissance
to Early Modern star charts, beginning with Albrecht Drer in 1515; in some depictions (such as
that of Johannes Kepler, 1604), Scorpius also seems to threaten to sting Serpentarius in the foot.
This is consistent with Azophi, who already included Oph and Oph as the snake-charmers
left foot, and Oph and Oph as his right foot, making Ophiuchus a zodiacal constellation at
least as regards his feet. This arrangement has been taken as symbolic in later literature, and placed
in relation to the words spoken by God to the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

[http://www.astralnewz.com/moonmanlunations/ophiuchus.html]

[http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/Oph.html]

The brightest stars in Ophiuchus are:

Rasalhague (Alpha Ophiuchi) is the brightest star in Ophiuchus. It has an apparent visual
magnitude of 2.07 and is approximately 48.6 light years distant from Earth. It is a binary star with
an orbital period of 8.62 years. The primary component in the system is a white giant star with the
stellar classification of A5 III. It has a mass 2.4 times that of the Sun. The companion is an orange
main sequence dwarf with 85 percent of the Suns mass. It belongs to the stellar class K5-7 V. The

brighter component is about 25 times more luminous than the Sun. It is a very fast spinner, with a
projected rotational velocity of 240 km/s. As a result, it has an equatorial bulge that is about 20
percent larger than the polar radius, which gives Alpha Ophiuchi the shape of an oblate spheroid.
The stars traditional name, Rasalhague, is derived from the Arabic ras al-awwa, which means
the head of the serpent collector. The star marks Asclepius head.

Sabik (Eta Ophiuchi) is the second brightest star in the constellation. It has a combined visual
magnitude of 2.43 and is approximately 88 light years distant from the Sun. It is a binary star that
is not easy to resolve in smaller telescopes. The system is composed of two white main sequence
dwarfs belonging to the spectral classes A1 V and A3 V. They have an orbital period of 87.58
years. The stars have apparent magnitudes of 3.05 and 3.27.

Zeta Ophiuchi is the third brightest star in Ophiuchus. It is an extremely large blue main sequence
star with the stellar classification of O9.5 V. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 2.569 and is
about 366 light years distant from the solar system. The star is classified as a Beta Cephei variable,
a star that exhibits variations in brightness as a result of pulsation of its surface. Within the next
few million years, the star will expand into a red supergiant and likely explode as a supernova,
leaving behind a pulsar or neutron star. Zeta Ophiuchi has 8 times the Suns radius and more than
19 solar masses. It is a fast rotating star, spinning close to the velocity at which it could begin to
break up. Its estimated rotational velocity may be 400 km/s. The stars estimated age is only 3
million years.

Yed Prior (Delta Ophiuchi) is a red giant with the stellar classification of M0.5 III. It is the fourth
brightest star in the constellation. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 2.75 and is approximately
171 light years distant from the Sun. It forms an optical double with the star Epsilon Ophiuchi, or
Yed Posterior. The word yed comes from Arabic and means the hand. The two stars mark the
left hand of the Serpent Bearer, which holds the head of the serpent. Delta Ophiuchi has a mass
1.5 times that of the Sun and a radius about 59 times solar. It is a suspected variable star with
possible variations in magnitude by 0.03.

Celbalrai (Beta Ophiuchi) is an orange giant star belonging to the spectral class K2 III. It is the
fifth brightest star in the constellation. It has a visual magnitude that ranges from 2.75 to 2.77 and
is 81.8 light years distant from Earth. The stars traditional name, Celbalrai (and variants Cheleb
and Kelb Alrai) comes from the Arabic kalb al-r, which means the shepherd dog. Celbalrai
has 113 percent of the Suns mass and a radius 12.42 times solar. The star is 63.4 times more
luminous than the Sun. It has an unconfirmed planetary companion in its orbit.

Kappa Ophiuchi is another suspected variable star in Ophiuchus. It is an orange giant with the
stellar classification of K2 III. It has a mean apparent magnitude of 3.20 and is 91.5 light years
distant from the Sun. Kappa Ophiuchi has 119 percent of the Suns mass and 11 times the solar
radius. It is 46 times more luminous than the Sun.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/ophiuchus-constellation/]
Barnards Star, one of the nearest stars to the Solar System (the only stars closer are the Alpha
Centauri binary star system and Proxima Centauri), lies in Ophiuchus. It is located to the left of
and just north of the V-shaped group of stars in this area.

In 2009 it was announced that GJ 1214, a star in Ophiuchus, undergoes repeated, cyclical dimming
with a period of about 1.5 days consistent with the transit of a small orbiting planet. The planets
low density (about 40% that of Earth) suggests that the planet may have a substantial component
of low-density gas- possibly hydrogen or steam. The proximity of this star to Earth (42 light years)
makes it a tempting target for further observations.
Near Ophiuchi is located Keplers Supernova. The supernova was first observed on 9 October
1604,. Johannes Kepler saw it first on 16 October and studied it so extensively that the supernova
subsequently took his name. He published his findings in a book titled De stella nova in pede
Serpentarii (On the New Star in Ophiuchus Foot). Galileo used its brief appearance to counter
the Aristotelian dogma that the heavens are changeless:

Kepler's Supernova Remnant: Was Keplers Supernova Unusually Powerful?

In 1604, a new star appeared in the night sky that was much brighter than Jupiter and dimmed over
several weeks. This event was witnessed by sky watchers including the famous astronomer
Johannes Kepler. Centuries later, the debris from this exploded star is known as the Kepler
supernova remnant.

Astronomers have long studied the Kepler supernova remnant and tried to determine exactly what
happened when the star exploded to create it. New analysis of a long observation from NASAs
Chandra X-ray Observatory is providing more clues. This analysis suggests that the supernova
explosion was not only more powerful, but might have also occurred at a greater distance, than
previously thought.

This image shows the Chandra data derived from more than 8 days worth of observing time. The
X-rays are shown in five colors from lower to higher energies: red, yellow, green, blue, and purple.
These various X-ray slices were then combined with an optical image from the Digitized Sky
Survey (light yellow and blue), showing stars in the field.

Previous analysis of this Chandra image has determined that the stellar explosion that created
Kepler was what astronomers call a Type Ia supernova. This class of supernovas occurs when a
white dwarf gains mass, either by pulling gas off a companion star or merging with another white
dwarf, until it becomes unstable and is destroyed by a thermonuclear explosion.
Unlike other well-known Type Ia supernovas and their remnants, Keplers debris field is being
strongly shaped by what it is running into. More specifically, most Type Ia supernova remnants
are very symmetrical, but the Kepler remnant is asymmetrical with a bright arc of X-ray emission
in its northern region. This indicates the expanding ball of debris from the supernova explosion is
plowing into the gas and dust around the now-dead star.

The bright X-ray arc can be explained in two ways. In one model, the pre-supernova star and its
companion were moving through the interstellar gas and losing mass at a significant rate via a
wind, creating a bow shock wave similar to that of a boat moving through water. Another
possibility is that the X-ray arc is caused by debris from the supernova expanding into an
interstellar cloud of gradually increasing density.

In either model, the X-ray spectrum - that is, the amount of X-rays produced at different energiesreveals the presence of a large amount of iron, and indicates an explosion more energetic than the
average Type Ia supernova. Additionally, to explain the observed X-ray spectrum in this model, a
small cavity must have been cleared out around the star before it exploded. Such a cavity, which
would have a diameter less than a tenth that of the remnants current size, might have been
produced by a fast, dense outflow from the surface of the white dwarf before it exploded, as
predicted by some models of Type Ia supernovas.

The wind and bow shock model described above requires that the Kepler supernova remnant is
located at a distance of more than 23,000 light years. In the latter alternative, the gas into which
the remnant is expanding has higher density than average, and the distance of the remnant from
the earth is between about 16,000 and 20,000 light years. Both alternatives give greater distances
than the commonly used value of 13,000 light years.

Evidence for an unusually powerful Type Ia supernova has previously been observed in another
remnant with Chandra and an optical telescope. These results were independently verified by
subsequent observations of light from the original supernova explosion that bounced off gas
clouds, a phenomenon called light echoes. This other remnant is located in the Large Magellanic
Cloud, a small galaxy about 160,000 light years from Earth, making it much farther away than
Kepler and therefore more difficult to study.
[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/kepler/]

The blue star near the center of this image is Zeta Ophiuchi. When seen in visible light it appears
as a relatively dim red star surrounded by other dim stars and no dust.

A massive star flung away from its former companion is plowing through space dust. The result is
a brilliant bow shock, seen here as a yellow arc in a new image from NASAs Wide-field Infrared
Survey Explorer, or WISE. The star, named Zeta Ophiuchi, is huge, with a mass of about 20 times
that of our sun. In this image, in which infrared light has been translated into visible colors we see
with our eyes, the star appears as the blue dot inside the bow shock. Zeta Ophiuchi once orbited
around an even heftier star. But when that star exploded in a supernova, Zeta Ophiuchi shot away
like a bullet. Its traveling at a whopping 54,000 miles per hour (or 24 kilometers per second), and
heading toward the upper left area of the picture. As the star tears through space, its powerful
winds push gas and dust out of its way and into what is called a bow shock. The material in the
bow shock is so compressed that it glows with infrared light that WISE can see. The effect is
similar to what happens when a boat speeds through water, pushing a wave in front of it. This bow
shock is completely hidden in visible light. Infrared images like this one from WISE are therefore
important for shedding new light on the region.
[http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/wise/newsfeatures.cfm?release=2011-026]

WISE Unveils a Treasure Trove of Beauty

A rich collection of colorful astronomical objects is revealed in this picturesque image of the Rho
Ophiuchi cloud complex from NASAs Wide-field Infrared Explorer, or WISE. The Rho Ophiuchi
cloud is found rising above the plane of the Milky Way in the night sky, bordering the
constellations Ophiuchus and Scorpius. Its one of the nearest star-forming regions to Earth,
allowing us to resolve much more detail than in more distant similar regions, like the Orion nebula.

The amazing variety of colors seen in this image represents different wavelengths of infrared light.
The bright white nebula in the center of the image is glowing due to heating from nearby stars,
resulting in what is called an emission nebula. The same is true for most of the multi-hued gas
prevalent throughout the entire image, including the bluish, bow-shaped feature near the bottom
right. The bright red area in the bottom right is light from the star in the center- Sigma Scorpiithat is reflected off of the dust surrounding it, creating what is called a reflection nebula. And the

much darker areas scattered throughout the image are pockets of cool, dense gas that block out the
background light, resulting in absorption (or dark) nebulae. WISE's longer wavelength detectors
can typically see through dark nebulae, but these are exceptionally opaque.

The bright pink objects just left of center are young stellar objects (YSOs). These baby stars are
just now forming; many of them are still enveloped in their own tiny compact nebulae. In visible
light, these YSOs are completely hidden in the dark nebula that surrounds them, which is
sometimes referred to as their baby blanket. We can also see some of the oldest stars in our Milky
Way galaxy in this image, found in two separate (and much more distant) globular clusters. The
first cluster, M80, is on the far right edge of the image towards the top. The second, NGC 6144, is
found close to the bottom edge near the center. They both appear as small densely compacted
groups of blue stars. Globular clusters such as these typically harbor some of the oldest stars
known, some as old as 13 billion years, born soon after the universe formed.
There are two other items of interest in this image as well. At the 3 oclock position, relative to the
bright central region, and about two-thirds of the way from the center to the edge, there is a small
faint red dot. That dot is an entire galaxy far far away known as PGC 090239. And, at the bottom
left of the image, there are two lines emerging from the edge. These were not created by foreground
satellites; they are diffraction spikes (optical artifacts from the space telescope) from the bright
star Antares that is just out of the field of view.

The colors used in this image represent specific wavelengths of infrared light. Blue and cyan (bluegreen) represent light emitted at wavelengths of 3.4 and 4.6 microns, which is predominantly from
stars. Green and red represent light from 12 and 22 microns, respectively, which is mostly emitted
by dust.
[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/multimedia/gallery/pia13974.html]

Ophiuchus contains several star clusters, such as IC 4665, NGC 6633, M9, M10, M12, M14, M19,
M62, and M107, as well as the nebula IC 4603-4604. M10 is a fairly close globular cluster, only
20,000 light-years from Earth. It has a magnitude of 6.6 and is a Shapley class VII cluster. This

means that it has intermediate concentration; it is only somewhat concentrated towards its center.
The unusual galaxy merger remnant and starburst galaxy NGC 6240 is also in Ophiuchus:

Hubble Revisits Tangled NGC 6240

Not all galaxies are neatly shaped, as this new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC
6240 clearly demonstrates. Hubble previously released an image of this galaxy back in 2008, but

the knotted region, shown here in a pinky-red hue at the center of the galaxies, was only revealed
in these new observations from Hubbles Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys.

NGC 6240 lies 400 million light-years away in the constellation of Ophiuchus (The Serpent
Holder). This galaxy has an elongated shape with branching wisps, loops and tails. This mess of
gas, dust and stars bears more than a passing resemblance to a butterfly and a lobster.

This bizarrely-shaped galaxy did not begin its life looking like this; its distorted appearance is a
result of a galactic merger that occurred when two galaxies drifted too close to one another. This
merger sparked bursts of new star formation and triggered many hot young stars to explode as
supernovae. A new supernova, not visible in this image was discovered in this galaxy in 2013,
named SN 2013dc.

At the center of NGC 6240 an even more interesting phenomenon is taking place. When the two
galaxies came together, their central black holes did so, too. There are two supermassive black
holes within this jumble, spiraling closer and closer to one another. They are currently only some
3,000 light-years apart, incredibly close given that the galaxy itself spans 300,000 light-years. This
proximity secures their fate as they are now too close to escape each other and will soon form a
single immense black hole.
[https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/hubble-revisits-tangled-ngc-6240]

(NGC 6572) A dazzling planetary nebula

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has turned its eagle eye to the planetary nebula NGC
6572, a very bright example of these strange but beautiful objects. Planetary nebulae are created
during the late stages of the evolution of certain stars that eject gas into space and emit intense
ultraviolet radiation that makes the material glow. This picture of NGC 6572 shows the intricate
shapes that can develop as stars exhale their last breaths. Hubble has even imaged the central white
dwarf star, the origin of the dazzling nebula, but now a faint, but hot, vestige of its former glory.

NGC 6572 only began to shed its gases a few thousand years ago, so it is a fairly young planetary
nebula. As a result the material is still quite concentrated, which explains why it is abnormally
bright. The envelope of gas is currently racing out into space at a speed of around 15 kilometres
every second and as it becomes more diffuse, it will dim.

NGC 6572 was discovered in 1825 by the German astronomer Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von
Struve, who came from a family of distinguished stargazers. The name planetary nebula is left
over from the time when the telescopes of early astronomers were not good enough to reveal the
true nature of these objects. To many, the discs looked like the outer planets Uranus and Neptune.
The application of spectral analysis, later in the 19th century, first revealed that they were glowing
gas clouds.

NGC 6572 is magnitude 8.1, easily bright enough to make it an appealing target for amateur
astronomers with telescopes. It is located within the large constellation of Ophiuchus (the Serpent
Bearer) and at low magnification it will appear to be just a coloured star, but higher magnification
will reveal its shape. Some observers report that NGC 6572 looks blue, while others state that it is
green. Colour as seen through the eyepiece is often a matter of interpretation, so you may make
your own decision!
This picture was created from images taken with Hubbles Wide Field Camera 2. Images through
a blue filter that isolates the glow from hydrogen gas (H, F487N, coloured dark blue), a green
filter that isolates emission from ionised oxygen (F502N, coloured blue), a yellow broadband filter
(F555W, coloured green) and a red filter that passes emission from hydrogen (H, F656N) have
been combined. The exposure times were 360 s, 240 s, 100 s and 180 s, respectively and the field
of view is just 29 arcseconds across.
[https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1034a/]

NGC 6369: The Little Ghost Nebula

This pretty planetary nebula, cataloged as NGC 6369, was discovered by 18th century astronomer
William Herschel as he used a telescope to explore the medicinal constellation Ophiucus. Round
and planet-shaped, the nebula is also relatively faint and has acquired the popular moniker of Little
Ghost Nebula. Planetary nebulae in general are not at all related to planets, but instead are created
at the end of a sun-like stars life as its outer layers expand into space while the star's core shrinks
to become a white dwarf. The transformed white dwarf star, seen near the center, radiates strongly
at ultraviolet wavelengths and powers the expanding nebulas glow. Surprisingly complex details
and structures of NGC 6369 are revealed in this tantalizing image composed from Hubble Space
Telescope data. The nebula's main ring structure is about a light-year across and the glow from
ionized oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen atoms are colored blue, green, and red respectively. Over

2,000 light-years away, the Little Ghost Nebula offers a glimpse of the fate of our Sun, which
could produce its own planetary nebula only about 5 billion years from now.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120114.html]

Molecular Cloud Barnard 68

Where did all the stars go? What used to be considered a hole in the sky is now known to
astronomers as a dark molecular cloud. Here, a high concentration of dust and molecular gas

absorb practically all the visible light emitted from background stars. The eerily dark surroundings
help make the interiors of molecular clouds some of the coldest and most isolated places in the
universe. One of the most notable of these dark absorption nebulae is a cloud toward the
constellation Ophiuchus known as Barnard 68, pictured above. That no stars are visible in the
center indicates that Barnard 68 is relatively nearby, with measurements placing it about 500 lightyears away and half a light-year across. It is not known exactly how molecular clouds like Barnard
68 form, but it is known that these clouds are themselves likely places for new stars to form. In
fact, Barnard 68 itself has been found likely to collapse and form a new star system. It is possible
to look right through the cloud in infrared light.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap141214.html]

Snake in the Dark

Dark nebulae snake across a gorgeous expanse of stars in this wide-field view toward the
pronounceable constellation Ophiuchus and the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. In fact, the
central S-shape seen here is well known as the Snake Nebula. It is also listed as Barnard 72 (B72),

one of 182 dark markings of the sky cataloged in the early 20th century by astronomer E. E.
Barnard. Unlike bright emission nebulae and star clusters, Barnards nebulae are interstellar dark
clouds of obscuring gas and dust. Their shapes are visible in cosmic silhouette only because they
lie in the foreground along the line of sight to rich star fields and glowing stellar nurseries near the
plane of our Galaxy. Many of Barnards dark nebulae are themselves likely sites of future star
formation. Barnard 72 is a few light years across and about 650 light years away.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap050521.html]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiuchus]

Orion

Orion is a prominent constellation located on the celestial equator and visible throughout the world.
It is one of the most conspicuous and recognizable constellations in the night sky. It was named
after Orion, a hunter in Greek mythology. Its brightest stars are Rigel (Beta Orionis) and
Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis), a blue-white and a red supergiant, respectively.

Orion is bordered by Taurus to the northwest, Eridanus to the southwest, Lepus to the south,
Monoceros to the east, and Gemini to the northeast. Covering 594 square degrees, Orion ranks

twenty-sixth of the 88 constellations in size. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right
ascension coordinates of the constellation lie between 04h 43.3m and 06h 25.5m, while the
declination coordinates are between 22.87 and 10.97.

Orion is most visible in the evening sky from January to March, winter in the Northern
Hemisphere, and summer in the Southern Hemisphere. In the tropics (less than about 8 from the
equator), the constellation transits at the zenith. In the period MayJuly (summer in the Northern
Hemisphere, winter in the Southern Hemisphere), Orion is in the daytime sky and thus not visible
at most latitudes. However, for much of Antarctica in the Southern Hemispheres winter months,
the Sun is below the horizon even at midday. Stars (and thus Orion) are then visible at twilight for
a few hours around local noon, low in the North. At the same time of day at the South Pole itself
(AmundsenScott South Pole Station), Rigel is only 8 above the horizon, and the Belt sweeps just
along it. In the Southern Hemisphere's summer months, when Orion is normally visible in the night
sky, the constellation is actually not visible in Antarctica because the sun does not set at that time
of year south of the Antarctic Circle. In countries close to the equator (e.g. Kenya, Indonesia,
Colombia, Ecuador), Orion appears overhead in December around midnight and in the February
evening sky.

Orion is located on the celestial equator, but it will not always be so located due to the effects of
precession of the Earths axis. Orion lies well south of the ecliptic, and it only happens to lie on
the celestial equator because the point on the ecliptic that corresponds to the June solstice is close
to the border of Gemini and Taurus, to the north of Orion. Precession will eventually carry Orion
further south, and by AD 14000 Orion will be far enough south that it will become invisible from
the latitude of Great Britain.
Further in the future, Orions stars will gradually move away from the constellation due to proper
motion. However, Orions brightest stars all lie at a large distance from the Earth on an
astronomical scale- much farther away than Sirius, for example. Orion will still be recognizable
long after most of the other constellations- composed of relatively nearby stars- have distorted into
new configurations, with the exception of a few of its stars eventually exploding as supernovae,
for example Betelgeuse, which is predicted to explode sometime in the next million years.

An engraving of Orion from Johann Bayers Uranometria, 1603 (US Naval Observatory Library)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_%28mythology%29]

The distinctive pattern of Orion has been recognized in numerous cultures around the world, and
many myths have been associated with it. It has also been used as a symbol in the modern world.

The earliest depiction that has been linked to the constellation of Orion is a prehistoric
(Aurignacian) mammoth ivory carving found in a cave in the Ach valley in West Germany in 1979.

Archaeologists have estimated it to have been fashioned approximately 32,000 to 38,000 years
ago.
The Babylonian star catalogues of the Late Bronze Age name Orion MULSIPA.ZI.AN.NA, The
Heavenly Shepherd or True Shepherd of Anu - Anu being the chief god of the heavenly realms.
The Babylonian constellation was sacred to Papshukal and Ninshubur, both minor gods fulfilling
the role of messenger to the gods. Papshukal was closely associated with the figure of a walking
bird on Babylonian boundary stones, and on the star map the figure of the Rooster was located
below and behind the figure of the True Shepherd- both constellations represent the herald of the
gods, in his bird and human forms respectively.

In ancient Egypt, the stars of Orion were regarded as a god, called Sah. Because Orion rises before
Sirius, the star whose heliacal rising was the basis for the Solar Egyptian calendar, Sah was closely
linked with Sopdet, the goddess who personified Sirius. The god Sopdu was said to be the son of
Sah and Sopdet. Sah was syncretized with Osiris, while Sopdet was syncretized with Osiris'
mythological wife, Isis. In the Pyramid Texts, from the 24th and 23rd centuries BCE, Sah was one
of many gods whose form the dead pharaoh was said to take in the afterlife.

The Rig Veda refers to the Orion Constellation as Mriga (The Deer). It is said that two bright stars
in the front and two bright stars in the rear are The hunting dogs, the one comparatively less bright
star in the middle and ahead of two front dogs is The hunter and three aligned bright stars are in
the middle of all four hunting dogs is The Deer (The Mriga) and three little aligned but less brighter
stars is The Baby Deer. The Mriga means Deer, locally known as Harnu in folk parlance. There
are many folk songs narrating the Harnu.
Orions current name derives from Greek mythology, in which Orion was a gigantic,
supernaturally strong hunter of ancient times, born to Euryale, a Gorgon, and Poseidon (Neptune),
god of the sea in the Graeco-Roman tradition. One myth recounts Gaias rage at Orion, who dared
to say that he would kill every animal on the planet. The angry goddess tried to dispatch Orion
with a scorpion. This is given as the reason that the constellations of Scorpius and Orion are never
in the sky at the same time. However, Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer, revived Orion with an

antidote. This is said to be the reason that the constellation of Ophiuchus stands midway between
the Scorpion and the Hunter in the sky.
The constellation is mentioned in Homers Odyssey and Iliad, Horaces Odes, and Virgils Aeneid.
The Bible mentions Orion three times, naming it Kesil (literally fool). Though, this name
perhaps is etymologically connected with Kislev, the name for the ninth month of the Hebrew
calendar (i.e. NovemberDecember), which, in turn, may derive from the Hebrew root K-S-L as
in the words kesel, kisla (hope, positiveness, i.e. hope for winter rains).
In ancient Aram, the constellation was known as Nephl, the Nephilim may have been Orions
descendants.

The Armenians identified their legendary patriarch and founder Hayk with Orion. Hayk is also the
name of the Orion constellation in the Armenian translation of the Bible.
In medieval Muslim astronomy, Orion was known as al-jabbar, the giant. Orions sixth brightest
star, Saiph, is named from the Arabic, saif al-jabbar, meaning sword of the giant.
In old Hungarian tradition, Orion is known as (magic) Archer (jsz), or Reaper (Kaszs). In
recently rediscovered myths he is called Nimrod (Hungarian Nimrd), the greatest hunter, father
of the twins Hunor and Magor. The and o stars (on upper right) form together the reflex
bow or the lifted scythe. In other Hungarian traditions, Orions belt is known as Judges stick
(Brplca).
In Scandinavian tradition, Orions belt was known as Friggs Distaff (friggerock) or Freyjas
distaff.
The Finns call the Orions belt and the stars below it as Vinmisen viikate (Vinminens
scythe). Another name for the asterism of Alnilam, Alnitak and Mintaka is Vinmisen vy'
(Vinminens Belt) and the stars hanging from the belt as Kalevanmiekka (Kalevas sword).

In Siberia, the Chukchi people see Orion as a hunter; an arrow he has shot is represented by
Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri), with the same figure as other Western depictions.

The Seri people of northwestern Mexico call the three stars in the belt of Orion Hapj (a name
denoting a hunter) which consists of three stars: Hap (mule deer), Haamoja (pronghorn), and Mojet
(bighorn sheep). Hap is in the middle and has been shot by the hunter; its blood has dripped onto
Tiburn Island.
The same three stars are known in Spain and most of Latin America as Las tres Maras (Spanish
for The Three Marys). In Puerto Rico, the three stars are known as the Los Tres Reyes Magos
(Spanish for The three Wise Men).

The Ojibwa (Chippewa) Native Americans call this constellation Kabibona'kan, the Winter Maker,
as its presence in the night sky heralds winter. To the Lakota Native Americans, Tayamnicankhu
(Orions Belt) is the spine of a bison. The great rectangle of Orion are the bisons ribs; the Pleiades
star cluster in nearby Taurus is the bisons head; and Sirius in Canis Major, known as
Tayamnisinte, is its tail.
The Malay called Orion Belt Bintang Tiga Beradik (the Three Brother Star).

In China, Orion was one of the 28 lunar mansions Sieu (Xiu). It is known as Shen, literally meaning
three, for the stars of Orions Belt. The Chinese character shn originally meant the constellation
Orion (pinyin: shnxi); its Shang dynasty version, over three millennia old, contains at the top a
representation of the three stars of Orions belt atop a mans head (the bottom portion representing
the sound of the word was added later).

The imagery of the belt and sword has found its way into popular western culture, for example in
the form of the shoulder insignia of the 27th Infantry Division of the United States Army during
both World Wars, probably owing to a pun on the name of the divisions first commander, Major
General John F. ORyan.

Representation of the central tenet of the Orion Correlation Theory: the outline of the Giza
pyramids superimposed over a photograph of the stars in Orions Belt.

The Orion correlation theory (or GizaOrion correlation theory) is a hypothesis in alternative
Egyptology. Its central claim is that there is a correlation between the location of the three largest
pyramids of the Giza pyramid complex and Orions Belt of the constellation Orion, and that this
correlation was intended as such by the builders of the pyramids. Depending on the version of the
theory, additional pyramids can be included to complete the picture of the Orion constellation, and
the Nile river can be included to match with the Milky Way galaxy.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_correlation_theory]

On winter evenings, Orion dominates the sky, surrounded by numerous striking constellations, all
decorated with brilliant stars.
[http://www.space.com/24476-orion-constellation-winter-night-sky.html]

Using Orion to find stars in neighbor constellations

Orion is very useful as an aid to locating other stars. By extending the line of the Belt
southeastward, Sirius ( CMa) can be found; northwestward, Aldebaran ( Tau). A line eastward
across the two shoulders indicates the direction of Procyon ( CMi). A line from Rigel through
Betelgeuse points to Castor and Pollux ( Gem and Gem). Additionally, Rigel is part of the
Winter Circle. Sirius and Procyon, which may be located from Orion by following imaginary lines,
also are points in both the Winter Triangle and the Circle.

In artistic renderings, the surrounding constellations are sometimes related to Orion: he is depicted
standing next to the river Eridanus with his two hunting dogs Canis Major and Canis Minor,
fighting Taurus He is sometimes depicted hunting Lepus the hare. He also sometimes is depicted
to have a lions hide in his hand.

The constellation Orion. Credit: Matthew Spinelli NASA/APOD

[http://www.universetoday.com/85736/orions-belt-stars/]

[http://www.space.com/13924-orion-constellation-nebula-skywatching-tips.html]
Orions seven brightest stars form a distinctive hourglass-shaped asterism, or pattern, in the night
sky. Four stars- Rigel, Betelgeuse, Bellatrix and Saiph- form a large roughly rectangular shape, in
the centre of which lie the three stars of Orions Belt- Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka.
Coincidentally, these seven stars are among the most distant that can easily be seen with the naked
eye. Descending from the belt is a smaller line of three stars (the middle of which is in fact not a
star but the Orion Nebula), known as the hunters sword. The and stars East of Bellatrix can
be seen as composing Orions bow.

Rigel and reflection nebula IC 2118 in Eridanus. Rigel B is not visible in the glare of the main star.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigel]

Rigel (Beta Orionis) is the brightest star in the constellation. With an apparent visual magnitude
of 0.18, it is also the sixth brightest star in the sky. Even though it does not have the designation
alpha, it is almost always brighter than Betelgeuse, Alpha Orionis. Rigel is really a star system

composed of three stars. It has been a known visual binary since 1831, possibly even earlier, when
F. G. Struve first measured it. Rigel is surrounded by a shell of expelled gas.
The name Rigel comes from the Arabic phrase Ril awza al-Yusra, which means the left foot
of the central one. Rigel marks Orions left foot. Another Arabic name for the star is il al-abbr,
or the foot of the great one. The stars other two variant names, Algebar and Elgebar, are derived
from this phrase.

Rigel is a blue supergiant. It belongs to the spectral type B8lab and is 772.51 light years distant. It
has 85,000 times the luminosity of the Sun and 17 solar masses. It is classified as a slightly irregular
variable star, with its luminosity varying from 0.03 to 0.3 magnitudes over 22 25 days.

The primary component in the system, Rigel A, is 500 times brighter than Rigel B, which is itself
a spectroscopic binary star. Rigel B has a magnitude of 6.7. It consists of a pair of B9V class main
sequence stars that orbit a common centre of gravity every 9.8 days.

Rigel is associated with several nearby dust clouds which it illuminates. The most famous one is
IC 2118, the Witch Head Nebula, a faint reflection nebula located about 2.5 degrees to the
northwest of Rigel, in the constellation Eridanus.

Rigel is a member of the Taurus-Orion R1 Association. It was considered by some to be an outlying

member of the Orion OB1 Association, a group of several dozen hot giants belonging to the
spectral types O and B, located in the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. However, the star is too
close to us to be a real member of that particular stellar association.

Rigel is only about 10 million years old. Eventually, it will grow into a red supergiant, one very
similar to Betelgeuse.

Betelgeuse
[http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/astro/hst_betelgeuse.jpg]

Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis) is the second brightest star in Orion and the eighth brightest star in the
sky. It is a red supergiant, belonging to the spectral class M2lab. The suffix -ab indicates that
Betelgeuse is classified as an intermediate luminous supergiant, one not as bright as others such
as Deneb in the constellation Cygnus. Some recent findings, however, suggest that the star emits
more light than 100,000 Suns, which would in fact make it more luminous than most stars in its
class, so the classification is likely outdated.

The star has an apparent visual magnitude of 0.42 and is approximately 643 light years distant.
Betelgeuse is one of the most luminous stars known. It has an absolute magnitude of -6.05.

Betelgeuse is also one of the largest stars known, with an apparent diameter between 0.043 and
0.056 arcseconds. It is difficult to get an accurate measurement because the star appears to change
shape from time to time and, as a result of a huge mass loss, it has a large envelope surrounding it.

It is classified as a semi-regular variable star. Its apparent visual magnitude varies from 0.2 to 1.2,
which means that Betelgeuse occasionally outshines its bright neighbour Rigel. This, however,
only happens very rarely. The stars variation in brightness was first noted by Sir John Herschel in
his Outlines of Astronomy in 1836.

Betelgeuse is believed to be about 10 million years old, which is not much for a red supergiant,
but the star is thought to have evolved very rapidly because of its enormous mass. It will likely
explode as a supernova in the next million years. When it does, it will be easy to find in the sky,
not just at night, but also in broad daylight. At its current distance from the solar s ystem, the
supernova would shine brighter than the Moon and be the brightest ever recorded supernova in
history.

The origin of the name Betelgeuse is not entirely certain. The last part, -elgeuse, is derived from
the Arabic name for the constellation, al-Jauz, which was a feminine name from old Arabian
legends and can be roughly translated as the middle one. The most widely accepted explanation
is that the name is a corruption of the Arabic phrase Yad al-Jauz, or the Hand of al-Jauz, which
is to say, the hand of Orion, which became Betelegeuse through a mistransliteration into medieval
Latin, with the first Arabic letter standing for y being mistaken for the one for b, which led to the
name Bait al-Jauz, or the house of Orion during the Renaissance. This eventually led to the
stars modern name, Betelgeuse.

Betelgeuse is part of two prominent winter asterisms: the Winter Triangle and the Winter Hexagon.
The other two stars forming the Winter Triangle, also known as the Great Southern Triangle, are
Sirius and Procyon, the brightest stars in the constellations Canis Major and Canis Minor
respectively. The same stars are also part of the Winter Hexagon, along with Rigel, Aldebaran in
the constellation Taurus, Capella in Auriga, and Pollux and Castor in Gemini.

[https://coraskywalker.wordpress.com/tag/bellatrix-star/]

Bellatrix (Gamma Orionis) sometimes also known as the Amazon Star, is the third brightest star
in Orion and the 27th brightest star in the sky, only slightly dimmer than Castor in Gemini. Its
name comes from the Latin word for the female warrior. It has a mean apparent visual magnitude
of 1.64 and is approximately 240 light years distant.

Bellatrix is a hot, luminous blue-white giant star, classified as an eruptive variable. Its magnitude
varies between 1.59 and 1.64. The star belongs to the spectral class B2 III. It is one of the hotter

stars visible to the naked eye. It emits about 6,400 times more light than the Sun and has eight or
nine solar masses. Within a few million years, Bellatrix will become an orange giant and eventually
a massive white dwarf.

Before its own variability was confirmed, Bellatrix was used as a standard for stellar luminosity,
one against which other stars were compared and checked for variability.
Saiph (Kappa Orionis) is the southeastern star of Orions central quadrangle. It is the sixth brightest
star in the constellation, with an apparent visual magnitude of 2.06. The star is approximately 720
light years distant.

Saiph is a blue supergiant, belonging to the spectral class B0.5. Its name is derived from the Arabic
phrase saif al jabbar, which means the sword of the giant. Like many other bright stars in Orion,
Saiph too will end its life in a supernova explosion.

Orions Belt: Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka, are the bright bluish stars from east to west (left to
right) along the diagonal in this gorgeous cosmic vista. Otherwise known as the Belt of Orion,
these three blue supergiant stars are hotter and much more massive than the Sun. They lie about
1,500 light-years away.
Orions Belt is one of the best known asterisms in the night sky. It is formed by three bright stars
in the constellation Orion: Mintaka (Delta Orionis), Alnilam (Epsilon Orionis), and Alnitak (Zeta
Orionis).

[https://coraskywalker.wordpress.com/tag/mintaka-star/]

Mintaka (Delta Orionis) is the westernmost of the three stars in the Belt of Orion. It is the rightmost star when observed from the Northern Hemisphere, facing south. The name Mintaka is
derived from the Arabic word manaqah, which means area or region.

Mintaka is a multiple star, classified as an eclipsing binary variable. The primary component is a
double star consisting of a class B giant and a hot class O star which orbit each other every 5.63
days and eclipse each other slightly, causing a 0.2 magnitude drop in luminosity. The system also
contains a magnitude 7 star separated by about 52 from the primary component, and a very faint
14th magnitude star in between.

Mintaka is approximately 900 light years distant. Its brightest components are both roughly 90,000
times as luminous as our Sun and have more than 20 solar masses. They will both end their lives
in violent supernova explosions.

In the order of brightness, the apparent magnitudes of the components are 2.23 (3.2/3.3), 6.85,
14.0. Mintaka is the faintest of the three stars in Orions Belt and the seventh brightest star in
Orion. It is the closest bright star to the celestial equator: it rises and sets almost exactly east and
west.

Alnilam lights up NGC 1990

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alnilam]

Alnilam (Epsilon Orionis) is a hot, bright blue supergiant. It has an apparent magnitude of 1.70
and is approximately 1,300 light years distant. It belongs to the spectral class B0.
Alnilam is the central star in Orions Belt. It is the fourth brightest star in the Orion constellation
and the 30th brightest star in the night sky. It radiates about 375,000 solar luminosities. The stars
Flamsteed designation is 46 Orionis.

Alnilam is surrounded by the reflection nebula NGC 1990, a molecular cloud illuminated by the
light emitted by the star. The wind blowing from the stars surface has the speed of 2,000

kilometres per second. The stars estimated age is around four million years. It is losing mass and
its internal hydrogen fusion is shutting down. Alnilam will soon evolve into a red supergiant, one
much brighter than Betelgeuse, and eventually explode as a supernova.
The name Alnilam comes from the Arabic word an-nim, which is related to the word nam,
which means the string of pearls.

Alnitak (in lower right corner) and Flame Nebula

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alnitak]

Alnitak (Zeta Orionis) is a multiple star system in Orion, approximately 700 light years distant. It
has an apparent magnitude of 1.72. The name Alnitak is derived from the Arabic word an-nitaq,
which means the girdle.

The brightest component in the system, Alnitak A, is yet another hot, blue supergiant, one with an
absolute magnitude of -5.25. The star has a visual magnitude of 2.04 and belongs to the spectral
class O9. It is the brightest O class star known.

It is in fact a close binary star, composed of the O9.7 class supergiant, one with a mass 28 times
solar, and a blue dwarf belonging to the spectral class OV, with an apparent magnitude of about 4.
The dwarf was first discovered in 1998.
Alnitak is the easternmost star in Orions Belt. The system lies next to and lights up the bright
emission nebula NGC 2024 (Flame Nebula).

From left to right, the Running Man Nebula, the Orion Nebula (M42 and M43), and Iota Orionis
(brightest star on right-hand side).
[http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/I/Iota_Orionis.html]
[http://oneminuteastronomer.com/797/great-orion-nebula/]

Hatsya (Iota Orionis) is a quadruple star system in the constellation Orion. It is the brighest star in
Orions sword and marks the swords tip. The star has the traditional names Hatsya and the Arabic
Nair al Saif, which is translated as the bright one of the sword.

The primary component in the Iota Orionis system is a massive spectroscopic binary star that has
an eccentric 29-day orbit. The system is composed of a blue giant belonging to the spectral class
O9 III and a class B1 III star. The binary is a strong X-ray source as a result of the collision of the
stellar winds coming from the pair.

Iota Orionis has an apparent magnitude of 2.77 and is approximately 1,300 light years distant from
the solar system.

Lambda Orionis is a hot, massive star that is surrounded by several other hot, massive stars, all of
which are creating radiation that excites a ring of dust, creating the Lambda Orionis molecular
ring. Also known as SH 2-264, the Lambda Orionis molecular ring is sometimes called the Meissa
ring. In Arabic, the star Lambda Orionis is known as Meissa or Al-Maisan, meaning the
shining one. The Meissa Ring is of interest to astronomers because it contains clusters of young
stars and proto-stars, or forming stars, embedded within the clouds. With a diameter of
approximately 130 light-years, the Lambda Orionis molecular ring is notable for being one of the
largest star-forming regions WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) has seen. This is also the
largest single image featured by WISE so far, with an area of the sky approximately 10 b y 10

degrees in size, equivalent to a grid of 20 by 20 full moons. Nevertheless, at less than one percent
of the whole skys area, it is just a taste of WISE data.

The bright blue star in the lower left corner of the image is the star Betelgeuse. Also seen in this
image are two dark nebulae, Barnard 30 and Barnard 35, which are parts of the Meissa ring that
are so dense they block out visible light. Barnard 30 is the bright knob of gas and dust in the top
center part of the image. Barnard 35 appears as a hook extending towards the center of the ring
just above and to the right of the star Betelgeuse. The bright reddish object seen to in the middle
right part of the image is the star HR 1763, which is surrounded by another star-forming region,
LBN 867.
[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/multimedia/gallery/pia14040.html]

Meissa (Lambda Orionis) is blue giant belonging to the spectral type O8III, approximately 1,100
light years distant. It has a visual magnitude of 3.39. Lambda Orionis is also sometimes called
Heka, from the Arabic Al Hakah, or a white spot, referring to the Arabic lunar mansion that
includes both Lambda and Phi Orionis.

Meissa is really a double star. The companion, a hot blue-white dwarf belonging to the spectral
class B0.5V, has an apparent magnitude of 5.61 and is separated from the brighter component by
4.4 arcseconds.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/orion-constellation/]

[http://petapixel.com/2015/01/18/tutorial-photographing-processing-orion-constellation/]

Screen capture of the Orion constellation border and numerous astronomical objects located in the
direction of that constellation.
[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/news/google_sky_prt.htm]
Hanging from Orions belt is his sword, consisting of the multiple stars 1 and 2 Orionis, called
the Trapezium and the Orion Nebula (M42):

The Great Nebula in Orion

The Great Nebula in Orion is a colorful place. Visible to the unaided eye, it appears as a small
fuzzy patch in the constellation of Orion. Long exposure, digitally sharpened images like this,
however, show the Orion Nebula to be a busy neighborhood of young stars, hot gas, and dark dust.
The power behind much of the Orion Nebula (M42) is the Trapezium- four of the brightest stars
in the nebula. Many of the filamentary structures visible are actually shock waves- fronts where
fast moving material encounters slow moving gas. The Orion Nebula spans about 40 light years
and is located about 1500 light years away in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as the Sun.
[https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_693.html]

In the center of the Trapezium

In Orions Great Nebula is a bright star cluster known as the Trapezium, shown above. New stellar
systems are forming there in gigantic globs of gas and dust known as Proplyds. Looking closely
at the above picture also reveals that gas and dust surrounding some of the dimmer stars appears
to form structures that point away from the brighter stars. The above false color image was made
by combining several exposures from the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap030302.html]

The Trapezium cluster has many newborn stars, including several brown dwarfs. Named for the
four bright stars that form a trapezoid, it is largely illuminated by the brightest stars, which are
only a few hundred thousand years old.

M78 and Reflecting Dust Clouds

An eerie blue glow and ominous columns of dark dust highlight M78 and other bright reflection
nebula in the constellation of Orion. The dark filamentary dust not only absorbs light, but also
reflects the light of several bright blue stars that formed recently in the nebula. Of the two reflection
nebulas pictured above, the more famous nebula is M78, in the image center, while NGC 2071 can
be seen to its lower left. The same type of scattering that colors the daytime sky further enhances
the blue color. M78 is about five light-years across and visible through a small telescope. M78
appears above only as it was 1600 years ago, however, because that is how long it takes light to
go from there to here. M78 belongs to the larger Orion Molecular Cloud Complex that contains
the Great Nebula in Orion and the Horsehead Nebula.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140326.html]

M78 (NGC 2068) is a nebula in Orion. With an overall magnitude of 8.0, it is significantly dimmer
than the Great Orion Nebula that lies to its south; however, it is at approximately the same distance,
at 1600 light-years from Earth. It can easily be mistaken for a comet in the eyepiece of a telescope.
M78 is associated with the variable star V351 Orionis, whose magnitude changes are visible in
very short periods of time. Another fairly bright nebula in Orion is NGC 1999, also close to the
Great Orion Nebula. It has an integrated magnitude of 10.5 and is 1500 light-years from Earth.
The variable star V380 Orionis is embedded in NGC 1999.
Another famous nebula is IC 434, the Horsehead Nebula, near Orionis (Alnitak). It contains a
dark dust cloud whose shape gives the nebula its name:

Orions Horsehead Nebula

The Horsehead Nebula is one of the most famous nebulae on the sky. It is visible as the dark
indentation to the red emission nebula seen above and to the right of center in the above
photograph. The bright star on the left is located in the belt of the familiar constellation of Orion.
The horse-head feature is dark because it is really an opaque dust cloud which lies in front of the
bright red emission nebula. Like clouds in Earths atmosphere, this cosmic cloud has assumed a
recognizable shape by chance. After many thousands of years, the internal motions of the cloud
will alter its appearance. The emission nebulas red color is caused by electrons recombining with
protons to form hydrogen atoms. Also visible in the picture are blue reflection nebulae, which
preferentially reflect the blue light from nearby stars.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap030129.html]

The Horsehead Nebula was first recorded in 1888 by Scottish astronomer Williamina Fleming on
photographic plate B2312 taken at the Harvard College Observatory. The Horsehead Nebula is
approximately 1500 light years from Earth. It is one of the most identifiable nebulae because of
the shape of its swirling cloud of dark dust and gases, which bears some resemblance to a horse's
head when viewed from Earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsehead_Nebula]

Besides M42 (Orion Nebula), M43 (NGC 1982), M78, the Flame Nebula (NGC 2024), and the
Running Man Nebula (NGC 1973, NGC 1975 and NGC 1977), Orion includes NGC 2174 (also
known as Monkey Head Nebula) as well as multiple stars including Iota Orionis and Sigma
Orionis. A larger telescope may reveal objects such as Barnards Loop. All of these nebulae are
part of the larger Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, which is located approximately 1,500 lightyears away and is hundreds of light-years across. It is one of the most intense regions of stellar
formation visible within our galaxy:

Orion: Head to Toe

Cradled in cosmic dust and glowing hydrogen, stellar nurseries in Orion the Hunter lie at the edge
of a giant molecular cloud some 1,500 light-years away. Spanning nearly 25 degrees, this breathtaking vista stretches across the well-known constellation from head to toe (left to right). The Great
Orion Nebula, the closest large star forming region, is right of center. To its left are the Horsehead
Nebula, M78, and Orions belt stars. You will also find red giant Betelgeuse at the hunters
shoulder, bright blue Rigel at his foot, and the glowing Lambda Orionis (Meissa) nebula at the far
left, near Orions head. Of course, the Orion Nebula and bright stars are easy to see with the
unaided eye, but dust clouds and emission from the extensive interstellar gas in this nebula-rich
complex, are too faint and much harder to record. In this mosaic of broadband telescopic images,
additional image data acquired with a narrow hydrogen alpha filter was used to bring out the
pervasive tendrils of energized atomic hydrogen gas and the arc of the giant Barnards Loop.

Why is the belt of Orion surrounded by a bubble? Although glowing like an emission nebula, the
origin of the bubble, known as Barnards Loop, is currently unknown. Progenitor hypotheses
include the winds from bright Orion stars and the supernovas of stars long gone. Barnard's Loop
is too faint to be identified with the unaided eye. The nebula was discovered only in 1895 by E. E.
Barnard on long duration film exposures.

[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101023.html]
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap050420.html]

Orionid Meteors over Turkey

Meteors have been flowing out from the constellation Orion. This was expected, as mid-October
is the time of year for the Orionids Meteor Shower. Pictured above, over a dozen meteors were
caught in successively added exposures over three hours taken this past weekend (2006 October
23) from a town near Bursa, Turkey. The above image shows brilliant multiple meteor streaks that
can all be connected to a single point in the sky just above the belt of Orion, called the radiant. The
Orionids meteors started as sand sized bits expelled from Comet Halley during one of its trips to
the inner Solar System. Comet Halley is actually responsible for two known meteor showers, the
other known as the Eta Aquarids and visible every May. Next month, the Leonids Meteor Shower
from Comet Tempel-Tuttle might show an even more impressive shower from some locations.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap061023.html]

The Orionid meteor shower, or the Orionids, is the most prolific meteor shower associated with
Halleys Comet. The Orionids are so-called because the point they appear to come from, called the
radiant, lies in the constellation Orion, but they can be seen over a large area of the sky. Orionids
are an annual meteor shower which last approximately one week in late October. In some years,
meteors may occur at rates of 5070 per hour.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orionids]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_%28constellation%29]

Pavo

Pavo is a constellation in the southern sky with the Latin name for peacock.

Pavo is bordered by Telescopium to the north, Apus and Ara to the west, Octans to the south, and
Indus to the east and northeast. Covering 378 square degrees, it ranks 44th of the 88 modern
constellations in size and covers 0.916% of the night sky. In the equatorial coordinate system, the
right ascension coordinates of the constellation lie between 18h 10.4m and 21h 32.4m, while the
declination coordinates are between 56.59 and 74.98. As one of the deep southern
constellations, it remains below the horizon at latitudes north of the 30th parallel in the Northern
Hemisphere, and is circumpolar at latitudes south of the 50th parallel in the Southern Hemisphere.

Some of the stars in the constellation form an asterism known as the Saucepan in Australia when
they are used for navigation, as they point toward the southern celestial pole. The constellations
Pavo, Grus, Phoenix and Tucana are collectively known as the Southern Birds.

Pavo flourishes a truncated tail on Chart XX of the Uranographia of Johann Bode (1801)
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/pavo.htm]

Pavo was one of the twelve constellations established by Dutch astronomer Petrus Plancius from
the observations of the southern sky by Dutch explorers Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de
Houtman, who had sailed on the first Dutch trading expedition, known as the Eerste Schipvaart,
to the East Indies. It first appeared on a 35-cm (14 in) diameter celestial globe published in 1598
in Amsterdam by Plancius with Jodocus Hondius. The first depiction of this constellation in a
celestial atlas was in German cartographer Johann Bayers Uranometria of 1603. De Houtman
included it in his southern star catalogue the same year under the Dutch name De Pauww, The
Peacock. An alternate Latin name for the constellation was Junonia Avis.

According to Mark Chartrand, Plancius may not have been the first to designate this group of stars
as a peacock, as in Greek myth the stars that are now the Peacock were Argos (or Argus), builder

of the ship Argo. He was changed by the goddess Juno into a peacock and placed in the sky along
with his ship. Indeed, the peacock symbolized the starry firmament for the Greeks, and the goddess
Hera was believed to drive through the heavens in a chariot drawn by peacocks.
The peacock and the Argus nomenclature are also prominent in a different myth, in which Io, a
beautiful princess of Argos, was lusted after by Zeus (Jupiter). Zeus changed Io into a heifer to
deceive his wife (and sister) Hera and couple with her. Hera saw through Zeuss scheme and asked
for the heifer as a gift. Zeus, unable to refuse such a reasonable request, reluctantly gave the heifer
to Hera, who promptly banished Io and arranged for Argus Panoptes, a creature with one hundred
eyes, to guard the now-pregnant Io from Zeus. Meanwhile, Zeus entreated Hermes to save Io;
Hermes used music to lull Argus Panoptes to sleep, then slew him. Hera adorned the tail of a
peacock- her favorite bird- with Arguss eyes in his honor
As recounted in Ovids Metamorphoses, the death of Argus Panoptes also contains an explicit
celestial reference: Argus lay dead; so many eyes, so bright quenched, and all hundred shrouded
in one night. Saturnia [Hera] retrieved those eyes to set in place among the feathers of her bird [the
peacock, Pavo] and filled his tail with starry jewels.

It is uncertain whether the Dutch astronomers had the Greek mythos in mind when creating Pavo
but, in keeping with other constellations introduced by Plancius through Keyser and De Houtmann,
the peacock in the new constellation likely referred to the green peacock, which the explorers
would have encountered in the East Indies, rather than the blue peacock known to the ancient
Greeks.

The Wardaman people of the Northern Territory in Australia saw the stars of Pavo and the
neighbouring constellation Ara as flying foxes.

[http://www.davidmalin.com/fujii/source/Pav.html]

[http://www.dibonsmith.com/pav_con.htm]
Lying near the constellations northern border with Telescopium is Alpha Pavonis, the brightest
star in Pavo. Its proper name- Peacock- is an English translation of the constellations name. Alpha
has an apparent (or visual) magnitude of 1.91 and spectral type B2IV. It is a spectroscopic binary
system, one estimate placing the distance between the pair of stars as 0.21 astronomical units (AU),
or half the distance between Mercury and the Sun. The two stars rotate around each other in a mere
11 days and 18 hours. The star system is located around 180 light years away from Earth.

With an apparent magnitude of 3.43, Beta Pavonis is the second-brightest star in the constellation.
A white giant of spectral class A7III, it is an aging star that has used up the hydrogen fuel at its
core and has expanded and cooled after moving off the main sequence. It lies 135 light years away
from the Solar System.

Lying a few degrees west of Beta is Delta Pavonis, a nearby Sun-like but more evolved star; this
is a yellow subgiant of spectral type G8IV and apparent magnitude 3.56 that is only 19.9 light
years distant from Earth.
East of Beta and at the constellations eastern border with Indus is Gamma Pavonis, a fainter, solartype star 30 light years from Earth with a magnitude of 4.22 and stellar class F9V.
Located in the west of the constellation and depicting the peacocks tail is Eta Pavonis. At apparent
magnitude 3.6, Eta is a luminous orange giant of spectral type K2II some 350 light years distant
from Earth.

In the south of the constellation, Epsilon Pavonis is a 3.95-magnitude white main sequence star of
spectral type A0Va located around 105 light years distant from Earth. It appears to be surrounded
by a narrow ring of dust at a distance of 107 AU.

Pavo contains several variable stars of note. For example, Lambda Pavonis is a bright irregular
variable ranging between magnitudes 3.4 and 4.4; this variation can be observed with the unaided
eye. Classed as a Gamma Cassiopeiae variable or shell star, it is of spectral type B2II-IIIe and lies
around 1430 light years distant from Earth.

AR Pavonis is a faint but well-studied eclipsing binary composed of a red giant and smaller hotter
star some 18000 light years from Earth. It has some features of a cataclysmic variable, the smaller
component most likely having an accretion disc. The visual magnitude ranges from 7.4 to 13.6
over 605 days.

Six stars with planetary systems have been found. Of these, HD 172555 is a young white A-type
main sequence star, two planets of which appear to have had a major collision in the past few
thousand years. Spectrographic evidence of large amounts of silicon dioxide gas indicates the
smaller of the two, which had been at least the size of Earths moon, was destroyed, and the larger,
which was at least the size of Mercury, was severely damaged. Evidence of the collision was
detected by NASAs Spitzer Space Telescope.

The deep-sky objects in Pavo include NGC 6752- the third-brightest globular cluster in the sky,
after 47 Tucanae and Omega Centauri- and, three degrees to the south, NGC 6744- a spiral galaxy
that resembles the Milky Way, but is twice its diameter:

At the Core of NGC 6752

This sharp Hubble Space Telescope view looks deep into NGC 6752. Some 13,000 light-years
away toward the southern constellation Pavo, the globular star cluster roams the halo of our Milky

Way galaxy. Over 10 billion years old, NGC 6752 holds over 100 thousand stars in a sphere about
100 light-years in diameter, but the Hubble image frame spans the central 10 or so light-years and
resolves stars near the dense cluster core. In fact the frame includes some of the cluster's blue
straggler stars, stars which appear to be too young and massive to exist in a cluster whose stars are
all expected to be at least twice as old as the Sun. Explorations of the NGC 6752 have also indicated
that a remarkable fraction of the stars near the cluster's core, are multiple star systems, supporting
arguments that star mergers and collisions in the dense stellar environment can create the cluster's
blue straggler stars.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120210.html]

Spiral Galaxy NGC 6744

Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 6744 is nearly 175,000 light-years across, larger than our own
Milky Way. It lies some 30 million light-years distant in the southern constellation Pavo. We see
the disk of the nearby island universe tilted towards our line of sight. Orientation and composition
give a strong sense of depth to this colorful galaxy portrait that covers an area about the angular
size of the full moon. This giant galaxys yellowish core is dominated by the light from old, cool
stars. Beyond the core, spiral arms filled with young blue star clusters and pinkish star forming

regions sweep past a smaller satellite galaxy at the lower left, reminiscent of the Milky Ways
satellite galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140808.html]

A type 1c supernova was discovered in the galaxy in 2005; known as SN2005at, it peaked at
magnitude 16.8. The dwarf galaxy IC 4662 lies 10 arcminutes northeast of Eta Pavonis, and is of
magnitude 11.62. Located only 8 million light years away, it has several regions of high star
formation. The 14th-magnitude galaxy IC 4965 lies 1.7 degrees west of Alpha Pavonis, and is a
central member of the Shapley Supercluster.

Pavo is the radiant of two annual meteor showers: the Delta Pavonids and August Pavonids.
Appearing from 21 March to 8 April and generally peaking around 5 and 6 April, Delta Pavonids
are thought to be associated with Comet Grigg-Mellish. This shower was discovered by one
Michael Buhagiar from Perth, Australia, who observed meteors on six occasions in eleven years
between 1969 and 1980. The August Pavonids peak around August 31 and are thought to be
associated with the Halley-type Comet Levy (P/1991 L3).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavo_%28constellation%29]

Pegasus

Pegasus is a constellation in the northern sky, named after the winged horse Pegasus in Greek
mythology. It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and
is one of the 88 constellations recognised today. Covering 1121 square degrees, Pegasus is the
seventh-largest of the 88 constellations. Pegasus is bordered by Andromeda to the north and east,
Lacerta to the north, Cygnus to the northwest, Vulpecula, Delphinus and Equuleus to the west,
Aquarius to the south and Pisces to the south and east. In the equatorial coordinate system the right
ascension coordinates of the constellation lie between 21h 12.6m and 00h 14.6m, while the
declination coordinates are between 2.33 and 36.61. Its position in the Northern Celestial
Hemisphere means that the whole constellation is visible to observers north of 53S.

Pegasus with the foal Equuleus next to it, as depicted in Uranias Mirror, a set of constellation
cards published in London c.1825. The horses appear upside-down in relation to the constellations
around them.

The Babylonian constellation IKU (field) had four stars of which three were later part of the Greek
constellation Hippos (Pegasus).

Pegasus, in Greek mythology, was a winged horse with magical powers. One myth regarding his
powers says that his hooves dug out a spring, Hippocrene, which blessed those who drank its water
with the ability to write poetry. Pegasus was the one who delivered Medusas head to Polydectes,
after which he travelled to Mount Olympus in order to be the bearer of thunder and lightning for
Zeus. Eventually, he became the horse to Bellerophon, who was asked to kill the Chimera and
succeeded with the help of Athena and Pegasus. Despite this success, after the death of his children,
Bellerophon asked Pegasus to take him to Mount Olympus. Though Pegasus agreed, he plummeted
back to Earth after Zeus either threw a thunderbolt at him or made Pegasus buck him off.

In ancient Persia, Pegasus was depicted by al-Sufi as a complete horse facing east, unlike most
other uranographers, who had depicted Pegasus as half of a horse, rising out of the ocean. In alSufis depiction, Pegasuss head is made up of the stars of Lacerta the lizard. Its right foreleg is
represented by Peg and its left foreleg is represented by Peg, Peg, and Peg; its hind legs
are marked by 9 Peg. The back is represented by Peg and Cyg, and the belly is represented by
Peg and Peg.

In Chinese astronomy, the modern constellation of Pegasus lies in The Black Tortoise of the north,
where the stars were classified in several separate asterisms of stars. Epsilon and Theta Pegasi are
joined with Alpha Aquarii to form Wei, rooftop, with Theta forming the roof apex.

In Hindu astronomy, the Great Square of Pegasus contained the 26th and 27th lunar mansions.
More specifically, it represented a bedstead that was a resting place for the Moon.

For the Warrau and Arawak peoples in Guyana the stars in the Great Square, corresponding to
parts of Pegasus and of Andromeda, represented a barbecue, taken up to the sky by the seven
hunters of the myth of Siritjo.

[http://www.dibonsmith.com/peg_con.htm]

Pegasus is dominated by a roughly square asterism, although one of the stars, Delta Pegasi or
Sirrah, is now officially considered to be Alpha Andromedae, part of Andromeda, and is more
usually called Alpheratz. Traditionally, the body of the horse consists of a quadrilateral formed
by the stars Peg, Peg, Peg, and And. The front legs of the winged horse are formed by two
crooked lines of stars, one leading from Peg to Peg and the other from Peg to 1 Pegasi.
Another crooked line of stars from Peg via Peg to Peg forms the neck and head; is the snout.

Commented [CT4]:

[http://utahsadventurefamily.com/find-pegasus-constellation/]

[https://einstein.stanford.edu/highlights/hl_061104.html]

Epsilon Pegasi is the brightest star of Pegasus. It has the traditional name Enif (EE-nif). The name
Enif is derived from the Arabic word for nose, due to its position as the muzzle of Pegasus. With
an apparent visual magnitude of 2.4, this is a second-magnitude star that is readily visible to the
naked eye. The distance to this star is around 690 light-years (210 parsecs).
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_Pegasi]

Beta Pegasi is a red giant star. The apparent visual magnitude of this star averages 2.42, making it
the second brightest star in the constellation after Epsilon Pegasi. Its traditional name is Scheat (a
name that has also been used for Delta Aquarii) probably comes from the Arabic Al S'id for
the upper arm, or from Sa'd. Arabian astronomers named it Mankib al Faras, meaning the
Horses shoulder. It forms the upper right corner of the Great Square of Pegasus. It is located
about 196 light-years (60 parsecs) from the Earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Pegasi]

Alpha Pegasi is the third brightest star in the constellation Pegasus and one of the four stars in the
Great Square of Pegasus. It has the traditional name Markab (or Marchab), which comes from an
Arabic word markab, the saddle of the horse. Markab has a stellar classification of B9 III,
indicating that it is a B-type giant star that has exhausted the hydrogen at its core and has evolved
beyond the main sequence. It is located about 133 ly (40.9 pc) distant from Earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Pegasi]

Gamma Pegasi is located at the southwest corner of the asterism known as the Great Square. It
also has the traditional name Algenib; confusingly however, this name is also used for Alpha
Persei. The average apparent visual magnitude of +2.84 puts this at fourth place among the
brightest stars in the constellation. The distance to this star is roughly 390 light-years (120 parsecs)
from Earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_Pegasi]

Eta and Omicron Pegasi mark the left knee and Pi Pegasi the left hoof, while Iota and Kappa Pegasi
mark the right knee and hoof. Also known as Matar, Eta Pegasi is the fifth-brightest star in the
constellation. Shining with an apparent magnitude of 2.94, it is a multiple star system composed

of a yellow giant of spectral type G2 and a yellow-white main sequence star of spectral type A5V
that are 3.2 and 2.0 times as massive as our Sun. The two revolve around each other every 2.24
years. Farther afield is a binary system of two G-type main sequence stars, that would take 170,000
years to orbit the main pair if they are in fact related.

Zeta, Xi, Rho and Sigma Pegasi mark the horses neck. The brightest of these with a magnitude of
3.4 is Zeta, also traditionally known as Homam. Lying seven degrees southwest of Markab, it is a
blue-white main sequence star of spectral type B8V located around 209 light-years distant.
Theta Pegasi marks the horses eye. Also known as Biham, it is a 3.43-magnitude white main
sequence star of spectral type A2V, around 1.8 times as massive, 24 times as luminous, and 2.3
times as wide as the Sun.

Lying near Enif (Epsilon Pegasi) is AG Pegasi, an unusual star that brightened to magnitude 6.0
around 1885 before dimming to magnitude 9. It is composed of a red giant and white dwarf,
estimated to be around 2.5 and 0.6 times the mass of the Sun respectively. With its outburst taking
over 150 years, it has been described as the slowest nova ever recorded.

IK Pegasi is a close binary comprising an A-type main-sequence star and white dwarf in very close
orbit; the latter a candidate for a future type Ia supernova as its main star runs out of core hydrogen
fuel and expands into a giant and transfers material to the smaller star.

Twelve star systems have been found to have exoplanets. 51 Pegasi was the first Sun-like star
discovered to have an exoplanet companion; 51 Pegasi b (unofficially named Bellerophon) is a hot
Jupiter close to its sun, completing an orbit every four days. Spectroscopic analysis of HD 209458
b, an extrasolar planet in this constellation, has provided the first evidence of atmospheric water
vapor beyond the solar system, while extrasolar planets orbiting the star HR 8799 also in Pegasus
are the first to be directly imaged. V391 Pegasi is a hot subdwarf star that has been found to have
a planetary companion.

Deep-sky objects in Pegasus include:

Spiral Galaxy NGC 7742

This might resemble a fried egg youve had for breakfast, but its actually much larger. In fact,
ringed by blue-tinted star forming regions and faintly visible spiral arms, the yolk-yellow center
of this face-on spiral galaxy, NGC 7742, is about 3,000 light-years across. About 72 million lightyears away in the constellation Pegasus, NGC 7742 is known to be a Seyfert galaxy- a type of

active spiral galaxy with a center or nucleus which is very bright at visible wavelengths. Across
the spectrum, the tremendous brightness of Seyferts can change over periods of just days to months
and galaxies like NGC 7742 are suspected of harboring massive black holes at their cores. This
beautiful color picture is courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope Heritage Project.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap030726.html]

NGC 7331 and Beyond

Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 7331 is often touted as an analog to our own Milky Way. About
50 million light-years distant in the northern constellation Pegasus, NGC 7331 was recognized
early on as a spiral nebula and is actually one of the brighter galaxies not included in Charles
Messiers famous 18th century catalog. Since the galaxys disk is inclined to our line-of-sight,
long telescopic exposures often result in an image that evokes a strong sense of depth. The effect
is further enhanced in this sharp image by galaxies that lie beyond the gorgeous island universe.
The background galaxies are about one tenth the apparent size of NGC 7331 and so lie roughly
ten times farther away. Their close alignment on the sky with NGC 7331 occurs just by chance.

Seen here through faint foreground dust clouds lingering above the plane of Milky Way, this visual
grouping of galaxies is also known as the Deer Lick Group.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140301.html]

Stephans Quintet Plus One

The first identified compact galaxy group, Stephans Quintet is featured in this remarkable image
constructed with data drawn from Hubble Legacy Archive and the Subaru Telescope on the
summit of Mauna Kea. The galaxies of the quintet are gathered near the center of the field, but
really only four of the five are locked in a cosmic dance of repeated close encounters taking place
some 300 million light-years away. The odd man out is easy to spot, though. The interacting

galaxies, NGC 7319, 7318A, 7318B, and 7317 have a more dominant yellowish cast. They also
tend to have distorted loops and tails, grown under the influence of disruptive gravitational tides.
The mostly bluish galaxy, NGC 7320, is in the foreground about 40 million light-years distant,
and isnt part of the interacting group. Still, captured in this field above and to the left of Stephans
Quintet is another galaxy, NGC 7320C, that is also 300 million light-years distant. Of course,
including it would bring the four interacting galaxies back up to quintet status. Stephans Quintet
lies within the boundaries of the high flying constellation Pegasus. At the estimated distance of the
quintets interacting galaxies, this field of view spans over 500,000 light-years.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140327.html]

Einsteins Cross

An important example of the gravitational lens effect is the quadruple image shown above. This
system is called the Einstein Cross, because it is such an excellent example of the phenomenon of
gravitational lensing. This phenomenon was postulated by Einstein as soon as he realized that
gravity would be able to bend light and thus could have lens-like effects. This system is also known
as Huchras Lens, after its founder. The four separate images have the same redshift of Z= 1.695.

This suggests that they are quasar images, and in fact multiple images of the same quasar. The
image is interpreted as gravitational lensing by an almost perfectly aligned galaxy for which the
red shift was measured to be Z= 0.0394. Using a Hubble constant of 71 km/s /Megaparsec as
indicated by the WMAP project, the Z measurements imply a distance of 500 million light years
(ly) for the lensing galaxy and 10.4 billion ly for the quasar. The quasar is over 20 times further
away than the galaxy that lenses it to give the four images. Modeling suggests that the alignment
of the lensing galaxy and the quasar is within 0.05 arcseconds.
[http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/astro/eincros.html]

The Eta Pegasids radiate from the area near Eta Pegasi every year on May 30.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_%28constellation%29]

Perseus

Perseus, named after the Greek mythological hero Perseus, is a constellation in the northern sky.
It is one of the 48 listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and among the 88 modern
constellations defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Perseus is bordered by
Aries and Taurus to the south, Auriga to the east, Camelopardalis and Cassiopeia to the north, and
Andromeda and Triangulum to the west. Covering 615 square degrees, it ranks twenty-fourth of
the 88 constellations in size. It appears prominently in the northern sky during the Northern
Hemispheres spring. Its main asterism consists of 19 stars. In the equatorial coordinate system,
the right ascension coordinates of Perseus lie between 01h 29.1m and 04h 51.2m, while the
declination coordinates are between 30.92 and 59.11.

Perseus carrying the head of Medusa the Gorgon, as depicted in Uranias Mirror, a set of
constellation cards published in London c.1825

Perseus is located near several other constellations named after ancient Greek legends surrounding
Perseus, including Andromeda to the west and Cassiopeia to the north. In Greek mythology,
Perseus was the son of Dana, who was sent by King Polydectes to bring the head of Medusa the
Gorgon- whose visage caused all who gazed upon her to turn to stone- as a wedding gift. Perseus
slew Medusa in her sleep, and Pegasus and Chrysaor appeared from her body. Perseus continued
to the realm of Cepheus whose daughter Andromeda was to be sacrificed to Cetus the sea monster.
Perseus rescued the princess Andromeda from Cetus by turning it to stone with Medusas head.
He turned Polydectes and his followers to stone and appointed Dictys the fisherman king. Perseus
and Andromeda married and had six children. In the sky, Perseus lies near the constellations
Andromeda, Cepheus, Cassiopeia (Andromedas mother), Cetus, and Pegasus.

The constellation of Perseus may be derived from the Babylonian Old Man (MUL.SHU.GI)
constellation, then associated with East in the MUL.APIN- an astronomical compilation dating to
around 1000 BCE.

Four Chinese constellations are contained in the area of the sky identified with Perseus in the West.
Tinchun, the Celestial Boat, was the third paranatellon (a star or constellation which rises at the
same time as another star or object) of the third house of the White Tiger of the West, representing
the boats that Chinese people were reminded to build in case of a catastrophic flood season.
Incorporating stars from the northern part of the constellation, it contained Mu, Delta, Psi, Alpha,
Gamma and Eta Persei. Jshu, the Swollen Waters, was the fourth paranatellon of the
aforementioned house, representing the potential of unusually high floods during the end of August
and beginning of September at the beginning of the flood season. Lambda and possibly Mu Persei
lay within it. Dlng, the Great Trench, was the fifth paranatellon of that house, representing the
trenches where criminals executed en masse in August were interred. It was formed by Kappa,
Omega, Rho, 24, 17 and 15 Persei. The pile of corpses prior to their interment was represented by
Jsh (Algol), the sixth paranatellon of the house. The Double Cluster, h and Chi Persei, had special
significance in Chinese astronomy. Known as Hsi and Ho, the two clusters represented two
astronomers who failed to predict a total solar eclipse and were subsequently beheaded.

In Polynesia, Perseus was not commonly recognized as a separate constellation; the only people
that named it were those of the Society Islands, who called it Faa-iti, meaning Little Valley.
Algol may have been named Matohi by the Mori people, but the evidence for this identification
is disputed. Matohi (Split) occasionally came into conflict with Tangaroa-whakapau over which
of them should appear in the sky, the outcome affecting the tides. It matches the Maori description
of a blue-white star near Aldebaran but does not disappear as the myth would indicate.

[http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/Per.html]

[http://www.shmoop.com/perseus/photo-perseus-constellation.html]

[http://www.uwyo.edu/uw/news/2013/11/northern-rockies-skies-for-december-the-perseusconstellation,-the-greek-hero.html]
Algol (from the Arabic Ra's al-Ghul, which means The Demons Head), also known by its Bayer
designation Beta Persei, is the best-known star in Perseus. Representing the eye of the Gorgon
Medusa in Greek mythology, it was called Horus in Egyptian mythology, and Rosh ha Satan
(Satans Head) in Hebrew. Located 92.8 light-years from Earth, it varies in apparent magnitude
from a minimum of 3.5 to a maximum of 2.3 over a period of 2.867 days.

The star system is the prototype of a group of eclipsing binary stars named Algol variables, though
it has a third member to make up what is actually a triple star system. The brightest component is
a blue-white main-sequence star of spectral type B8V, which is 3.5 times as massive and 180 times
as luminous as the Sun. The secondary component is an orange subgiant star of type K0IV that has

begun cooling and expanding to 3.5 times the radius of the Sun, and has 4.5 times the luminosity
and 80% of its mass. These two are separated by only 0.05 astronomical units (AU)- five percent
of the distance between the Earth and Sun; the main dip in brightness arises when the larger fainter
companion passes in front of the hotter brighter primary. The tertiary component is a main
sequence star of type A7, which is located on average 2.69 AU from the other two stars.

With the historical name Mirfak (Arabic for elbow) or Algenib, Alpha Persei is the brightest star
of this constellation with an apparent magnitude of 1.79. A supergiant of spectral type F5Ib located
around 590 light-years away from Earth, Mirfak has 5,000 times the luminosity and 42 times the
diameter of our Sun. It is the brightest member of the Alpha Persei Cluster (also known as Melotte
20 and Collinder 39), which is an open cluster containing many luminous stars.

Zeta Persei is the third-brightest star in the constellation at magnitude 2.86. Around 750 light-years
from Earth, it is a blue-white supergiant 2627 times the radius of the Sun and 47,000 times its
luminosity. It is the brightest star (as seen from Earth) of a moving group of bright blue-white giant
and supergiant stars, the Perseus OB2 Association or Zeta Persei Association. Zeta is a triple star
system, with a companion blue-white main sequence star of spectral type B8 and apparent
magnitude 9.16 around 3900 AU distant from the primary, and a white main sequence star of
magnitude 9.90 and spectral type A2, some 50,000 AU away, that may or may not be
gravitationally bound to the other two.

Gamma Persei is a binary star system. The combined apparent visual magnitude of the pair is +2.9,
making it the fourth brightest member of the constellation. The distance to this system is roughly
243 light-years (75 parsecs). About 4 to the north of Gamma Persei is the radiance point for the
annual Perseid meteor shower.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_Persei]

Delta Persei is a double star with an apparent visual magnitude of 3.01, making it readily visible
with the naked eye. Parallax measurements give it a distance of about 520 light-years (160 parsecs)
from the Earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Persei]

Epsilon Persei is a multiple star system. It has a combined apparent visual magnitude of +2.88,
which is bright enough to be viewed with the naked eye. The system is located at a distance of
roughly 640 light-years (196 parsecs) from Earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_Persei]

GK Persei, also known as Nova Persei 1901, is a bright nova that appeared halfway between Algol
and Delta Persei. Discovered on 21 February 1901 by Scottish amateur astronomer Thomas David
Anderson, it peaked at magnitude 0.2- almost as bright as Capella and Vega. It faded to magnitude
13 around 30 years after its peak brightness.

Seven stars in Perseus have been found to have planetary systems. V718 Persei is a star in the
young open cluster IC 348 that appears to be periodically eclipsed by a giant planet every 4.7 years.
This has been inferred to be an object with a maximum mass of 6 times that of Jupiter and an
orbital radius of 3.3 AU.

The galactic plane of the Milky Way passes through Perseus, but is much less obvious than
elsewhere in the sky as it is mostly obscured by molecular clouds. The Perseus Arm is a spiral arm
of the Milky Way galaxy and stretches across the sky from the constellation Cassiopeia through
Perseus and Auriga to Gemini and Monoceros. This segment is towards the rim of the galaxy.

The Double Cluster (NGC 869 and NGC 884)

Within the Perseus Arm lie two open clusters (NGC 869 and NGC 884) known as the Double
Cluster. Sometimes known as h and Chi () Persei respectively, they are easily visible through
binoculars and small telescopes. Both lie more than 7,000 light-years from Earth and are several
hundred light-years apart. The Double Cluster was first recorded during the reign of the Chinese
king Tsung-K'ang, who reigned during the Xia dynasty (2858- 2146 BCE). Both clusters are of
approximately magnitude 4 and 0.5 degrees in diameter. The two are Trumpler class I 3 r clusters,
though NGC 869 is a Shapley class f and NGC 884 is a Shapley class e cluster. These
classifications indicate that they are both quite rich (dense); NGC 869 is the richer of the pair. The
clusters are both distinct from the surrounding star field and are clearly concentrated at their
centers. The constituent stars, numbering over 100 in each cluster, range widely in brightness.

M34 is an open cluster that appears at magnitude 5.5, and is approximately 1,500 light-years from
Earth. It contains about 100 stars scattered over a field of view larger than that of the full moon.
M34 can be resolved with good eyesight but is best viewed using a telescope at low magnifications.

IC 348 is a somewhat young open cluster that is still contained within the nebula from which its
stars formed. It is located about 1,027 light-years from Earth, is about 2 million years old, and
contains many stars with circumstellar disks. Many brown dwarfs have been discovered in this
cluster due to its age; since brown dwarfs cool as they age, it is easier to find them in younger
clusters.

There are many nebulae in Perseus. These include the planetary nebula M76 (Little Dumbbell
Nebula), the emission nebula NGC 1499 (California Nebula), and the reflection nebula NGC 1333:

Messier 76
Nebula at the right foot of Andromeda ... begins the description for the 76th object in Charles
Messiers 18th century Catalog of Nebulae and Star Clusters. In fact, M76 is one of the fainter
objects on the Messier list and is also known by the popular name of the Little Dumbbell Nebula.

Like its brighter namesake M27 (the Dumbbell Nebula), M76 is recognized as a planetary nebulaa gaseous shroud cast off by a dying sunlike star. The nebula itself is thought to be shaped more
like a donut, while the box-like appearance of its brighter central region is due to our nearly edgeon view. Gas expanding more rapidly away from the donut hole produces the fainter loops of far
flung material. The fainter material is emphasized in this composite image, highlighted by showing
emission from hydrogen atoms in orange and oxygen atoms in complementary blue hues. The
nebula's dying star can be picked out in the sharp false-color image as the blue-tinted star near the
center of the box-like shape. Distance estimates place M76 about 3 to 5 thousand light-years away,
making the nebula over a light-year in diameter.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100723.html]

The California Nebula

Whats California doing in space? Drifting through the Orion Arm of the spiral Milky Way Galaxy,
this cosmic cloud by chance echoes the outline of California on the west coast of the United States.
Our own Sun also lies within the Milky Ways Orion Arm, only about 1,500 light-years from the
California Nebula. Also known as NGC 1499, the classic emission nebula is around 100 lightyears long. On the featured image, the most prominent glow of the California Nebula is the red

light characteristic of hydrogen atoms recombining with long lost electrons, stripped away
(ionized) by energetic starlight. The star most likely providing the energetic starlight that ionizes
much of the nebular gas is the bright, hot, bluish Xi Persei just to the right of the nebula. A regular
target for astrophotographers, the California Nebula can be spotted with a wide-field telescope
under a dark sky toward the constellation of Perseus, not far from the Pleiades.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160112.html]

NGC 1333 Stardust

NGC 1333 is seen in visible light as a reflection nebula, dominated by bluish hues characteristic
of starlight reflected by dust. A mere 1,000 light-years distant toward the heroic constellation
Perseus, it lies at the edge of a large, star-forming molecular cloud. This striking close-up view
spans about two full moons on the sky or just over 15 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC
1333. It shows details of the dusty region along with hints of contrasting red emission from HerbigHaro objects, jets and shocked glowing gas emanating from recently formed stars. In fact, NGC
1333 contains hundreds of stars less than a million years old, most still hidden from optical
telescopes by the pervasive stardust. The chaotic environment may be similar to one in which our
own Sun formed over 4.5 billion years ago.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140306.html]

Perseus contains some notable galaxies. NGC 1023 is a barred spiral galaxy of magnitude 10.35,
around 11.6 million pc (38 million ly) from Earth. It is the principal member of the NGC 1023
group of galaxies and is possibly interacting with another galaxy. NGC 1260 is either a lenticular
or tightly-wound spiral galaxy about 76.7 million pc (250 million ly) from Earth. It was the host
galaxy of the supernova SN 2006gy, one of the brightest ever recorded.

SN 2006gy: NASAs Chandra Sees Brightest Supernova Ever

According to observations by NASAs Chandra X-ray Observatory and ground-based optical
telescopes, the supernova SN 2006gy is the brightest and most energetic stellar explosion ever
recorded and may be a long-sought new type of explosion. The top panel of this graphic is an
artists illustration that shows what SN 2006gy may have looked like if viewed at a close distance.
The fireworks-like material in white shows the explosion of an extremely massive star. This debris
is pushing back two lobes of cool, red gas that were expelled in a large eruption from the star
before it exploded. The green, blue and yellow regions in these lobes shows where gas is being

heated in a shock front as the explosion material crashes into it and pushes it backwards. Most of
the optical light generated by the supernova is thought to come from debris that has been heated
by radioactivity, but some likely comes from the shocked gas.

The bottom left panel is an infrared image, using adaptive optics at the Lick Observatory, of NGC
1260, the galaxy containing SN 2006gy. The dimmer source to the lower left in that panel is the
center of NGC 1260, while the much brighter source to the upper right is SN 2006gy. The panel
to the right shows Chandras X-ray image of the same field of view, again showing the nucleus of
NGC 1260 and SN 2006gy. The Chandra observation allowed astronomers to determine that SN
2006gy was indeed caused by the collapse of an extremely massive star, and not the most likely
alternative explanation for the explosion, the destruction of a low-mass star. If the supernova was
caused by a white dwarf star exploding into a dense, hydrogen-rich environment, SN 2006gy
would have been about 1,000 times brighter in X-rays than what Chandra detected.
[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2007/sn2006gy/index.html]

NGC 1260 is a member of the Perseus cluster (Abell 426), a massive galaxy cluster located 76.6
million pc (250 million ly) from Earth. With a redshift of 0.0179, Abell 426 is the closest major
cluster to the Earth. NGC 1275, also a component of the cluster, is a Seyfert galaxy containing an
active nucleus that produces jets of material, surrounding the galaxy with massive bubbles. These
bubbles create sound waves that travel through the Perseus Cluster, sounding a B flat 57 octaves
below middle C. This galaxy is a cD galaxy that has undergone many galactic mergers throughout
its existence, as evidenced by the high velocity system- the remnants of a smaller galaxysurrounding it. Its active nucleus is a strong source of radio waves:

Hubble Remix: Active Galaxy NGC 1275

Active galaxy NGC 1275 is the central, dominant member of the large and relatively nearby
Perseus Cluster of Galaxies. Wild-looking at visible wavelengths, the active galaxy is also a
prodigious source of x-rays and radio emission. NGC 1275 accretes matter as entire galaxies fall
into it, ultimately feeding a supermassive black hole at the galaxys core. This color composite
image, recreated from archival Hubble Space Telescope data, highlights the resulting galactic
debris and filaments of glowing gas, some up to 20,000 light-years long. The filaments persist in
NGC 1275, even though the turmoil of galactic collisions should destroy them. What keeps the
filaments together? Observations indicate that the structures, pushed out from the galaxys center

by the black holes activity, are held together by magnetic fields. Also known as Perseus A, NGC
1275 spans over 100,000 light years and lies about 230 million light years away.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap131006.html]

Galaxies of the Perseus Cluster

This colorful telescopic skyscape is filled with galaxies that lie nearly 250 million light-years
away, the galaxies of the Perseus cluster. Their extended and sometimes surprising shapes are seen
beyond a veil of foreground stars in our own Milky Way. Ultimately consisting of over a thousand
galaxies, the cluster is filled with yellowish elliptical and lenticular galaxies, like those scattered
throughout this view of the clusters central region. Notably, the large galaxy at the left is the
massive and bizarre-looking NGC 1275. A prodigious source of high-energy emission, active
galaxy NGC 1275 dominates the Perseus cluster, accreting matter as entire galaxies fall into it and
feed the supermassive black hole at the galaxys core. Of course, spiral galaxies also inhabit the
Perseus cluster, including the small, face-on spiral NGC 1268, right of picture center. The bluish

spot on the outskirts of NGC 1268 is supernova SN 2008fg. At the estimated distance of the
Perseus galaxy cluster, this field spans about 1.5 million light-years.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090508.html]

Perseus is also home to the Perseid annual meteor shower:

Perseid Meteors over China

Comet dust rained down on planet Earth earlier this month, streaking through dark skies in the
annual Perseid meteor shower. While enjoying the anticipated space weather above Zhangbei
Prairie, Hebei Province, China, astronomer Xiang Zhan recorded a series of 10 second long
exposures spanning four hours on the night of August 12/13 (2013) using a wide angle lens.
Combining frames which captured 68 meteor flashes, he produced the above composite view of
the Perseids of summer. Although the sand-sized comet particles are traveling parallel to each
other, the resulting shower meteors clearly seem to radiate from a single point on the sky in the
eponymous constellation Perseus. The radiant effect is due to perspective, as the parallel tracks

appear to converge at a distance. The next notable meteor shower may be the Orionids in late
October.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130821.html]

The Perseids appear to radiate from Perseus from mid-July, peaking in activity between 9 and 14
August each year. Associated with Comet SwiftTuttle, they have been observed for about 2,000
years. The September Epsilon Perseids, discovered in 2012, are another meteor shower with an
unknown parent body in the Oort cloud.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseus_%28constellation%29]

Phoenix

Phoenix is a minor constellation in the southern sky. Named after the mythical phoenix, it was first
depicted on a celestial atlas by Johann Bayer in his 1603 Uranometria. The French explorer and
astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille charted the brighter stars and gave their Bayer designations
in 1756. The constellation stretches from roughly 39 to 57 declination, and from 23.5h to 2.5h
of right ascension. The constellations Phoenix, Grus, Pavo and Tucana, are known as the Southern
Birds.

Phoenix is a small constellation bordered by Fornax and Sculptor to the north, Grus to the west,
Tucana to the south, touching on the corner of Hydrus to the south, and Eridanus to the east and

southeast. The bright star Achernar is nearby. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right
ascension coordinates of the constellation lie between 23h 26.5m and 02h 25.0m, while the
declination coordinates are between 39.31 and 57.84. This means it remains below the horizon
to anyone living north of the 40th parallel in the Northern Hemisphere, and remains low in the sky
for anyone living north of the equator. It is most visible from locations such as Australia and South
Africa during late Southern Hemisphere spring. Most of the constellation lies within, and can be
located by, forming a triangle of the bright stars Achernar, Fomalhaut and Beta CetiAnkaa lies
roughly in the centre of this.

The southern birds, as depicted in Johann Bayer's Uranometria. Phoenix is on the lower left

In Greek mythology, a phoenix is a long-lived bird that is cyclically regenerated or reborn.

Associated with the sun, it obtains new life by arising from the ashes of its predecessor. According
to some sources, the phoenix dies in a show of flames and combustion, although there are other
sources that claim that the legendary bird dies and simply decomposes before being born again.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(mythology)]

Phoenix was the largest of the twelve constellations established by Petrus Plancius from the
observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. It first appeared on a 35-cm
diameter celestial globe published in 1597 (or 1598) in Amsterdam by Plancius with Jodocus
Hondius. The first depiction of this constellation in a celestial atlas was in Johann Bayer's
Uranometria of 1603. De Houtman included it in his southern star catalog the same year under the
Dutch name Den voghel Fenicx, The Bird Phoenix, symbolising the phoenix of classical
mythology. One name of the brightest star Alpha Phoenicis- Ankaa- is derived from the Arabic alanq the phoenix, and was coined sometime after 1800 in relation to the constellation.

Celestial historian Richard Allen noted that unlike the other constellations introduced by Plancius
and La Caille, Phoenix has actual precedent in ancient astronomy, as the Arabs saw this formation
as representing young ostriches, Al Ri'l, or as a griffin or eagle. In addition, the same group of
stars was sometimes imagined by the Arabs as a boat, Al Zaurak, on the nearby river Eridanus.
The Chinese incorporated Phoenixs brightest star, Ankaa (Alpha Phoenicis), and stars from the
adjacent constellation Sculptor to depict Bakui, a net for catching birds. Phoenix and the
neighbouring constellation of Grus together were seen by Julius Schiller as portraying Aaron the
High Priest. These two constellations, along with nearby Pavo and Tucana, are called the Southern
Birds.

[http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/Phe.html]

[https://60sinseattle.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/phoenix-constellation/]

A curved line of stars comprising Alpha, Kappa, Mu, Beta, Nu and Gamma Phoenicis was seen as
a boat by the ancient Arabs. French explorer and astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille charted
and designated 27 stars with the Bayer designations Alpha through to Omega in 1756.

Ankaa (Alpha Phoenicis) is the brightest star in the constellation. It is an orange giant of apparent
visual magnitude 2.37 and spectral type K0.5IIIb, 77 light years distant from Earth and orbited by
a secondary object about which little is known.

Located centrally in the asterism, Beta Phoenicis is the second brightest star in the constellation
and another binary star. Together the stars, both yellow giants of spectral type G8, shine with an
apparent magnitude of 3.31, though the components are of individual apparent magnitudes of 4.0
and 4.1 and orbit each other every 168 years.

Gamma Phoenicis is a red giant of spectral type M0IIIa and varies between magnitudes 3.39 and
3.49. It lies 235 light years away.

Delta Phoenicis is a yellow giant star. Its apparent magnitude is 3.95 and is about 142 light years
away from earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Phoenicis]

Epsilon Phoenicis is an orange giant of spectral type K0III, a star that has used up its core hydrogen
and has expanded. Its apparent magnitude is 3.87, and it is located around 144 parsecs (470 ly)
distant.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_Phoenicis]

Zeta Phoenicis is an Algol-type eclipsing binary, with an apparent magnitude fluctuating between
3.9 and 4.4 with a period of around 1.7 days (40 hours); its dimming results from the component
two blue-white B-type stars, which orbit and block out each other from Earth. The two stars are
0.05 AU from each other, while a third star is around 600 AU away from the pair, and has an

orbital period exceeding 5000 years. The system is around 300 light years distant. In 1976,
researchers Clausen, Gyldenkerne, and Grnbech calculated that a nearby 8th magnitude star is a
fourth member of the system.

Lying close by Ankaa is Kappa Phoenicis, a main sequence star of spectral type A5IVn and
apparent magnitude 3.90.

Ten stars have been found to have planets to date, and four planetary systems have been discovered
with the SuperWASP project. HD 142 is a yellow giant that has an apparent magnitude of 5.7, and
has a planet (HD 142 b) 1.36 times the mass of Jupiter which orbits every 328 days. HD 2039 is a
yellow subgiant with an apparent magnitude of 9.0 around 330 light years away which has a planet
(HD 2039 b) triple the mass of Jupiter. WASP-18 is a star of magnitude 9.29 which was discovered
to have a hot Jupiter-like planet (WASP-18b) taking less than a day to orbit the star. The planet is
suspected to be causing WASP-18 to appear older than it really is. WASP-4 and WASP-5 are
solar-type yellow stars around 1000 light years distant and of 13th magnitude, each with a single
planet larger than Jupiter. WASP-29 is an orange dwarf of spectral type K4V and visual magnitude
11.3, which has a planetary companion of similar size and mass to Saturn. The planet completes
an orbit every 3.9 days.

WISE J003231.09-494651.4 and WISE J001505.87-461517.6 are two brown dwarfs discovered
by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, and are 63 and 49 light years away respectively.
Initially hypothesised before they were belatedly discovered, brown dwarfs are objects more
massive than planets, but which are of insufficient mass for hydrogen fusion characteristic of stars
to occur. Many are being found by sky surveys.

Phoenix contains HE0107-5240, possibly one of the oldest stars yet discovered. It has around
1/200,000 the metallicity that the Sun has and hence must have formed very early in the history of
the universe. With a visual magnitude of 15.17, it is around 10,000 times dimmer than the faintest
stars visible to the naked eye and is 36000 light years distant.

Roberts Quartet
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert%27s_Quartet]

The constellation does not lie on the galactic plane of the Milky Way, and there are no prominent
star clusters. NGC 625 is a dwarf irregular galaxy of apparent magnitude 11.0 and lying some 12.7
million light years distant. Only 24000 light years in diameter, it is an outlying member of the
Sculptor Group. NGC 625 is thought to have been involved in a collision and is experiencing a
burst of active star formation. NGC 37 is a lenticular galaxy of apparent magnitude 14.66. It is
approximately 42 kiloparsecs (137,000 light-years) in diameter and about 12.9 billion years old.
Roberts Quartet (composed of the irregular galaxy NGC 87, and three spiral galaxies NGC 88,
NGC 89 and NGC 92) is a group of four galaxies located around 160 million light-years away

which are in the process of colliding and merging. They are within a circle of radius of 1.6 arcmin,
corresponding to about 75,000 light-years. Located in the galaxy ESO 243-49 is HLX-1, an
intermediate-mass black hole- the first one of its kind identified. It is thought to be a remnant of a
dwarf galaxy that was absorbed in a collision with ESO 243-49. Before its discovery, this class of
black hole was only hypothesized.

Lying within the bounds of the constellation is the gigantic Phoenix cluster, which is around 7.3
million light years wide and 5.7 billion light years away, making it one of the most massive galaxy
clusters. It was first discovered in 2010, and the central galaxy is producing an estimated 740 new
stars a year. Larger still is El Gordo, or officially ACT-CL J0102-4915, whose discovery was
announced in 2012. Located around 7.2 billion light years away, it is composed of two subclusters
in the process of colliding, resulting in the spewing out of hot gas, seen in X-rays and infrared
images:

Phoenix Cluster: A Fresh Perspective on an Extraordinary Cluster of Galaxies

Galaxy clusters are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerations of
galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter and represent the largest structures in the Universe held together
by gravity.

Galaxy clusters tend to be poor at producing new stars in their centers. They generally have one
giant galaxy in their middle that forms stars at a rate significantly slower than most galaxies -

including our Milky Way. The central galaxy contains a supermassive black holeroughly a
thousand times more massive than the one at the center of our galaxy. Without heating by outbursts
from this black hole, the copious amounts of hot gas found in the central galaxy should cool,
allowing stars to form at a high clip. It is thought that the central black hole acts as a thermostat,
preventing rapid cooling of surrounding hot gas and impeding star formation.

New data provide more details on how the galaxy cluster SPT-CLJ2344-4243, nicknamed the
Phoenix Cluster for the constellation in which it is found, challenges this trend. The cluster has
shattered multiple records in the past: In 2012, scientists announced that the Phoenix cluster
featured the highest rate of cooling hot gas and star formation ever seen in the center of a galaxy
cluster, and is the most powerful producer of X-rays of all known clusters. The rate at which hot
gas is cooling in the center of the cluster is also the largest ever observed.
New observations of this galaxy cluster at X-ray, ultraviolet, and optical wavelengths by NASAs
Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Clay-Magellan telescope
located in Chile, are helping astronomers better understand this remarkable object. ClayMagellans optical data reveal narrow filaments from the center of the cluster where stars are
forming. These massive cosmic threads of gas and dust, most of which had never been detected
before, extend for 160,000 to 330,000 lights years. This is longer than the entire breadth of the
Milky Way galaxy, making them the most extensive filaments ever seen in a galaxy cluster.

These filaments surround large cavities- regions with greatly reduced X-ray emission- in the hot
gas. The X-ray cavities can be seen in this composite image that shows the Chandra X-ray data in
blue and optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope (red, green, and blue). For the location of
these inner cavities, mouse over the image. Astronomers think that the X-ray cavities were carved
out of the surrounding gas by powerful jets of high-energy particles emanating from near a
supermassive black hole in the central galaxy of the cluster. As matter swirls toward a black hole,
an enormous amount of gravitational energy is released. Combined radio and X-ray observations
of supermassive black holes in other galaxy clusters have shown that a significant fraction of this
energy is released as jets of outbursts that can last millions of years. The observed size of the X -

ray cavities indicates that the outburst that produced the cavities in SPT- CLJ2344-4243 was one
of the most energetic such events ever recorded.

However, the central black hole in the Phoenix cluster is suffering from somewhat of an identity
crisis, sharing properties with both quasars, very bright objects powered by material falling onto
a supermassive black hole, and radio galaxies containing jets of energetic particles that glow in
radio waves, and are also powered by giant black holes. Half of the energy output from this black
hole comes via jets mechanically pushing on the surrounding gas (radio-mode), and the other half
from optical, UV and X-radiation originating in an accretion disk (quasar-mode). Astronomers
suggest that the black hole may be in the process of flipping between these two states.
X-ray cavities located farther away from the center of the cluster, labeled as outer cavities,
provide evidence for strong outbursts from the central black hole about a hundred million years
ago (neglecting the light travel time to the cluster). This implies that the black hole may have been
in a radio mode, with outbursts, about a hundred million years ago, then changed into a quasar
mode, and then changed back into a radio mode.

It is thought that rapid cooling may have occurred in between these outbursts, triggering star
formation in clumps and filaments throughout the central galaxy at a rate of about 610 solar masses
per year. By comparison, only a couple new stars form every year in our Milky Way galaxy. The
extreme properties of the Phoenix cluster system are providing new insights into various
astrophysical problems, including the formation of stars, the growth of galaxies and black holes,
and the co-evolution of black holes and their environment.
[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2015/phoenix/]

Monster El Gordo Galaxy Cluster is Bigger than Thought

This is a composite image of X-rays from Chandra and optical data from Hubble of the galaxy
cluster ACT-CL J0102-4915, located about 7 billion light years from Earth. This cluster has been
nicknamed El Gordo (or, the fat one in Spanish) because of its gigantic mass.

Scientists first announced the discovery of El Gordo with Chandra and ground-based optical
telescopes in 2012. They determined that El Gordo is the most massive, the hottest, and gives off
the most X-rays of any known galaxy cluster at its distance or beyond.

New data from the Hubble Space Telescope suggests El Gordo weighs as much as 3 million billion
times the mass of our Sun. This is about 43 percent higher than the original estimate based on the
X-ray data and dynamical studies.

The new Hubble study determined that most of the mass is hidden away as dark matter. The
location of the dark matter is mapped out in this composite in blue. Because dark matter doesnt
emit any radiation, astronomers instead precisely measure how its gravity warps the images of far

background galaxies like a funhouse mirror. This allowed them to come up with a mass estimate
for the cluster. Chandras X-ray data are shown in pink and these have been overlaid on optical
data from Hubble that shows the individual galaxies in the cluster as well as stars in the field of
view.

The X-ray image of El Gordo reveals a distinct cometary appearance. Along with the optical data,
this shows that El Gordo is, in fact, the site of two galaxy clusters running into one another at
several million miles per hour. This and other characteristics make El Gordo akin to the wellknown object called the Bullet Cluster, which is located almost 4 billion light years closer to Earth.

As with the Bullet Cluster, there is evidence that normal matter, mainly composed of hot, X-ray
bright gas, has been wrenched apart from the dark matter in El Gordo. The hot gas in each cluster
was slowed down by the collision, but the dark matter was not.
[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/elgordo-2014.html]

Phoenix is the radiant of two annual meteor showers. The Phoenicids, also known as the December
Phoenicids, were first observed on 3 December 1887. The shower was particularly intense in
December 1956, and is thought related to the breakup of the short-period comet 289P/Blanpain. It
peaks around 4-5 December, though is not seen every year. A very minor meteor shower peaks
around July 14 with around one meteor an hour, though meteors can be seen anytime from July 3
to 18; this shower is referred to as the July Phoenicids.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(constellation)]

Pictor

Pictor is a small constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere, located between the star
Canopus and the Large Magellanic Cloud. Its name is Latin for painter, and is an abbreviation of
the older name Equuleus Pictoris (the painters easel). Pictor is bordered by Columba to the north,
Puppis and Carina to the east, Caelum to the northwest, Dorado to the southwest and Volans to the
south. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of the constellation lie
between 04h 32.5m and 06h 52.0m, while the declination coordinates are between 42.79 and
64.15. Pictor culminates each year at 9 p.m. on 17 March. Its position in the far Southern
Celestial Hemisphere means that the whole constellation is visible to observers south of latitude
26N, and parts become circumpolar south of latitude 35S.

Pictor, shown with the name Pluteum Pictoris on Chart XX of the Uranographia star atlas of Johann
Bode (1801). Bode closely followed Lacailles original depiction of this constellation, unlike in
many other cases. The bright star at centre right is Canopus on the steering oar of the ship Argo.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/pictor.htm]

The French astronomer Abb Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille first described Pictor as le Chevalet et la
Palette (the easel and palette) in 1756, after observing and cataloguing 10,000 southern stars during
a two-year stay at the Cape of Good Hope. He devised 14 new constellations in uncharted regions
of the Southern Celestial Hemisphere not visible from Europe. All but one honored instruments
that symbolised the Age of Enlightenment. He gave these constellations Bayer designations,
including ten stars in Pictor now named Alpha to Nu Pictoris. He labelled the constellation
Equuleus Pictorius on his 1763 chart, the word Equuleus meaning small horse, or easel- perhaps
from an old custom among artists of carrying a canvas on a donkey. The German astronomer
Johann Bode called it Pluteum Pictoris. The name was shortened to its current form in 1845 by the
English astronomer Francis Baily on the suggestion of his countryman Sir John Herschel.

[http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/Pic.html]

[http://www.dibonsmith.com/pic_con.htm]

Pictor is a faint constellation; its three brightest stars can be seen near the prominent Canopus.
Within the constellations borders, there are 49 stars brighter than or equal to apparent magnitude
6.5. Located about 97 light-years away from Earth, Alpha Pictoris is the brightest star in the
constellation; it is a white main-sequence star with an apparent magnitude of 3.3, and spectral type
A8VnkA6. A rapidly spinning star with a projected rotational velocity estimated at 206 km/s,[17]
it has a shell of circumstellar gas.

Beta Pictoris is another white main sequence star of spectral type A6V and apparent magnitude
3.86. Located around 63.4 light-years distant from Earth, it is a member of the Beta Pictoris moving
group- a group of 17 star systems around 12 million years old moving through space together. In
1984 Beta Pictoris was the first star discovered to have a debris disk. Since then, an exoplanet
about eight times the mass of Jupiter has been discovered orbiting approximately 8 astronomical
units (AU) away from the star- a similar distance as that between our Sun and Saturn. The
European Southern Observatory (ESO) confirmed its presence through the use of direct imagery
with the Very Large Telescope in late 2009.

Gamma Pictoris is an orange giant of spectral type K1III that has swollen to 1.4 times the diameter
of the Sun. Shining with an apparent magnitude of 4.5, it lies 174 light-years distant from Earth.

Aside from Beta, five other stars in Pictor are known to host planetary systems. AB Pictoris is a
BY Draconis variable star with a substellar companion that is either a large planet or a brown
dwarf, which was discovered by direct imaging in 2005. HD 40307 is an orange main sequence
star of spectral type K2.5V and apparent magnitude 7.17 located about 42 light-years away.
Doppler spectroscopy with the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) indicates
that HD 40307 is host to six super-Earth planets, one of which, HD 40307 g, lies in the
circumstellar habitable zone of the star, and is not close enough to be tidally locked (i.e. with the
same face always facing the star), unlike the other planets in the same system, and many other
planets which orbit close to their parent stars. HD 41004 is a complex binary system about 139
light-years distant. The primary is an orange dwarf of spectral type K1V orbited by a planet
roughly 2.65 times the mass of Jupiter every 963 days, while the secondary is a red dwarf of
spectral type M2V and orbited by a brown dwarf that is at least 19 times as massive as Jupiter.
Both substellar components were discovered by Doppler spectroscopy using the CORALIE
spectrograph in 2004 and 2002 respectively.
Kapteyns Star, a nearby red dwarf at the distance of 12.78 light-years, has a magnitude of 8.8. It
has the largest proper motion of any star in the sky after Barnards Star. Moving around the Milky
Way in the opposite direction to most other stars, it may have originated in a dwarf galaxy that
was merged into the Milky Way, with the main remnant being the Omega Centauri globular

cluster. In 2014 analysis of the doppler variations of Kapteyns Star with the HARPS spectrograph
showed that it hosts two super-Earths- Kapteyn b and Kapteyn c. Kapteyn b is the oldest-known
potentially habitable planet, estimated to be possibly 11 billion years old.

Located 1.5 degrees west southwest of Alpha, RR Pictoris is a cataclysmic variable that flared up
as a nova, reaching magnitude 1.2 on 9 June 1925. Six months after its peak brightness, it had
faded to be invisible to the unaided eye, and was magnitude 12.5 by 1975. RR Pictoris is a close
binary system composed of a white dwarf and secondary star that orbit each other every 3.48 hoursso close that the secondary is filling up its Roche lobe with stellar material, which is then
transferred onto the first star's accretion disk. Once this material reaches a critical mass, it ignites
and the system brightens tremendously. Calculations from the orbital speed suggest the secondary
star is not dense enough for its size to still be on the main sequence, so it also must have begun
expanding and cooling already after its core ran out of hydrogen fuel. The RR Pictoris system is
estimated to lie around 1300 light-years distant from Earth.

Pictor includes NGC 1705, an irregular dwarf galaxy, and Pictor A, a double-lobed radio galaxy
and a powerful source of radio waves in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere:

The Stars of NGC 1705

Some 2,000 light-years across, NGC 1705 is small as galaxies go, similar to our Milky Ways own
satellite galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds. At a much larger distance of 17 million light -years, the
stars of NGC 1705 are still easily resolved in this beautiful image constructed from data taken in
1999 and 2000 with the Hubble Space Telescope. Most of the younger, hot, blue stars in the galaxy
are seen to be concentrated in a large central star cluster with the older, cooler, red stars more

evenly distributed. Possibly 13 billion years old, NGC 1705 could well have been forming stars
through out its lifetime while light from its most recent burst of star formation reached Earth only
30 million years ago. This gradually evolving dwarf irregular galaxy lacks organized structures
like spiral arms and is thought to be a nearby analog to the first galaxies to form in the early
Universe.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap030423.html]

Pictor A: Blast from Black Hole in a Galaxy Far, Far Away

The Star Wars franchise has featured the fictitious Death Star, which can shoot powerful beams
of radiation across space. The Universe, however, produces phenomena that often surpass what
science fiction can conjure.

The Pictor A galaxy is one such impressive object. This galaxy, located nearly 500 million light
years from Earth, contains a supermassive black hole at its center. A huge amount of gravitational
energy is released as material swirls towards the event horizon, the point of no return for infalling
material. This energy produces an enormous beam, or jet, of particles traveling at nearly the speed
of light into intergalactic space.
To obtain images of this jet, scientists used NASAs Chandra X-ray Observatory at various times
over 15 years. Chandras X-ray data (blue) have been combined with radio data from the Australia
Telescope Compact Array (red) in this new composite image.

By studying the details of the structure seen in both X-rays and radio waves, scientists seek to gain
a deeper understanding of these huge collimated blasts.

The jet [to the right] in Pictor A is the one that is closest to us. It displays continuous X-ray
emission over a distance of 300,000 light years. By comparison, the entire Milky Way is about
100,000 light years in diameter. Because of its relative proximity and Chandras ability to make
detailed X-ray images, scientists can look at detailed features in the jet and test ideas of how the
X-ray emission is produced.

In addition to the prominent jet seen pointing to the right in the image, researchers report evidence
for another jet pointing in the opposite direction, known as a counterjet. While tentative evidence
for this counterjet had been previously reported, these new Chandra data confirm its existence.
The relative faintness of the counterjet compared to the jet is likely due to the motion of the
counterjet away from the line of sight to the Earth.

The labeled image shows the location of the supermassive black hole, the jet and the counterjet.
Also labeled is a radio lobe where the jet is pushing into surrounding gas and a hotspot caused
by shock waves- akin to sonic booms from a supersonic aircraft- near the tip of the jet.

The detailed properties of the jet and counterjet observed with Chandra show that their X-ray
emission likely comes from electrons spiraling around magnetic field lines, a process called
synchrotron emission. In this case, the electrons must be continuously re-accelerated as they move
out along the jet. How this occurs is not well understood
The researchers ruled out a different mechanism for producing the jets X-ray emission. In that
scenario, electrons flying away from the black hole in the jet at near the speed of light move
through the sea of cosmic background radiation (CMB) left over from the hot early phase of the
Universe after the Big Bang. When a fast-moving electron collides with one of these CMB
photons, it can boost the photons energy up into the X-ray band.

The X-ray brightness of the jet depends on the power in the beam of electrons and the intensity of
the background radiation. The relative brightness of the X-rays coming from the jet and counterjet
in Pictor A do not match what is expected in this process involving the CMB, and effectively
eliminate it as the source of the X-ray production in the jet.

Distance Estimate:

About 480 million light years (z=0.035)

[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2016/pictora/]

ACT Sunyaev-Zeldovich Cluster: ACT-CL J0546-5345

[http://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/act/act_sz_clusters_2008/act-cl_j0546-5345.cfm?ver=ext]

Pictor is also home to two other deep-sky objects.

SPT-CL J0546-5345 is one of the most massive galaxy clusters ever found in the early universe.
It is thought to be 7 billion light years away. It was discovered at the South Pole Telescope in 2008
by the Sunyaev-Zeldovich-Effect. z=1.067. Follow-up studies using the Spitzer, Chandra and

optical telescopes allowed to identify cluster members and to measure the redshift (z=1.067).
Using the velocity dispersion, the cluster mass has been estimated to 1015 solar masses.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPT-CL_J0546-5345]

GRB 060729 was a gamma-ray burst that was first observed on 29 July 2006. It is likely the signal
of a type Ic supernova- the core collapse of a massive star. It was also notable for its extraordinarily
long X-ray afterglow, detectable 642 days (nearly two years) after the original event. The event
was remote, with a redshift of 0.54.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictor]

Pisces

Pisces constellation lies in the northern sky. Its name means fish in Latin. It is the 14th
constellation in size, occupying an area of 889 square degrees. It is located in the first quadrant of
the northern hemisphere (NQ1) and can be seen at latitudes between +90 and -65. The
neighboring constellations are Andromeda, Aquarius, Aries, Cetus, Pegasus and Triangulum.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/pisces-constellation/]

The ecliptic and the celestial equator intersect within this constellation and in Virgo. The vernal
equinox is currently located in Pisces, due south of Psc, and, due to precession, slowly drifting
below the western fish towards Aquarius.

Pisces spans the 330 to 360 of the zodiac, between 332.75 and 360 of celestial longitude. Under
the tropical zodiac the sun transits this area on average between February 19 and March 20, and
under the sidereal zodiac, the sun transits this area between approximately March 13 and April 13.
While the astrological sign Pisces per definition runs from ecliptical longitude 330 to 0, this
position is now mostly covered by the constellation of Aquarius, due to the precession from when
the constellation and the sign coincided. According to some tropical astrologers, the current
astrological age is the Age of Pisces, while others maintain that it is the Age of Aquarius. The
symbol of the fish is derived from the ichthyocentaurs, who aided Aphrodite when she was born
from the sea.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisces_(astrology)]

A cord joins the tails of Pisces, the two fish. From the Atlas Coelestis of John Flamsteed (1729)
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/pisces.htm]

Pisces originates from some composition of the Babylonian constellations inunutu the great
swallow in current western Pisces, and Anunitum the Lady of the Heaven, at the place of the
northern fish. In the first-millennium BCE texts known as the Astronomical Diaries, part of the
constellation was also called DU.NU.NU (Rikis-nu.mi, the fish cord or ribbon).

In Greek mythology, Pisces is associated with Aphrodite and Eros, who escaped from the monster
Typhon by leaping into the sea and transforming themselves into fish. In order not to lose each
other, they tied themselves together with rope. The Romans adopted the Greek legend, with Venus
and Cupid acting as the counterparts for Aphrodite and Eros. The knot of the rope is marked by
Alpha Piscium ( Psc), also called Al-Rischa (the cord in Arabic).

Johannes Hevelius regarded the constellation Pisces as being composed of four subdivisions. In
1754, the astronomer John Hill proposed to treat part of Pisces as a separate constellation, called
Testudo (the Turtle), in which the star 20 Psc was intended to be the head of the turtle. However
the proposal was largely neglected by other astronomers with the exception of Admiral Smyth.

The Fishes are also associated with the German legend of Antenteh, who owned just a tub and a
crude cabin when he met a magical fish. They offered him a wish, which he refused. However, his
wife begged him to return to the fish and ask for a beautiful furnished home. This wish was granted,
but her desires were not satisfied. She then asked to be a queen and have a palace, but when she
asked to become a goddess, the fish became angry and took the palace and home, leaving the
couple with the tub and cabin once again. The tub in the story is sometimes recognized as the Great
Square of Pegasus.

The stars of Pisces were incorporated into several constellations in Chinese astronomy. Wai-ping
(Outer Enclosure) was a fence that kept a pig farmer from falling into the marshes and kept the
pigs where they belonged. It was represented by Alpha, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Mu, Nu, and Xi
Piscium. The marshes were represented by the four stars designated Phi Ceti. The northern fish of
Pisces was a part of the House of the Sandal, Koui-siou.

[http://www.space.com/21456-pisces-constellation.html]

[http://www.dibonsmith.com/psc_con.htm]

Stars of Pisces include:

Eta Piscium (Kullat Nunu) is the brightest star in the constellation. It has an apparent visual
magnitude of 3.62 and is approximately 294 light years distant from the solar system. The star
belongs to the spectral class G7 IIIa, which means that it is a yellow giant. It has a faint companion
about an arcsecond away. Eta Piscium is 316 times more luminous than the Sun and a mass 3.5 to
4 times solar. It is 26 times larger than the Sun. The star has an unofficial proper name, Kullat
Nunu. Nunu is the Babylonian word for fish, and kullat refers either to a bucket or the cord
used to tie the fish together.

Gamma Piscium is a yellow giant with the stellar classification of G9 III. It is the second brightest
star in Pisces. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 3.699 and is approximately 138 light years
distant. The star is ten times the size of the Sun and 61 times more luminous. It is believed to be
about 5.5 billion years old. The star is part of an asterism called the Circlet of Pisces, which

represents the head of the western fish in Pisces constellation. Gamma Piscium will not be in the
Suns vicinity for long. The star moves three quarters of an arcsecond across the sky every year.

Omega Piscium is a yellow-white subgiant star with the stellar classification of F4IV. It has an
apparent magnitude of 4.036 and is approximately 106 light years distant from the Sun. It is the
first star to the east of the Circlet of Pisces. The star is suspected to be a close binary system. If it
is a single star, it is 1.8 times more massive than the Sun and 20 times more luminous.

Iota Piscium is a yellow-white dwarf with the stellar classification of F7 V. It has an apparent
visual magnitude of 4.13 and is 44.73 light years distant from Earth. It is larger and more luminous
than the Sun. Iota Piscium is a suspected variable star, and it has two line-of-sight companions.

Omicron Piscium is a yellow giant star with the stellar classification G8 III. It has an apparent
magnitude of 4.26 and is approximately 142 light years distant. In the 1515 Almagest, the star was
listed with the proper name Torcularis septentrionalis.

Alpha Piscium (Alrescha) is a close binary star with components separated by 1.8 arcseconds. The
primary star belongs to the spectral class A0p and has a visual magnitude of 4.33, and the
companion belongs to the spectral class A3m and has an apparent magnitude of 5.23. The stars
orbit each other with a period of over 700 years. The primary star has 2.3 solar masses and is 31
times more luminous than the Sun, while the companion has 1.8 times the Suns mass and is 12
times brighter. The name Alrescha (sometimes Al Rescha, Alrisha, or Alrischa) is derived from
the Arabic al-ri, which means the well rope. The star is also sometimes known as Kaitain and
Okda. Okda is derived from uqdah, the Arabic word for knot. Alpha Piscium has a combined
apparent magnitude of 3.82 and is approximately 139 light years distant from the solar system.

Beta Piscium (Fum al Samakah) is a blue-white main sequence star with the stellar classification
B6Ve. It has a visual magnitude of 4.53 and is approximately 492 light years distant from the Sun.
The stars traditional name, Fum al Samakah, comes from the Arabic phrase fum al-samakah,
which means the mouth of the fish.

The Circlet asterism is located south of Pegasus constellation, in the western fish of Pisces. It is
formed by the stars Gamma, Kappa, Lambda, TX, Iota and Theta Piscium.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/pisces-constellation/]

Deep-sky objects in Pisces include:

The grand-design spiral galaxy Messier 74 as photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope in
2007 ESOs PESSTO survey has captured this view of Messier 74, a stunning spiral galaxy with
well-defined whirling arms. However, the real subject of this image is the galaxys brilliant new
addition from late July 2013: a Type II supernova named SN2013ej that is visible as the brightest
star at the bottom left of the image.

Messier 74 (M74), nicknamed the Phantom Galaxy, is a grand design spiral galaxy located in the
constellation Pisces.

The galaxy appears face-on and has an apparent magnitude of 10. It lies at an approximate distance
of 30 million light years from Earth. Its designation in the New General Catalogue is NGC 628.
Messier 74 occupies an area of 10.5 by 9.5 arc minutes of apparent sky, which corresponds to a
linear diameter of 95,000 light years, almost the size of the Milky Way. The galaxy is home to
about 100 billion stars. It can be found 1.5 degrees east-northeast of Kullat Nunu (Eta Piscium),
the brightest star in Pisces.

Messier 74 is a perfect example of a grand design spiral galaxy. It has two clearly defined spiral
arms and its face-on orientation and large apparent size make it a frequent target for astronomers
looking to study spiral arm structure. The spiral arms, which extend for about 1,000 light years,
contain clusters of young blue stars and many starforming nebulae. The galaxy is receding from
us at 793 km/s.

The symmetric appearance of M74 is suspected to be the result of density waves sweeping around
the galaxys gaseous disk which, in turn, is the result of M74s gravitational interaction with
neighbouring galaxies. The interaction and collisions of the galaxies clouds are also responsible
for the star forming activity seen along the spiral arms of M74.

Three supernovae have been detected in M74 in recent decades: SN 2002ap in 2002, SN 2003gd
in 2003, and SN 2013ej in 2013.

SN 2002ap was one of the extremely rare Type Ic supernovae, also known as hypernovae, recently
seen within 10 megaparsecs of the solar system. The hypernova reached a peak magnitude of 12.3.

SN 2003gd was classified as a Type II-P supernova, one with a known luminosity, which helps
astronomers to measure distances. The supernova occurred 9.6 megaparsecs or 31 million light
years from Earth and reached a magnitude of 13.2. It was one of the few supernova events that had
a light echo, a reflection of the explosion that appeared after the supernova event itself. The
progenitor star was a red, M-class supergiant.
SN2013ej was first detected on July 25, 2013 about 2.7 arc minutes from the galaxys core and
reached a peak magnitude of 12.5. It was classified as a Type II supernova, which means that it
resulted from a massive star collapsing inward onto its unstable core and exploding.

The

progenitor star was likely a red supergiant.

In March 2005, the Chandra X-ray Observatory detected an ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) in
the galaxy. The object has an estimated mass about 10,000 times that of the Sun and radiates more
X-ray power than a neutron star in intervals of about two hours. The discovery indicates that there
is an intermediate-mass black hole in the centre of M74. The X-ray source is identified as CXOU
J013651.1+154547. A total of 21 X-ray sources have been discovered within the inner 5 arc
minutes from the galaxys core.

Messier 74 is the central galaxy in the M74 Group, a small group consisting of 5 to 7 galaxies. The
M74 Group includes the peculiar Sm galaxy UGC 891, several irregular galaxies- UGC 1176,
UGC 1195, UGCA 20- and the peculiar and unique polar-ring spiral galaxy NGC 660.
[http://www.messier-objects.com/messier-74-phantom-galaxy/]

Polar Ring Galaxy NGC 660

NGC 660 is featured in this cosmic snapshot, a sharp composite of broad and narrow band filter
image data from the Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea. Over 20 million light-years away and
swimming within the boundaries of the constellation Pisces, NGC 660s peculiar appearance
marks it as a polar ring galaxy. A rare galaxy type, polar ring galaxies have a substantial population
of stars, gas, and dust orbiting in rings nearly perpendicular to the plane of the galactic disk. The
bizarre-looking configuration could have been caused by the chance capture of material from a
passing galaxy by a disk galaxy, with the captured debris eventually strung out in a rotating ring.
The violent gravitational interaction would account for the myriad pinkish star forming regions
scattered along NGC 660s ring. The polar ring component can also be used to explore the shape
of the galaxys otherwise unseen dark matter halo by calculating the dark matters gravitational
influence on the rotation of the ring and disk. Broader than the disk, NGC 660s ring spans over
50,000 light-years.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap141108.html]

NGC 520

NGC 520 is the product of a collision between two disc galaxies that started 300 million years ago.
It exemplifies the middle stages of the merging process: the discs of the parent galaxies have
merged together, but the nuclei have not yet coalesced. It features an odd-looking tail of stars and
a prominent dust lane that runs diagonally across the centre of the image and obscures the galaxy.
NGC 520 is one of the brightest galaxy pairs on the sky, and can be observed with a small telescope
toward the constellation of Pisces, the Fish, having the appearance of a comet. It is about 100
million light-years away and about 100,000 light-years across. The galaxy pair is included in Arps
catalogue of peculiar galaxies as ARP 157.
[https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0810aq/]

NGC 488

NGC 488 is a face-on spiral galaxy in the constellation Pisces. It is at a distance of about 90 million
light-years away from Earth. Its diametre is estimated to be 52,6 Kpc (171.000 ly). The galaxy has
a large central bulge and is considered the prototype galaxy with multiple spiral arms. Its arms are
tightly wound. Star forming activity has been traced within the arms. The nucleus of NGC 488 has
been found to be chemically decoupled, being twice metal rich as the central bulge of the galaxy.
NGC 488, with the exception of its smaller companions, that form NGC 488 group, is an isolated
galaxy.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_488]

Giant Cluster Bends, Breaks Images

What are those strange blue objects? Many of the brightest blue images are of a single, unusual,
beaded, blue, ring-like galaxy which just happens to line-up behind a giant cluster of galaxies.
Cluster galaxies here typically appear yellow and- together with the clusters dark matter- act as a
gravitational lens. A gravitational lens can create several images of background galaxies,
analogous to the many points of light one would see while looking through a wine glass at a distant
street light. The distinctive shape of this background galaxy- which is probably just forming- has

allowed astronomers to deduce that it has separate images at 4, 10, 11, and 12 oclock, from the
center of the cluster. A blue smudge near the cluster center is likely another image of the same
background galaxy. In all, a recent analysis postulated that at least 33 images of 11 separate
background galaxies are discernable. This spectacular photo of galaxy cluster CL0024+1654 from
the Hubble Space Telescope was taken in November 2004.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090823.html]

CL 0024+1654 is at a distance of 3.6 billion light-years from Earth (redshift 0.4), half as far away
as the background galaxy, which is at a distance of 5.7 billion light-years (redshift 1.67).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisces_(constellation)]

Piscis Austrinus

Piscis Austrinus constellation lies in the southern sky. It is the 60th constellation in size, occupying
an area of 245 square degrees. Its name means the southern fish in Latin. The constellation is
sometimes also called Piscis Australis. It is located in the fourth quadrant of the southern
hemisphere (SQ4) and can be seen at latitudes between +55 and -90. The neighboring
constellations are Aquarius, Capricornus, Grus, Microscopium and Sculptor.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/piscis-austrinus-constellation/]

Piscis Austrinus, called Piscis Notius on the Uranographia of Johann Bode (1801), is shown lying
on its back and drinking water from the urn of Aquarius. In its mouth is the bright star Fomalhaut.

Eratosthenes called this the Great Fish and said that it was the parent of the two smaller fishes of
the zodiacal constellation Pisces. Like Pisces, its mythology has a Middle Eastern setting that
reveals its Babylonian origin.

According to the brief account of Eratosthenes, the Syrian fertility goddess Derceto (the Greek
name for Atargatis) is supposed to have fallen into a lake at Bambyce near the river Euphrates in
northern Syria, and was saved by a large fish. Hyginus says, in repetition of his note on Pisces,
that as a result of this the Syrians do not eat fish but they worship the images of fish as gods. All
the accounts of this constellations mythology are disappointingly sketchy.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/piscisaustrinus.htm]

Pisces Austrinus originated with the Babylonian constellation simply known as the Fish
(MUL.KU).

In Greek mythology, this constellation is known as the Great Fish and it is portrayed as swallowing
the water being poured out by Aquarius, the water-bearer constellation. The two fish of the
constellation Pisces are said to be the offspring of the Great Fish. In Egyptian mythology, this fish
saved the life of the Egyptian goddess Isis, so she placed this fish and its descendants into the
heavens as constellations of stars.
The stars of the modern constellation Grus once formed the tail of Piscis Austrinus. In 1597 (or
1598), Petrus Plancius carved out a separate constellation and named it after the crane.

[http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/PsA.html]

DSS image of Fomalhaut, field of view 2.72.9 degrees

The constellations only star brighter than 4th magnitude is Fomalhaut, which is a first-magnitude
star and is the 18th brightest star in the night sky. It has had various names ascribed to it through
time. Its modern name derives from Arabic fum al-awt, meaning mouth of the [Southern] Fish,
a translation of how the classical astronomer Ptolemy labeled it. Fomalhaut is a class A star on the
main sequence approximately 25 light-years (7.7 pc) from Earth as measured by the Hipparcos
astrometry satellite. Since 1943, the spectrum of this star has served as one of the stable anchor
points by which other stars are classified.

At a declination of 29.6, Fomalhaut is located south of the celestial equator, and hence is best
viewed from the Southern Hemisphere. However, its southerly declination is not as great as that
of stars such as Acrux, Alpha Centauri and Canopus, meaning that, unlike them, Fomalhaut is
visible from a large part of the Northern Hemisphere as well. Its declination is greater than that of
Sirius and similar to that of Antares. At 40N, Fomalhaut rises above the horizon for eight hours
and reaches only 20 above the horizon, while Capella which rises at approximately the same time
will stay above the horizon for twenty hours. From England the star never appears much brighter
than magnitude 2.2 due to it being so close to the horizon, and from southern Alaska or Scandinavia
it never rises above the horizon at all. Fomalhaut can be located in these northern latitudes by the
fact that the western (right-hand) side of the Square of Pegasus points to it. Continue the line from
Beta to Alpha Pegasi towards the southern horizon: Fomalhaut is about 45 south of Alpha Pegasi,
with no bright stars in between.

Debris ring around Fomalhaut showing location of planet Fomalhaut b- imaged by

Hubble Space Telescopes coronagraph.

Fomalhaut is classified as a Vega-like star that emits excess infrared radiation, indicating it is
surrounded by a circumstellar disk. On November 13, 2008, astronomers announced an object,
which they assumed to be an extrasolar planet, orbiting just inside the outer debris ring. This was
the first extrasolar orbiting object to be seen with visible light, captured by the Hubble Space
Telescope. A planets existence had been previously suspected from the sharp, elliptical inner edge
of that disk. The mass of the planet, Fomalhaut b, was estimated to be no more than three times
the mass of Jupiter but at least the mass of Neptune. There are indications that the orbit is not
apsidally aligned with the dust disk, which may indicate that additional planets may be responsible

for the dust disks structure. Fomalhaut is the third brightest star (as viewed from Earth) known to
have a planetary system, after the Sun and Pollux.

Fomalhaut, K-type star TW Piscis Austrini (Fomalhaut B) and M-type star LP 876-10 (Fomalhaut
C) constitute a triple system even though the companions are separated by several degrees.
Fomalhaut B is a flare star of the type known as a BY Draconis variable. It varies slightly in
apparent magnitude, ranging from 6.44 to 6.49 over a 10.3 day period. While smaller than the Sun,
it is relatively large for a flare star. Most flare stars are red M-type dwarfs. It lies 0.28 parsecs (0.91
light years) away from Fomalhaut. Fomalhaut C is a red dwarf of spectral type M4V, and located
even further from Fomalhaut A than Fomalhaut B- about 5.7 away from Fomalhaut A in the sky
in the neighbouring constellation Aquarius, whereas both Fomalhaut A and Fomalhaut B are
located in constellation Piscis Austrinus. Its current separation from Fomalhaut A is about 0.77
parsecs (2.5 light years), and it is currently located 0.987 parsecs (3.2 light years) away from
(Fomalhaut B).
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fomalhaut#Fomalhaut_B_.28TW_Piscis_Austrini.29]

Epsilon Piscis Austrini is the second brightest star in the constellation. It is a blue-white main
sequence dwarf belonging to the spectral class B8V. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 4.18
and is approximately 744 light years distant from Earth.

Delta Piscis Austrini is the third brightest star in Piscis Austrinus. It is really a multiple star system
with the stellar classification G8III. The primary component in the system is a yellow giant. The
system has an apparent magnitude of 4.20 and is about 170 light years distant from the Sun.

Beta Piscis Austrini is the fourth brightest star in the constellation. It is another multiple star
system. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 4.29 and is approximately 148 light years distant
from Earth. The system has the stellar classification of A1V, matching the spectrum of a white
main sequence dwarf.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/piscis-austrinus-constellation/]

S Piscis Austrini is a long period Mira-type variable red giant which ranges between magnitude
8.0 and 14.5 over a period of 271.7 days, and V Piscis Austrini is a semi-regular variable ranging
between magnitudes 8.0 and 9.0 over 148 days.

Hickson Compact Group 90

Scanning the skies for galaxies, Canadian astronomer Paul Hickson and colleagues identified some
100 compact groups of galaxies, now appropriately called Hickson Compact Groups (HCGs). This

sharp Hubble image shows one such galaxy group, HCG 90, in startling detail. Three galaxies are
revealed to be strongly interacting: a dusty spiral galaxy stretched and distorted between a pair of
large elliptical galaxies. The close encounter will trigger furious star formation. On a cosmic
timescale, the gravitational tug of war will eventually result in the merger of the trio into a large
single galaxy. The merger process is now understood to be a normal part of the evolution of
galaxies, including our own Milky Way. HCG 90 lies about 100 million light-years away in the
constellation Piscis Austrinus. This Hubble view spans about 80,000 light-years at that estimated
distance. Of course, Hickson Compact Groups also make for rewarding viewing for Earth-bound
astronomers with more modest sized telescopes.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090313.html]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piscis_Austrinus]

Puppis

Puppis constellation is located in the southern hemisphere. It represents the stern of a ship. Puppis
is the 20th constellation in size, occupying an area of 673 square degrees. It lies in the second
quadrant of the southern hemisphere (SQ2) and can be seen at latitudes between +40 and -90.
The neighboring constellations are Carina, Canis Major, Columba, Hydra, Monoceros, Pictor,
Pyxis and Vela. Puppis belongs to the Heavenly Waters family of constellations, along with
Carina, Columba, Delphinus, Equuleus, Eridanus, Piscis Austrinus, Pyxis, and Vela.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/puppis-constellation/]

An excerpt from Johan van Keulen's Boeck zee-kaardt, 1709. Puppis represents the Stern of the
Ship. In the water below it play two fishes, Dorado and Volans, and Columba the Dove flies back
to the ship behind it.
[http://www.stargazers.iinet.net.au/puppis.htm]
Puppis, the Poop Deck, was originally part of an over-large constellation, the ship of Jason and
the Argonauts, Argo Navis, which centuries after its initial description, was divided in 1752 by
the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille into three parts, the other two being Carina (the
keel and hull), and Vela (the sails of the ship).

[http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/Pup.html]

[http://www.dibonsmith.com/pup_con.htm]

Stars in Puppis include:

Zeta Puppis is the brightest star in the constellation of Puppis. It is also known by the traditional
names Naos (from the Greek ship) and Suhail Hadar (possibly roaring bright one in
Arabic). The spectral class of O4 means this is one of the hottest, and most luminous, stars visible
to the naked eye. It is one of the skys few naked-eye class O-type stars as well as one of the closest
to Earth. It is a blue supergiant, one of the most luminous stars in the Milky Way. Visually it is

over 10,000 times brighter than the Sun, but its high temperature means that most of its radiation
is in the ultraviolet and its bolometric luminosity is over 500,000 times that of the Sun. It is also
the 62nd brightest star in terms of apparent magnitude from Earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeta_Puppis]

Pi Puppis is the second brightest star in the southern constellation of Puppis. It has an apparent
visual magnitude of 2.733, so it can be viewed with the naked eye at night. Parallax measurements
yield an estimated distance of roughly 810 light-years (250 pc) from the Earth. This is a double
star with a magnitude 6.86 companion at an angular separation of 0.72 arcsecond and a position
angle of 148.

The spectrum of Pi Puppis matches a stellar classification of K3 Ib. The Ib luminosity class
indicates this a lower luminosity supergiant star that has consumed the hydrogen fuel at its core,
evolved away from the main sequence, and expanded to about 290 times the Sun's radius. The
effective temperature of the stars outer envelope is about 4,000 K, which gives it the orange hue
of a K-type star. It is a semiregular variable star that varies in apparent magnitude from a high of
2.70 down to 2.85. Pi Puppis is the brightest star in the open cluster Collinder 135.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_Puppis]

L2 Puppis (also known as HD 56096) is a giant star in the constellation of Puppis and is located
between the bright stars Canopus and Sirius. It is a semi-regular pulsating star that varies in
apparent magnitude from 2.60 down to 6.00 with a period of 140.83 days. The variation in light
may be caused by a combination of radial pulsations in the stars atmosphere and by dimming
from circumstellar dust. This is most likely an asymptotic giant branch star that has passed through
the main sequence and is evolving to become a white dwarf. It is shedding mass at the rate of about
2.210^9 solar masses per year. Recently the star has had an apparent magnitude range of about
6.9 to 8. L2 Puppis has a visual 10th magnitude companion about a minute of arc away.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L2_Puppis]

HD 69830 (285 G. Puppis) is a yellow dwarf star approximately 41 light-years away in the
constellation of Puppis. In 2005, the Spitzer Space Telescope discovered a debris disk orbiting the

star. The disk contains substantially more dust than the Solar Systems asteroid belt. As of 2006,
it has been confirmed that three extrasolar planets with minimum masses comparable to Neptune
orbit the star, located interior to the debris disk.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_69830]

RS Puppis as imaged by Hubble

RS Puppis (or RS Pup) is a Cepheid variable star in the constellation of Puppis. It is one of the
brightest known Cepheids in the Milky Way galaxy and has one of the longest periods of 41.4

days. Because it is located in a large nebula, astronomers using the ESOs New Technology
Telescope at La Silla Observatory, Chile have been able to measure its distance in 2013 by strictly
geometric analysis of light echoes from particles in the nebula, determining it to be 6500 90 light
years from Earth, the most accurate measurement achieved for any Cepheid as of early 2008. The
accuracy of the new measurement is important because Cepheids serve as a marker for distances
within our galaxy and for nearby galaxies.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS_Puppis]

HD 60532 is a white (F-type) main sequence star located approximately 84 light-years away in the
constellation of Puppis, taking its primary name from its Henry Draper Catalogue designation. It
is calculated to be 1.44 times more massive than the Sun. The star is only 59% as old as our Sun
(2.7 Gyr) and has metallicity of only 38% that of our Sun. In September 2008, two Jupiter-like
planets were found orbiting the star. The orbital periods of these two planets appear to be in 3:1
resonance.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_60532]

Expansion of the bipolar shell ejected from V445 Puppis, from 2005 (upper left) to 2007 (lower
right)

V445 Puppis is a recurrent nova in the constellation Puppis. It was discovered by Kazuyoshi
Kanatsu who recorded a peak magnitude of 8.6 on November 28, 2000. The location of this nova
coincided with a magnitude 13.1 star that had been photographed in 1967.

Examination of the optical spectrum of this nova showed the initial spectrum was deficient in
hydrogen and did not match those typical of other nova types. The infrared spectrum measured on
January 31 showed a featureless continuum that decreased with increasing wavelength. This is
consistent with emission from heated dust and suggests that the star is a nova that has generated
dust during prior outbursts. By 2004, the object had faded and the dust emission had disappeared.

The deficient level of hydrogen in this outburst, along with an enrichment of helium and carbon,
and a higher level of ionization, suggested that it was the first observed instance of a helium nova.
This is theorized to occur when a white dwarf star predominantly accretes helium (rather than
hydrogen) from an orbiting companion. When sufficient helium has accumulated along a shell on
the surface of the white dwarf, a run-away thermonuclear explosion results in a nova outburst.
Hence, V445 Puppis may belong to a binary star system and be surrounded by an accretion disk
of matter drawn from the companion star.

The white dwarf in the V445 Puppis system has an estimated mass of more than 1.3 times the mass
of the Sun, and this mass is increasing because of recurring helium shell flashes from accreted
material. As the mass of the white dwarf approaches the Chandrasekhar limit of about 1.38 solar
masses, it will likely explode as a Type Ia supernova.

At present, the system is being obscured by an optically thick cloud of dust. A bi-polar outflow of
material has been observed moving away from the system at a velocity of 6,720 650 km s1.
Based upon the expansion parallax for this outflow, the system lies at a distance of 8.2 0.5 kpc.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V445_Puppis]

Artist impression of possible moons around the planet (HD 70642b)

[https://jumk.de/astronomie/exoplanets/hd-70642.shtml]

HD 70642 is a yellow dwarf star in the constellation of Puppis located 92 light years away. This
star has about the same mass and radius as the Sun, is slightly cooler and less luminous, and is
richer in abundance of iron relative to hydrogen. A long period planet companion to HD 70642
was announced in 2003. This planet orbits in a circular orbit (e=0.034) at 3.232 AU. The star is so
like to Sol that its habitable zone is in the same place (~ 1 AU). The jovian planet ensures the
stability of an Earth-mass planet at 1 AU. This system is one of the most similar in conditions to
the Solar System than any other currently known planetary systems.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_70642]

Puppis A Supernova Remnant

Driven by the explosion of a massive star, supernova remnant Puppis A is blasting into the
surrounding interstellar medium about 7,000 light-years away. At that distance, this colorful
telescopic field based on broadband and narrowband optical image data is about 60 light-years
across. As the supernova remnant expands into its clumpy, non-uniform surroundings, shocked
filaments of oxygen atoms glow in green-blue hues. Hydrogen and nitrogen are in red. Light from
the initial supernova itself, triggered by the collapse of the massive star's core, would have reached

Earth about 3,700 years ago. The Puppis A remnant is actually seen through outlying emission
from the closer but more ancient Vela supernova remnant, near the crowded plane of our Milky
Way galaxy. Still glowing across the electromagnetic spectrum Puppis A remains one of the
brightest sources in the X-ray sky.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150828.html]

As the Milky Way runs through Puppis, there are a large number of open clusters in the
constellation. M46 and M47 are two open clusters in the same binocular field. M47 can be seen
with the naked eye under dark skies, and its brightest stars are 6th magnitude. Messier 93 (M93)
is another open cluster somewhat to the south. NGC 2451 is a very bright open cluster containing
the star c Puppis and the near NGC 2477 is a good target for small telescopes. The star Pi Puppis
is the main component of a bright group of stars known as Collinder 135.

M46 is a circular open cluster with an overall magnitude of 6.1 at a distance of approximately 5400
light-years from Earth. M46 is classified as a Shapley class f and a Trumpler class III 2 m cluster.
This means that it is a rich cluster that appears distinct from the star field; however, it is not at its
center. The clusters stars, numbering between 50 and 100, have a moderate range in brightness.
The planetary nebula NGC 2438 is superimposed:

Planetary Nebula NGC 2438

NGC 2438 is a planetary nebula, the gaseous shroud cast off by a dying sunlike star billions of
years old whose central reservoir of hydrogen fuel has been exhausted. About 3,000 light-years
distant it lies within the boundaries of the nautical constellation Puppis. Remarkably, NGC 2438
also seems to lie on the outskirts of bright, relatively young open star cluster M46. But this
planetary nebulas central star is not only much older than the stars of M46, it moves through space
at a different speed than the cluster stars. Distance estimates also place NGC 2438 closer than M46
and so the nebula appears in the foreground, only by chance along the line-of-sight to the young
star cluster. This deep image of NGC 2438 highlights a halo of glowing atomic gas over 4.5 lightyears across, extending beyond the nebulas brighter inner ring. Similar haloes have been found in
deep images of other planetary nebulae, produced during the earlier active phases of their aging
central stars.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110407.html]

NGC 2467: From Gas to Stars

One might guess that the group of stars on the left is responsible for shaping the gas cloud on the
right- but it probably is not. Observations of many of the stars in the NGC 2467 show them to be
more a superposition of loose groups of stars at different distances than a coherent open cluster of
stars energizing the nebula. Still, the above image captures various stages of star formation. The
stars at the far left have already formed and their birth nebulae have already dispersed. At the lower
left lies a very young star that is breaking free of its surrounding birth cocoon of gas. On the right
of the above image, a bright wall of bright gas glows as it evaporates from the energy of many
newly formed bright stars. Toward the center, deep dark lanes of dust hide parts of the nebula that
surely are forming new stars. The 8-meter Gemini South Telescope, perched on a mountaintop in
Cerro Pachon, Chile, took the above image. NGC 2467 lies toward the southern constellation of
Puppis, with many of the stars being about 17,000 light years distant.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap050131.html]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puppis]

Pyxis

[http://www.derekscope.co.uk/constellation-20th/pyxis/]

Pyxis is a small and faint constellation in the southern sky. Abbreviated from Pyxis Nautica, its
name is Latin for a mariners compass (contrasting with Circinus, which represents a draftsmans
compasses). Pyxis was introduced by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in the 18th century, and is counted
among the 88 modern constellations. The constellation is located close to those forming the old
constellation of the ship Argo Navis, and in the 19th century astronomer John Herschel suggested
renaming Pyxis to Malus, the mast, but the suggestion was not followed.

Covering 220.8 square degrees and hence 0.535% of the sky, Pyxis ranks 65th of the 88 modern
constellations by area. Its position in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere means that the whole
constellation is visible to observers south of 52N. It is most visible in the evening sky in February

and March. It is bordered by Hydra to the north, Puppis to the west, Vela to the south, and Antlia
to the east. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of the constellation
lie between 8h 27.7m and 9h 27.6m, while the declination coordinates are between 17.41 and
37.29.

Pyxis hovers over the mast of Argo on Chart XVIII of the Uranographia of Johann Bode (1801).
Curling around it is a Bode invention, the now-obsolete Lochium Funis, the log and line.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/pyxis.htm]

In ancient Chinese astronomy, Alpha, Beta and Gamma Pyxidis formed part of Tianmiao, a
celestial temple honouring the ancestors of the emperor, along with stars from neighbouring Antlia.

The Ancient Greeks identified the four main stars of Pyxis as the mast of the great ship Argo Navis.

The French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille first described the constellation in French as la
Boussole (the Marine Compass) in 1752, after he had observed and catalogued almost 10,000
southern stars during a two-year stay at the Cape of Good Hope. He devised fourteen new

constellations in uncharted regions of the Southern Celestial Hemisphere not visible from Europe.
Lacaille Latinized the name to Pixis [sic] Nautica on his 1763 chart.

German astronomer Johann Bode defined the constellation Lochium Funis, the Log and Line- a
nautical device once used for measuring speed and distance travelled at sea- around Pyxis in his
1801 star atlas, but the depiction did not survive. In 1844 John Herschel attempted to resurrect the
classical configuration of Argo Navis by renaming it Malus the Mast, a suggestion followed by
Francis Baily, but Benjamin Gould restored Lacailles nomenclature.

[http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/Pyx.html]

Constellations of Pyxis, Canis Major and the head of Hydra

[http://www.davidmalin.com/fujii/source/Pyx.html]

The three brightest stars of Pyxis- Alpha, Beta and Gamma Pyxidis- are in a rough line. Alpha
Pyxidis is a giant star. It has a stellar classification of B1.5III and is a Beta Cephei variable. This
star has more than ten times the mass of the Sun and is more than six times the Suns radius. The
surface temperature is 24,300 K and the star is about 10,000 times as luminous as the Sun. Stars
such as this with more than 10 solar masses are expected to end their life by exploding as a
supernova.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Pyxidis]

Beta Pyxidis is a double star. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 3.954, making it the second
brightest star in that faint constellation. The star is an estimated 420 light-years (128 parsecs) from
the Earth. The spectrum matches a bright giant or supergiant star of stellar classification G7Ib-II.
The interferometer-measured angular diameter of this star is 2.05 0.14 mas. At its estimated
distance, this yields a physical size of about 28 times the radius of the Sun. The effective
temperature of the stars outer envelope is about 5,400 K, giving it the characteristic yellow hue
of a G-type star.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Pyxidis]

Gamma Pyxidis is a 4th magnitude star in the constellation Pyxis. It is classified as a giant star of
composition similar to the Sun with an estimated diameter 3.7 times that of the Sun. It is located
an estimated 207 light years from the Solar System. Gamma Pyxidis is moving through the Galaxy
at a speed of 54.2 km/s relative to the Sun. Its projected Galactic orbit carries it between 21,300
and 30,700 light years from the center of the Galaxy.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_Pyxidis]

T Pyx surrounded by the nova remnants of a previous outburst

T Pyxidis is a recurrent nova and nova remnant in the constellation Pyxis. Its a binary star system
and is estimated at about 4,783 parsecs (15,600 light-years) from Earth. It contains a Sun-like star
and a white dwarf. Because of their close proximity and the larger mass of the white dwarf, the
latter draws matter from the larger, less massive star. The influx of matter on the white dwarfs
surface causes periodic thermonuclear explosions to occur.

The usual apparent magnitude of this star system is 15.5, but there occurred eruptions with
maximal apparent magnitude of about 7.0 in the years 1890, 1902, 1920, 1944, 1966 and 2011.
Evidence seems to indicate that T Pyxidis may have increased in mass despite the nova eruptions,
and is now close to the Chandrasekhar limit when it might explode as a supernova. When a white
dwarf reaches this limit it will collapse under its own weight and cause a type 1a supernova.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_Pyxidis]

Kappa Pyxidis has a magnitude of 4.62 and is 560 50 light-years distant. An orange giant of
spectral type K4/K5III, Kappa has a luminosity approximately 965 times that of the Sun. It is
separated by 2.1 arcseconds from a magnitude 10 star.

Theta Pyxidis is a red giant of spectral type M1III and semi-regular variable with two measured
periods of 13 and 98.3 days, and an average magnitude of 4.71, and is 500 30 light-years distant
from Earth. It has expanded to approximately 54 times the diameter of the Sun.

Pyxis is home to three stars with confirmed planetary systems. A hot Jupiter, HD 73256 b, that
orbits HD 73256 every 2.55 days, was discovered using the CORALIE spectrograph in 2003. The
host star is a yellow star of spectral type G9V that has 69% of our Suns luminosity, 89% of its
diameter and 105% of its mass. Around 119 light-years away, it shines with an apparent magnitude
of 8.08 and is around a billion years old. HD 73267 b was discovered with the High Accuracy
Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) in 2008. It orbits HD 73267 every 1260 days, a 7 billion
year-old star of spectral type G5V that is around 89% as massive as the Sun. A red dwarf of spectral
type M2.5V that has around 42% the Suns mass, Gliese 317 is orbited by two gas giant planets.
Around 50 light-years distant from Earth, it is a good candidate for future searches for more
terrestrial rocky planets.

Deep- sky objects in Pyxis include:

Planetary Nebula NGC 2818 from Hubble

NGC 2818 is a beautiful planetary nebula, the gaseous shroud of a dying sun-like star. It could
well offer a glimpse of the future that awaits our own Sun after spending another 5 billion years
or so steadily using up hydrogen at its core, and then finally helium, as fuel for nuclear fusion.
Curiously, NGC 2818 seems to lie within an open star cluster, NGC 2818A, that is some 10,000
light-years distant toward the southern constellation Pyxis (the Compass). At the distance of the
star cluster, the nebula would be about 4 light-years across. But accurate velocity measurements
show that the nebulas own velocity is very different from the cluster's member stars. The result is
strong evidence that NGC 2818 is only by chance found along the line of sight to the star cluster
and so may not share the clusters distance or age. The Hubble image is a composite of exposures
through narrow-band filters, presenting emission from nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms in
the nebula as red, green, and blue hues.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140713.html]

Henize 2-10, a Dwarf Starburst Galaxy

The combined observations from multiple telescopes of Henize 2-10, a dwarf starburst galaxy
located about 30 million light years from Earth, has provided astronomers with a detailed new look
at how galaxy and black hole formation may have occured in the early Universe. This image shows
optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope in red, green and blue, X-ray data from NASA's
Chandra X-ray Observatory in purple, and radio data from the National Radio Astronomy
Observatorys Very Large Array in yellow. A compact X-ray source at the center of the galaxy
coincides with a radio source, giving evidence for an actively growing supermassive black hole
with a mass of about one million times that of the sun.

Stars are forming in Henize 2-10 at a prodigious rate, giving the star clusters in this galaxy their
blue appearance. This combination of a burst of star formation and a massive black hole is
analogous to conditions in the early Universe. Since Henize 2-10 does not contain a significant
bulge of stars in its center, these results show that supermassive black hole growth may precede

the growth of bulges in galaxies. This differs from the relatively nearby Universe where the growth
of galaxy bulges and supermassive black holes appears to occur in parallel.
[https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/photo11007.html#.V18qODUrRWA]

The Pyxis globular cluster, discovered in 1995, is a 13.3 1.3 billion year-old globular cluster
situated around 130,000 light-years distant from Earth and around 133,000 light-years distant from
the centre of the Milky Way- a region not previously thought to contain globular clusters. Located
in the galactic halo, it was noted to lie on the same plane as the Large Magellanic Cloud and the
possibility has been raised that it might be an escaped object from that galaxy.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyxis]

Reticulum

[http://www.davidmalin.com/fujii/source/Dor.html]

Reticulum is a small, faint constellation in the southern sky. Its name is Latin for a small net, or
reticle- a net of crosshairs at the focus of a telescope eyepiece that is used to measure star positions.
The constellation is best viewed between October and December, but cannot be seen from middle
to northern latitudes.

Reticulum, shown on Chart XX of Johann Bodes Uranographia under the name Reticulus.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/reticulum.htm]

A constellation in this area was introduced by Isaac Habrecht II in his celestial globe in 1621, who
named it Rhombus. It was replaced with a somewhat different constellation by the French
astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in the eighteenth century; during his stay at the Cape of
Good Hope, he named the constellation le Rticule Rhomboide to commemorate the reticle in his
telescope eyepiece. The name was later Latinized to Reticulum in his star catalogue Coelum
Australe Stelliferum. In 1810, the stars of Reticulum were used by William Croswell to produce
the constellation Marmor Sculptile, which represented the bust of Christopher Columbus, but this
did not catch on among astronomers.

The constellation Reticulum became officially recognized during the First General Assembly of
the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 1922. The boundary for this and other
constellations was drawn up by Belgian astronomer Eugne Delporte along arcs of right ascension
and declination for epoch 1875. These were published in 1930 in the Delimination Scientifique
des Constellations at the behest of the IAU.

[http://www.dibonsmith.com/ret_con.htm]

The constellation Reticulum between the stars Achernar and Canopus. The wide double star zeta
Reticulii is marked in red.
[http://oneminuteastronomer.com/6630/constellation-reticulum/]
Only two of the stars in this constellation are brighter than visual magnitude 5: Alpha () and Beta
() reticuli.

Alpha Reticuli is the brightest star in the constellation. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 3.315
and is 161.6 light years distant from the solar system. The star has more than three times the mass
of the Sun and almost 13 times the solar radius. It is approximately 240 times more luminous than
the Sun. It is believed to be about 330 million years old. Alpha Reticuli is halfway between the
giant and bright giant stage of evolution. It has the stellar classification of G8 II-III. It is a known

X-ray source. The star has a 12th magnitude companion, CCDM J04144-6228B, at an angular
separation of 48 arcseconds. The two stars share a common proper motion.

Beta Reticuli is a triple star system about 100 light years away in Reticulum. It has an apparent
magnitude of 3.84. The primary component in the system is an orange giant with the stellar
classification K0IV SB.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/reticulum-constellation/]

The reddish star R Reticuli is a Mira variable. This variable was discovered by C. Ragoonatha
Chary at the Madras Observatory in India.

The binary star system Epsilon Reticuli consists of a spectral class K2IV star being orbited by a
white dwarf. Based on parallax measurements, this system is located about 50 light years from the
Sun. In 2000, a planetary companion was announced, orbiting the star Reticuli A.

Zeta Reticuli is a wide binary star system, with both members being similar to the Sun. It is located
at a distance of about 39 light years. This system gained some notoriety in ufology when the alleged
alien abductees Betty and Barney Hill named it as the home of their abductors.

NGC 1559 obtained with the multi-mode FORS1 instrument on ESOs 8.2m VLT. Supernova SN
2005df is visible as the bright star just above the galaxy.

NGC 1559 is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Reticulum. It is also a Seyfert galaxy.
Although it was originally thought to be a member of the Dorado Group, subsequent observations
have shown that it is in fact not a member of any galaxy group or cluster and does not have any
nearby companions. NGC 1559 has massive spiral arms and strong star formation. It contains a
small bar which is oriented nearly east-west and spans 40. Its bar and disc are the source of very
strong radio emissions.

In 2005, a Type 1a supernova, (SN 2005df) was observed. Two other supernovae discovered in
NGC 1559 were SN 1984J and SN 1986L. All three were discovered by Australian amateur
astronomer Robert Evans.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_1559]

Unusual Starburst Galaxy NGC 1313

Why is this galaxy so discombobulated? Usually, galaxies this topsy-turvy result from a recent
collision with a neighboring galaxy. Spiral galaxy NGC 1313, however, appears to be alone.
Brightly lit with new and blue massive stars, star formation appears so rampant in NGC 1313 that
it has been labeled a starburst galaxy. Strange features of NGC 1313 include that its spiral arms
are lopsided and its rotational axis is not at the center of the nuclear bar. Pictured above, NGC
1313 spans about 50,000 light years and lies only about 15 million light years away toward the
constellation of the Reticle (Reticulum). Continued numerical modeling of galaxies like NGC 1313
might shed some light on its unusual nature.

[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100330.html]

The dwarf galaxy Reticulum II is also located in Reticulum. It is an old dwarf galaxy in the Local
Group. Reticulum II was discovered in 2015 by analysing images from the Dark Energy Survey.
It is elongated, having an axis ratio of 0.6. The size is given by a half light distance of 30 pc. This
is too large for it to be a globular cluster. It has an unusual enhancement of r-process elements;
meaning that gold and europium are extra common in the brightest stars in the galaxy. The
implication of the unusual enrichment in elements heavier than zinc, is that the r-process is very
rare, and only happened once in this galaxy, possibly by the collision of two neutron stars.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reticulum]

Sagitta

Sagitta is a dim but distinctive constellation in the northern sky. Its name is Latin for arrow, and
it should not be confused with the larger constellation Sagittarius, the archer. Although Sagitta is
an ancient constellation, it has no star brighter than 3rd magnitude and has the third-smallest area
of all constellations (only Equuleus and Crux are smaller). It was included among the 48
constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern
constellations defined by the International Astronomical Union. Located to the north of the
equator, Sagitta can be seen from every location on Earth except within the Antarctic circle.

Covering 79.9 square degrees and hence 0.194% of the sky, Sagitta ranks 86th of the 88 modern
constellations by area. Its position in the Northern Celestial Hemisphere means that the whole
constellation is visible to observers north of 69S. It is bordered by Vulpecula to the north,
Hercules to the west, Aquila to the south, and Delphinus to the east. In the equatorial coordinate
system, the right ascension coordinates of the constellation lie between 18h 57.2m and 20h 20.5m,
while the declination coordinates are between 16.08 and 21.64.

Sagitta can be seen above Aquila in this plate from Urania's Mirror (1825)

Sagittas shape is reminiscent of an arrow, and many cultures have interpreted it thus, among them
the Persians, Hebrews, Greeks and Romans.

In ancient Greece, Sagitta was regarded as the weapon that Hercules used to kill the eagle (Aquila)
of Jove that perpetually gnawed Prometheus liver. The Arrow is located beyond the north border
of Aquila, the Eagle. According to R.H. Allen, the Arrow could be the one shot by Hercules
towards the adjacent Stymphalian birds (6th labor) who had claws, beaks and wings of iron, and
who lived on human flesh in the marshes of Arcadia- Aquila the Eagle, Cygnus the Swan, and
Lyra (the Vulture)- and still lying between them, whence the title Herculea (although Allen cites
no reference to support this assertion). Eratosthenes claimed it as the arrow with which Apollo
exterminated the Cyclopes.
The Arabs called it as-Sahm, a name that was transferred Sham and now refers to Sge only.

Johann Bayer gave designations to eight stars, labelling them Alpha to Theta. Ptolemy saw the
constellations brightest star Gamma Sagittae as marking the arrows head, while Bayer saw
Gamma, Eta and Theta as depicting the arrows shaft. He also depicted Delta and Zeta as the spike,
Alpha, Beta and Epsilon as the fins of the arrow.

Constellations of Aquila and Sagitta

[http://www.davidmalin.com/fujii/source/Aql.html]

[https://bestdoubles.wordpress.com/2010/07/27/sagitta-sightings-epsilon-h-n-84-and-zeta/]

Alpha Sagittae, also known as Sham, is a yellow bright giant star of spectral class G1 II with an
apparent magnitude of 4.38, which lies at a distance of about 430 light-years from Earth. Originally
4 times as massive as the Sun, it has swollen and brightened to 20 times its diameter and 340 times
its luminosity.

Also of magnitude 4.38, Beta Sagittae is a G-type giant located about 440 light-years distant from
Earth.
Gamma Sagittae is the constellations brightest star. It is a red giant of spectral type M0III, and
magnitude 3.47. It lies at a distance of about 260 4 light-years from Earth.

Delta Sagittae is a multiple star system, with an apparent magnitude of +3.68. The primary
component is a red M-type bright giant. It is approximately 448 light years from Earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Sagittae]

Epsilon Sagittae is G8 III, 5.66m, multiple star (4 components; component B is optical).

Zeta Sagittae is triple star system in constellation of Sagitta, with an apparent magnitude of +5.01.
The primary component is a white A-type main-sequence star. It is approximately 326 light years
from Earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeta_Sagittae]

Eta Sagittae is a star of spectral class K2 III with a magnitude of 5.1, which belongs to the Hyades
Stream.

Theta Sagittae is a multiple star system, with an apparent magnitude of +6.51. The primary
component is a yellowish white F-type subgiant. It is approximately 147 light years from Earth.
The stars age is estimated to be about 2 billion years.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theta_Sagittae]

Two star systems have been found to have planets.

Hubble Offers a Dazzling Necklace

A giant cosmic necklace glows brightly in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image.

The object, aptly named the Necklace Nebula, is a recently discovered planetary nebula, the
glowing remains of an ordinary, Sun-like star. The nebula consists of a bright ring, measuring 12
trillion miles wide, dotted with dense, bright knots of gas that resemble diamonds in a necklace.

A pair of stars orbiting close together produced the nebula, also called PN G054.2-03.4. About
10,000 years ago one of the aging stars ballooned to the point where it engulfed its companion
star. The smaller star continued orbiting inside its larger companion, increasing the giants rotation
rate.

The bloated companion star spun so fast that a large part of its gaseous envelope expanded into
space. Due to centrifugal force, most of the gas escaped along the stars equator, producing a ring.
The embedded bright knots are dense gas clumps in the ring.

The pair is so close, only a few million miles apart, they appear as one bright dot in the center. The
stars are furiously whirling around each other, completing an orbit in a little more than a day.

The Necklace Nebula is located 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagitta. In this
composite image, taken on July 2, Hubbles Wide Field Camera 3 captured the glow of hydrogen
(blue), oxygen (green), and nitrogen (red).
[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/necklace-nebula.html]

Saggita is also home to M71, a very loose globular cluster mistaken for quite some time for a dense
open cluster. It lies at a distance of about 13,000 light-years from Earth and was first discovered
by the French astronomer Philippe Loys de Chseaux in 1745-1746.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagitta]

Sagittarius

Sagittarius constellation lies in the southern sky. It is one of the constellations of the zodiac. It
represents the archer. Sagittarius is the 15th largest constellation in the sky. It occupies an area of
867 square degrees. It is located in the fourth quadrant of the southern hemisphere (SQ4) and can
be seen at latitudes between +55 and -90. The neighboring constellations are Aquila,
Capricornus, Corona Australis, Indus, Microscopium, Ophiuchus, Scutum, Scorpius, Serpens
Cauda and Telescopium.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/sagittarius-constellation/]

As of 2002, the Sun appears in the constellation Sagittarius from 18 December to 18 January. In
tropical astrology, the Sun is considered to be in the sign Sagittarius from 22 November to 21
December, and in sidereal astrology, from 16 December to 14 January.

Sagittarius as depicted in Uranias Mirror, a set of constellation cards published in London c.1825.

The Babylonians identified Sagittarius as the god Nergal, a strange centaur-like creature firing an
arrow from a bow. It is generally depicted with wings, with two heads, one panther head and one
human head, as well as a scorpion's stinger raised above its more conventional horses tail. The
Sumerian name Pabilsag is composed of two elements Pabil, meaning elder paternal kinsman
and Sag, meaning chief, head. The name may thus be translated as the Forefather or Chief
Ancestor. The figure is reminiscent of modern depictions of Sagittarius.

In Greek mythology, Sagittarius is usually identified as a centaur: half human, half horse.
However, perhaps due to the Greeks adoption of the Sumerian constellation, some confusion
surrounds the identity of the archer. Some identify Sagittarius as the centaur Chiron, the son of

Philyra and Saturn and tutor to Jason, who was said to have changed himself into a horse to escape
his jealous wife, Rhea. However, Chiron is in fact represented by the constellation Centaurus, the
other heavenly centaur. An alternative tradition is that Chiron merely invented the constellation
Sagittarius to help in guiding the Argonauts in their quest for the Golden Fleece.

A competing mythological tradition, as espoused by Eratosthenes, identified the Archer not as a

centaur but as the satyr Crotus, son of Pan, who Greeks credited with the invention of archery.
According to myth, Crotus often went hunting on horseback and lived among the Muses, who
requested that Zeus place him in the sky, where he is seen demonstrating archery.
The arrow of this constellation points towards the star Antares, the heart of the scorpion, and
Sagittarius stands poised to attack should Scorpius ever attack the nearby Hercules, or to avenge
Scorpiuss slaying of Orion.

[http://www.aenigmatis.com/astronomy/find/sagittarius.htm]

The Teapot asterism is in Sagittarius. The Milky Way is the steam coming from the spout
As seen from the northern hemisphere, the constellations brighter stars form an easily
recognizable asterism known as the Teapot. The stars Sgr (Kaus Media), Sgr (Kaus Australis),
Sgr (Ascella), and Sgr form the body of the pot; Sgr (Kaus Borealis) is the point of the lid;
2 Sgr (Alnasl) is the tip of the spout; and Sgr (Nunki) and Sgr the handle. These same stars
originally formed the bow and arrow of Sagittarius.

To complete the teapot metaphor, under good conditions, a particularly dense area of the Milky
Way can be seen rising in a north-westerly arc above the spout, like a puff of steam rising from a
boiling kettle.

The constellation as a whole is often depicted as having the rough appearance of a stick -figure
archer drawing its bow, with the fainter stars providing the outline of the horses body. Sagittarius
famously points its arrow at the heart of Scorpius, represented by the reddish star Antares, as the
two constellations race around the sky. Following the direct line formed by Delta Sagittarii ( Sgr)
and Gamma2 Sagittarii (2 Sgr) leads nearly directly to Antares. Fittingly, Gamma Sagittarii is
Alnasl, the Arabic word for arrowhead, and Delta Sagittarii is called Kaus Media, the center of
the bow, from which the arrow protrudes. Kaus Media bisects Lambda Sagittarii ( Sgr) and
Epsilon Sagittarii ( Sgr), whose names Kaus Borealis and Kaus Australis refer to the northern and
southern portions of the bow, respectively.

The stars of Sagittarius shine in this astrophotographer photo

[http://www.space.com/30274-constellation-sagittarius-archer-dipper-teapot.html]

[http://www.davidmalin.com/fujii/source/CrA.html]

Epsilon Sagittarii (Kaus Australis) is a binary star system. The apparent visual magnitude of +1.85
makes it the brightest star in the constellation. The distance to this star is around 143 light-years
(44 parsecs). The traditional name of this star Kaus Australis, stems from Arabic qaws, bow
and Latin austrlis, southern.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_Sagittarii]

Sigma Sagittarii (Nunki) is the second brightest star in the constellation Sagittarius. Nunki has an
apparent magnitude of +2.05, making it readily visible to the naked eye. The distance to this star
is about 230 light-years (70 parsecs) from Earth. The total luminosity of Sgr is 3300 times that
of the Sun while it has a surface temperature of 18,890 K. Its modern name Nunki is an Assyrian
or Babylonian name recovered by archaeologists and made public by R. H. Allen. Sigma Sagittarii
has a 10th magnitude optical companion located 5.2 arcminutes away.

Because it is close to the ecliptic, Nunki can be occulted by the Moon and very rarely by planets.
The last occultation of Nunki by a planet took place on November 17, 1981, when it was occulted
by Venus. Furthermore, Nunki is the brightest star that can be principally occulted by an exterior
planet between 5000 BCE and 5000 AD. However, only Mars can do this, and only rarely; the last
time was on September 3, 423.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigma_Sagittarii]

Zeta Sagittarii (Ascella) is the third brightest star system in the constellation Sagittarius, with an
apparent visual magnitude of +2.59. Its traditional name Ascella comes from a Latin word meaning
armpit. The distance to Ascella is about 88 ly (27 pc). Ascella is a binary star system, with the two
components orbiting each other over a period of 21 years at an eccentricity of 0.211. The combined
mass of the system is about 5 times that of the Sun and their blended stellar classification is A2.5
Va.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeta_Sagittarii]

Delta Sagittarii (Kaus Media) is a double star in the southern zodiac constellation of Sagittarius. It
has the traditional names Kaus Media, Kaus Meridionalis, and Media, which come from the Arabic
qaws, bow and Latin media middle. The apparent visual magnitude of this star is +2.70,

making it easily visible to the naked eye. It is roughly 348 light-years (107 parsecs) distant from
Earth. This is a giant star with a stellar classification K3 III. It has three dim companions
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Sagittarii]
Lambda Sagittarii (Kaus Borealis) marks the top of the Archers bow, whence its traditional name
Kaus Borealis (Northern bow). With an apparent visual magnitude of +2.82, this is the fifth
brighter member of the constellation and it is readily visible to the naked eye. It is located at a
distance of 78.2 light-years (24.0 parsecs) from Earth. Being near the ecliptic, it is sometimes
occulted by the Moon and, more rarely, by a planet. The last planet to pass in front of it was Venus,
on 19 November 1984. The previous occasion was on 5 December 1865, when it was occulted by
the planet Mercury.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_Sagittarii]

Pi Sagittarii (Albaldah) is a triple star system. Its traditional name Albaldah comes from the Arabic
blda, the town. It has an apparent visual magnitude of +2.89, which is sufficiently bright to be
readily seen with the naked eye. It is located at a distance of roughly 510 light-years (160 parsecs)
from Earth. The spectrum of this star matches a stellar classification of F2 II. The 'II' luminosity
class is for a bright giant star that has exhausted the hydrogen at its core and has followed an
evolutionary track away from the main sequence of stars like the Sun. Because it has nearly six
times the mass of the Sun, it reached this stage in a mere 67 million years. The outer envelope is
radiating energy at an effective temperature of about 6,590 K, giving it the yellow-white hue of an
F-type star.

Pi Sagittarii has two nearby companions. The first is located at an angular separation of 0.1
arcseconds from Albaldah, or at least 13 Astronomical Units (AU). The second is 0.4 arcseconds
away, which is 40 AU or more. Nothing is known about the orbits of these stars.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_Sagittarii]

Gamma2 Sagittarii (Alnasl) is a 3rd-magnitude star in the zodiac constellation Sagittarius. The
location of this star forms the tip of the arrow in the bow of Sagittarius the Centaur. It has the
proper names Alnasl (Nasl, El Nasl), Nushaba (Nash) and Warida. Alnasl is derived from the

Arabic al-nal, meaning arrowhead. This star is close enough to the Earth that its distance can
be determined using parallax, yielding a value of about 96.9 light-years (29.7 parsecs). It has an
apparent visual magnitude of +2.98, making it the seventh brightest star in the constellation. A
stellar classification of K1 III reveals that this is a giant star, having expanded to an estimated 12
times the Suns radius. This means it has exhausted the hydrogen in its core and evolved away
from the main sequence. The abundance of elements other than hydrogen and helium in this star,
what astronomers term the stars metallicity, is lower than in the Sun. Gamma2 Sagittarii has an
effective temperature of 4,760 K, compared to 5,778 K for the Sun. It is this lower temperature
that gives Gamma2 Sagittarii the orange hue that is a characteristic of K-type stars.

There is a fainter optical companion Gamma1 Sagittarii located about 50 arcminutes north of this
star. It is magnitude 4.7 Cepheid variable star designated W Sagittarii.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma2_Sagittarii]

Nova Sagittarii 2015 No. 2 was discovered on March 15, 2015, by John Seach of Chatsworth
Island, NSW, Australia. It lies near the center of the constellation. It reached a peak magnitude of
4.3 before steadily fading.

The Milky Way is at its densest near Sagittarius, as this is where the galactic center lies.
Consequently, Sagittarius contains many star clusters and nebulae.

Supermassive Black Hole Sagittarius A*

The center of the Milky Way galaxy, with the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*),
located in the middle, is revealed in these images. As described in our press release, astronomers
have used NASAs Chandra X-ray Observatory to take a major step in understanding why material
around Sgr A* is extraordinarily faint in X-rays.

The large image contains X-rays from Chandra in blue and infrared emission from the Hubble
Space Telescope in red and yellow. The inset shows a close-up view of Sgr A* in X-rays only,
covering a region half a light year wide. The diffuse X-ray emission is from hot gas captured by
the black hole and being pulled inwards. This hot gas originates from winds produced by a diskshaped distribution of young massive stars observed in infrared observations.

These new findings are the result of one of the biggest observing campaigns ever performed by
Chandra. During 2012, Chandra collected about five weeks worth of observations to capture
unprecedented X-ray images and energy signatures of multi-million degree gas swirling around
Sgr A*, a black hole with about 4 million times the mass of the Sun. At just 26,000 light years
from Earth, Sgr A* is one of very few black holes in the universe where we can actually witness
the flow of matter nearby.
The authors infer that less than 1% of the material initially within the black holes gravitational
influence reaches the event horizon, or point of no return, because much of it is ejected.
Consequently, the X-ray emission from material near Sgr A* is remarkably faint, like that of most
of the giant black holes in galaxies in the nearby Universe.

The captured material needs to lose heat and angular momentum before being able to plunge into
the black hole. The ejection of matter allows this loss to occur.
This work should impact efforts using radio telescopes to observe and understand the shadow
cast by the event horizon of Sgr A* against the background of surrounding, glowing matter. It will
also be useful for understanding the impact that orbiting stars and gas clouds might make with the
matter flowing towards and away from the black hole.
[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/black-hole-SagittariusA.html]
Sagittarius contains several well-known nebulae, including the Lagoon Nebula (M8), near
Sagittarii; the Omega Nebula (M17), also known as the Horseshoe Nebula or Swan Nebula, near
the border with Scutum; and the Trifid Nebula (M20), a large nebula containing some very young,
hot stars.

The Lagoon Nebula (M8) is an emission nebula that is located 5,000 light-years from Earth and
measures 140 light-years by 60 light-years (1.5). Though it appears grey in telescopes to the
unaided eye, long-exposure photographs reveal its pink hue, common to emission nebulae. It is
fairly bright, with an integrated magnitude of 3.0. The Lagoon Nebula was discovered
independently by John Flamsteed in 1680, Guillaume Le Gentil in 1747, and Charles Messier in
1764. The central area of the Lagoon Nebula is also known as the Hourglass Nebula, so named for
its distinctive shape. The Hourglass Nebula has its shape because of matter propelled by Herschel
36. The Lagoon Nebula also features three dark nebulae catalogued in Barnards Catalog. The
Lagoon Nebula was instrumental in the discovery of Bok globules, as Bart Bok studied prints of
the nebula intensively in 1947. Approximately 17,000 Bok globules were discovered in the nebula
nine years later as a part of the Palomar Sky Survey; studies later showed that Bok's hypothesis
that the globules held protostars was correct.

The Omega Nebula is a fairly bright nebula; it has an integrated magnitude of 6.0 and is 4890
light-years from Earth. It was discovered in 1746 by Philippe Loys de Chsaux; observers since
him have differed greatly in how they view the nebula, hence its myriad of names. Most often
viewed as a checkmark, it was seen as a swan by George F. Chambers in 1889, a loon by Roy
Bishop, and as a curl of smoke by Camille Flammarion.

The Trifid Nebula (M20, NGC 6514) is an emission nebula in Sagittarius that lies less than two
degrees from the Lagoon Nebula. Discovered by French comet-hunter Charles Messier, it is
located between 2,000 and 9,000 light-years from Earth and has a diameter of approximately 50
light-years. The outside of the Trifid Nebula is a bluish reflection nebula; the interior is pink with
two dark bands that divide it into three areas, sometimes called lobes. Hydrogen in the nebula is
ionized, creating its characteristic color, by a central triple star, which formed in the intersection
of the two dark bands. M20 is associated with a cluster that has a magnitude of 6.3.

The Red Spider Nebula (NGC 6537) is a planetary nebula located at a distance of about 4000 lightyears from Earth.

NGC 6559 is a star forming region located at a distance of about 5000 light-years from Earth, in
the constellation of Sagittarius, showing both emission (red) and reflection (bluish) regions.

The grouping of the Lagoon Nebula, the Trifid Nebula, and NGC 6559 is often called the
Sagittarius triplet:

A Sagittarius Triplet

These three bright nebulae are often featured in telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius
and the crowded starfields of the central Milky Way. In fact, 18th century cosmic tourist Charles
Messier cataloged two of them; M8, the large nebula left of center, and colorful M20 on the right.
The third, NGC 6559, is above M8, separated from the larger nebula by a dark dust lane. All three
are stellar nurseries about five thousand light-years or so distant. The expansive M8, over a
hundred light-years across, is also known as the Lagoon Nebula. M20s popular moniker is the
Trifid. Glowing hydrogen gas creates the dominant red color of the emission nebulae, with

contrasting blue hues, most striking in the Trifid, due to dust reflected starlight. This broad
skyscape also includes one of Messiers open star clusters, M21, just above and right of the Trifid.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120601.html]

In addition, several other nebulae have been located within Sagittarius and are of interest to
astronomers.

M24, also called the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud, is a star cluster with an approximate magnitude
of 3. About 9400 light-years away, it has a diameter of approximately 330 light-years. Embedded
in M24 is NGC 6603, a smaller star cluster that is very dense. NGC 6567, a dim planetary nebula,
and Barnard 92, a Bok globule, are also nearby.

NGC 6445 is a planetary nebula with an approximate magnitude of 11. A large nebula at over one
arcminute in diameter, it appears very close to the globular cluster NGC 6440.

NGC 6638 is a dimmer globular at magnitude 9.2, though it is more distant than M71 at a distance
of 26,000 light-years. It is a Shapley class VI cluster; the classification means that it has
intermediate concentration at its core. It is approximately a degree away from the brighter
globulars M22 and M28; NGC 6638 is southeast and southwest of the clusters respectively.

[http://www.solstation.com/x-objects/sag-deg.htm]

The Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical, satellite galaxy of our Milky Way

The Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy (Sag DEG, Sgr dE or the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal
Galaxy) is a small elliptical loop-shaped satellite galaxy of our Milky Way that lies about 70,000
light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Sagittarius, while it is currently receding from
us at approximately 140 kilometers per second. It is roughly 10,000 light-years across and is home
to four known globular clusters, including Messier 54.

Sag DEG should not be confused with the Sagittarius Dwarf Irregular Galaxy (Sag DIG), a small
galaxy at 3.4 million light-years distant.

SagDEG is one of the most recently discovered members of the Local Group, and is currently in a
very close encounter to our Milky Way galaxy. It is apparently in process of being disrupted by

tidal gravitational forces of its big massive neighbor in this encounter. It is surprising that the dwarf
has not been disrupted for so far. This fact is an indication for the unusually high concentration of
dark matter within this small galaxy, which ties the stars stronger to the galaxy by its gravity.

It is a rather old galaxy, with little interstellar dust and composed largely of older and metal-poor
stars, even though it has multiple stellar populations, ranging in age from the oldest globular
clusters (almost as old as the Universe itself) to smaller populations of stars as young as several
hundred million years which are metal-rich.
Sag DEG can be credited with shaping the Milky Ways spiral arms.

It has orbited the Milky Way, with a period of 550 to 750 million years, about ten times during its
billions of years of existence, at a distance of about 50,000 light-years from the galactic core.
During these orbits Sag DEG struck our galaxy some 1.9 billion years ago. It then looped over the
galactic north pole and struck again about 900 million years ago. It is heading back right now,
on course for a third clash with the southern face of the Milky Way disk in 10 million years or so.

Telescopic data and detailed simulations show how these galactic collisions have sent streams of
stars out in loops in both galaxies. These long streamers continue to swell with stars and are
gradually tugged outward by the Milky Ways rotation into a familiar spiral arm. Its the dark
matter within Sag DEG that provided the initial push.
Sag DEG pays a high price though sucked inward repeatedly by the Milky Ways mightier
gravity, its being ripped apart by the blows, sending huge amounts of its stars and dark matter
into the new arms. Its starting mass was about 100 billion times the mass of our Sun, but has
already decreased by a factor of two or three.

When all that dark matter first smacked into the Milky Way, 80 percent to 90 percent of it was
stripped off. That first impact triggered instabilities that were amplified, and quickly formed the
spiral arms of our galaxy.

Impacts between galaxies and their companions are thought to be widespread in the cosmos, and
many of the spiral galaxies we can see were probably formed in this way.
[http://annesastronomynews.com/photo-gallery-ii/galaxies-clusters/the-sagittarius-dwarfelliptical/]
Baades Window is an area with very little obscuring dust that shows objects closer to the Milky
Ways center than would normally be visible. NGC 6522, magnitude 8.6, and NGC 6528,
magnitude 9.5, are both globular clusters visible through Baades Window. 20,000 and 24,000
light-years from Earth, with Shapley classes of VI and V respectively, both are moderately
concentrated at their cores. NGC 6528 is closer to the galactic core at an approximate distance of
2,000 light-years.

The Wow! signal was a strong narrowband radio signal that appeared to have come from the
direction of Sagittarius, on August 15, 1977. The signal was detected by astronomer Jerry R.
Ehman while working on a SETI project. The signal appeared to come from the constellation
Sagittarius and bore the expected hallmarks of non-terrestrial and non-Solar System origin.
Impressed by the result, Ehman circled the signal on the computer printout and wrote the comment
Wow! on its side, which became the name of the signal itself. The entire signal sequence lasted
for the full 72-second window that Big Ear was able to observe it, but has not been detected since.
The signal has been the subject of significant media attention, and astronomers have tried many
times in vain to detect it again.

The space probe New Horizons is moving on a trajectory out of the Solar System as of 2016 that
places the probe in front of Sagittarius as seen from the Earth. New Horizons will exhaust its
radioisotope thermoelectric generator long before it reaches any other stars.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagittarius_%28constellation%29]

Scorpius

Scorpius constellation lies in the southern sky. It represents the scorpion and is associated with the
story of Orion in Greek mythology. Scorpius is the 33rd constellation in size, occupying an area
of 497 square degrees. It lies in the third quadrant of the southern hemisphere (SQ3) and can be
seen at latitudes between +40 and -90. The neighboring constellations are Ara, Corona Australis,
Libra, Lupus, Norma, Ophiuchus and Sagittarius.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/scorpius-constellation/]

The Western astrological sign Scorpio of the tropical zodiac (October 23 November 21) differs
from the astronomical constellation and the Hindu astrological sign of the sidereal zodiac
(November 16 December 16). Astronomically, the sun is in Scorpius for just six days, from
November 23 to November 28. Much of the difference is due to the constellation Ophiuchus, which
is used by only a few astrologers. Scorpius corresponds to the nakshatras Anuradha, Jyeshtha, and
Mula.

Scorpius as depicted in Uranias Mirror, a set of constellation cards published in London c.1825

In Greek mythology, the myths associated with Scorpio almost invariably also contain a reference
to Orion. According to one of these myths it is written that Orion boasted to goddess Artemis and
her mother, Leto, that he would kill every animal on the Earth. Although Artemis was known to
be a hunter herself she offered protection to all creatures. Artemis and her mother Leto sent a
scorpion to deal with Orion. The pair battled and the scorpion killed Orion. However, the contest
was apparently a lively one that caught the attention of the king of the gods Zeus, who later raised
the scorpion to heaven and afterwards, at the request of Artemis, did the same for Orion to serve
as a reminder for mortals to curb their excessive pride. There is also a version that Orion was better
than the goddess Artemis but said that Artemis was better than he and so Artemis took a liking to
Orion. The god Apollo, Artemiss twin brother, grew angry and sent a scorpion to attack Orion.
After Orion was killed, Artemis asked Zeus to put Orion up in the sky. So every winter Orion hunts
in the sky, but every summer he flees as the constellation of the scorpion comes.
The Babylonians called this constellation MUL.GIR.TAB- the Scorpion, the signs can be literally
read as the (creature with) a burning sting.
In some old descriptions the constellation of Libra is treated as the Scorpions claws. Libra was
known as the Claws of the Scorpion in Babylonian (zibntu).
The Javanese people of Indonesia call this constellation Banyakangrem (the brooded swan) or
Kalapa Doyong (leaning coconut tree) due to the shape similarity.

[http://www.davidmalin.com/fujii/source/Sco_1.html]
The constellations bright stars form a pattern like a longshoreman's hook. Most of them are
massive members of the nearest OB association: Scorpius-Centaurus.

Antares (Alpha Scorpii) is a red supergiant star with a visual magnitude of 0.96, approximately
550 light years distant from the Sun. It is the brightest star in the Scorpius constellation and the
16th brightest star in the night sky. Sometimes it is referred to as the 15th brightest star if the two
brighter components in the Capella (Alpha Aurigae, located in Auriga constellation) system are
counted as one star.

Antares is one of the four first magnitude stars lying within 5 of the ecliptic, along with Aldebaran
in the Taurus constellation, Spica in Virgo, and Regulus in Leo. It can be occulted by the Moon

and very infrequently by Venus. (The last recorded occultation by Venus occurred on September
17, 525 BCE.)

Antares is the most massive, brightest and most evolved member of the Scorpius-Centaurus
Association, the nearest OB stellar association to the solar system. The star belongs to the spectral
class M1.5lab-b and has the radius about 883 times solar. It is approximately 10,000 times more
luminous than the Sun, and has between 15 and 18 solar masses. The stars estimated age is about
12 million years.
Antares is classified as a type LC slow irregular variable star. The stars magnitude slowly varies
from 0.88 to 1.16. It has a companion star, Antares B, about 529 astronomical units (AU) away.
Antares B has the stellar classification B2.5 and an apparent visual magnitude of 5.5. It is 170
more luminous than the Sun and has an orbital period estimated at 878 years.

Antares marks the heart of the scorpion, which is also its alternative name. The name Antares
comes from the ancient Greek , which has been translated as anti-Ares, rival of Mars,
or like Mars, referring to the similarity of the stars red hue to that of the planet Mars. The
comparison possibly dates way back to Mesopotamian astronomers. Another theory suggests that
the name Antares may have come from the name Antar or Antarah ibn Shaddad, which was the
name of an Arabic warrior-hero celebrated in the Golden Muallaqat, one of the seven long Arabic
pre-Islamic poems.

Antares was known under different names in various cultures. Babylonians knew it as GABA
GIR.TAB, or the breast of the scorpion, in Egypt it represented the scorpion goddess Serket, and
in Persia, it was known as Satevis, one of the four royal stars.

Shaula (Lambda Scorpii) is the second brightest star in Scorpius and the 25th brightest star in the
sky. It is approximately 700 light years distant from the solar system. Lambda Scorpii is a multiple
star system with three visible components, Lambda Scorpii A, Lambda Scorpii B, and Lambda
Scorpii C. Lambda Scorpii A is a triple star system composed of two class B stars and a pre-main
sequence star. Lambda Scorpii B lies 42 arc seconds away from the first component, and Lambda

Scorpii C is a 12th magnitude star 95 arc seconds away from component A. The primary star in
the Lambda Scorpii A system is a Beta Cephei type variable. The estimated age of the star system
is about 10-13 million years. Lambda Scorpiis traditional name, Shaula, comes from the Arabic
al-awl, which means the raised (tail).

Acrab (Beta Scorpii) is another multiple star system in Scorpius. In small telescopes, it appears as
a binary star with two components separated by 13.5 seconds of arc. The brighter of the two
components is itself a binary star with an orbital period of 610 years, and its own brighter
component is a spectroscopic binary, with components separated by only 1.42 miliarcseconds and
orbiting each other every 6.82 days. The other visual component also has two subcomponents with
an angular separation of 0.1328 and an orbital period of 39 years. The dimmer subcomponent is
yet another spectroscopic binary star with an orbital period of 10.7 days. The two most massive
stars in the system are main sequence stars belonging to the spectral class B. Each has at least 10
solar masses and both are expected to end their lives in massive Type II supernova explosions.
Beta Scorpiis traditional name, Acrab (Akrab, Elacrab) is derived from the Arabic al-Aqrab,
which means the scorpion. The stars other proper name, Graffias, which it shares with Xi
Scorpii, means the claws.

Dschubba (Delta Scorpii) has the stellar classification B0.3 IV and is approximately 490 light years
distant. It has a visual magnitude of 2.307. The star has a class B companion orbiting it every 20
days, and another star in a very eccentric orbit that orbits the primary star every 10 years. Delta
Scorpiis traditional name, Dschubba (or Dzuba) comes from the Arabic jabhat, which means the
forehead, referring to the scorpions forehead. Sometimes the star is also known as Iclarcrau or
Iclarkrav.

Lesath (Upsilon Scorpii) is a subgiant star belonging to the spectral class B2 IV. It has a visual
magnitude of 2.70 and is approximately 580 light years distant. The star is about 11 times more
massive and 12,300 times more luminous than the Sun, and has a radius 6.1 times solar. The stars
traditional name, Lesath, comes from the Arabic lasa, which means pass (or bite) of a poisonous
animal. The star is located in the scorpions stinger. It lies close to the brighter star Lambda
Scorpii and the two stars form a pair sometimes known as the Cats Eyes.

Jabhat al Akrab (Omega Scorpii) is composed of two stars separated by 0.24 in the sky. The
system has the proper name Jabhat al Akrab, derived from the Arabic jabhat[u] al-caqrab, which
means the forehead of the scorpion. Omega-1 Scorpii is a blue-white dwarf belonging to the
spectral class B1V. It has an apparent magnitude of 3.93 and is approximately 424 light years
distant. The star is 9,120 times more luminous than the Sun, and has 11 times the Suns mass.
Omega-2 Scorpii is a yellow bright giant star of the spectral type G3II-III. It has an apparent visual
magnitude of 4.31 and is approximately 265 light years distant from the Sun.

Al Niyat (Tau Scorpii) is a hydrogen fusing dwarf star with a strong, complex magnetic field. The
star has the stellar classification B0.2V. It is a hot star with a mass 15 times that of the Sun and a
radius more than six times solar. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 2.82 and is approximately
470 light years distant. The star is about 18,000 times more luminous than the Sun. Tau Scorpii is
a popular target for astronomers because it is so luminous and hot, and also because, as a result of
its slow rotation, the star shows a very clear spectrum.

U Scorpii is the fastest known nova and one of the 10 known recurring novae in the Milky Way
galaxy. U Scorpii normally has a visual magnitude of 18, but during outbursts it reaches magnitude
8. The last eruption was observed in 2010 and the next one is expected to occur in the year 2020.

Scorpius X-1 is an X-ray source in Scorpius. It has an apparent magnitude of 12.2 and is about
9,000 light years distant. It is a low-mass X-ray binary system composed of a neutron star that
draws material off a donor star. Scorpius X-1 was the first X-ray source discovered outside the
solar system and it is the strongest source of X-rays in the sky, second only to the Sun. The X-ray
flux is associated with the star V818 Scorpii, a blue variable which is the optical counterpart to
Scorpius X-1. Scorpius X-1 was discovered by a team led by the astrophysicist Riccardo Giacconi
in 1962. Giacconi laid the foundations of X-ray astronomy and won a Nobel Prize for his work in
2002.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/scorpius-constellation/]

The star once designated Sco (despite being well within the boundaries of Libra) is today known
as Lib. Moreover, the entire constellation of Libra was considered to be claws of Scorpius
(Chelae Scorpionis) in Ancient Greek times, with a set of scales held aloft by Astraea (represented
by adjacent Virgo) being formed from these western-most stars during later Greek times. The
division into Libra was formalised during Roman times.

Butterfly Emerges from Stellar Demise in Planetary Nebula NGC 6302

This celestial object looks like a delicate butterfly. But it is far from serene. What resemble dainty
butterfly wings are actually roiling cauldrons of gas heated to more than 36,000 degrees
Fahrenheit. The gas is tearing across space at more than 600,000 miles an hour- fast enough to
travel from Earth to the moon in 24 minutes!

A dying star that was once about five times the mass of the Sun is at the center of this fury. It has
ejected its envelope of gases and is now unleashing a stream of ultraviolet radiation that is making
the cast-off material glow. This object is an example of a planetary nebula, so-named because
many of them have a round appearance resembling that of a planet when viewed through a small
telescope.
The Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), a new camera aboard NASAs Hubble Space Telescope,
snapped this image of the planetary nebula, catalogued as NGC 6302, but more popularly called
the Bug Nebula or the Butterfly Nebula. WFC3 was installed by NASA astronauts in May 2009,
during the servicing mission to upgrade and repair the 19-year-old Hubble telescope.

NGC 6302 lies within our Milky Way galaxy, roughly 3,800 light-years away in the constellation
Scorpius. The glowing gas is the stars outer layers, expelled over about 2,200 years. The
butterfly stretches for more than two light-years, which is about half the distance from the Sun
to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri.

The central star itself cannot be seen, because it is hidden within a doughnut-shaped ring of dust,
which appears as a dark band pinching the nebula in the center. The thick dust belt constricts the
stars outflow, creating the classic bipolar or hourglass shape displayed by some planetary
nebulae.
The stars surface temperature is estimated to be about 400,000 degrees Fahrenheit, making it one
of the hottest known stars in our galaxy. Spectroscopic observations made with ground-based
telescopes show that the gas is roughly 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit, which is unusually hot
compared to a typical planetary nebulae.

The WFC3 image reveals a complex history of ejections from the star. The star first evolved into
a huge red-giant star, with a diameter of about 1,000 times that of our Sun. It then lost its extended
outer layers. Some of this gas was cast off from its equator at a relatively slow speed, perhaps as
low as 20,000 miles an hour, creating the doughnut-shaped ring. Other gas was ejected
perpendicular to the ring at higher speeds, producing the elongated wings of the butterfly-shaped

structure. Later, as the central star heated up, a much faster stellar wind, a stream of charged
particles travelling at more than 2 million miles an hour, plowed through the existing wing-shaped
structure, further modifying its shape.

The image also shows numerous finger-like projections pointing back to the star, which may mark
denser blobs in the outflow that have resisted the pressure from the stellar wind.
The nebulas outer edges are largely due to light emitted by nitrogen, which marks the coolest gas
visible in the picture. WFC3 is equipped with a wide variety of filters that isolate light emitted by
various chemical elements, allowing astronomers to infer properties of the nebular gas, such as its
temperature, density, and composition.

The white-colored regions are areas where light is emitted by sulfur. These are regions where fastmoving gas overtakes and collides with slow-moving gas that left the star at an earlier time,
producing shock waves in the gas (the bright white edges on the sides facing the central star). The
white blob with the crisp edge at upper right is an example of one of those shock waves.
NGC 6302 was imaged on July 27, 2009 with Hubbles Wide Field Camera 3 in ultraviolet and
visible light. Filters that isolate emissions from oxygen, helium, hydrogen, nitrogen, and sulfur
from the planetary nebula were used to create this composite image.
[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/multimedia/ero/ero_ngc6302.html]

NGC 6334: The Cats Paw Nebula

Nebulas are perhaps as famous for being identified with familiar shapes as perhaps cats are for
getting into trouble. Still, no known cat could have created the vast Cats Paw Nebula visible in
Scorpius. At 5,500 light years distant, Cats Paw is an emission nebula with a red color that
originates from an abundance of ionized hydrogen atoms. Alternatively known as the Bear Claw
Nebula or NGC 6334, stars nearly ten times the mass of our Sun have been born there in only the
past few million years. Pictured above is a deep field image of the Cats Paw nebula.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140618.html]

Near Zeta Scorpii the open cluster NGC 623, also known as the Northern Jewel Box, located.
Zeta1 (HR 6262) is a member of this star cluster (Its brighter apparent partner, Zeta2 (HR 6271),
is only 150 ly from Earth and so is not a cluster member):

Part of the Table of Scorpius (NGC 6231)

NGC 6231 is a young cluster with an estimated age of 3.2 million years. The cluster is quite bright
and a nice target for binoculars and any type of telescopes. Its star are gravitationally bounded and
gave its compact structure. Also is a good target to image from light polluted places.
The cluster is located at the south-western bend of the Scorpions tail in the constellation of
Scorpius and is approaching us at the speed of 22 kilometres per second.

NGC 6231 was first discovered by Giovanni Batista Hodierna prior to 1654, and later that same
year he listed the cluster in his book De Admirandis Coeli Characteribuse published in Palermo,
Italy.
[http://cs.astronomy.com/asy/m/starclusters/471082.aspx]

Another open cluster in Scorpius is M7, also designated NGC 6475, and sometimes known as the
Ptolemy Cluster. The cluster is easily detectable with the naked eye, close to the stinger of
Scorpius. With a declination of -34.8, it is the southernmost Messier object.

M7 has been known since antiquity; it was first recorded by the 1st-century Greek-Roman
astronomer Ptolemy, who described it as a nebula in 130 AD. Italian astronomer Giovanni Batista
Hodierna observed it before 1654 and counted 30 stars in it. In 1764, French astronomer Charles
Messier catalogued the cluster as the seventh member in his list of comet-like objects. English
astronomer John Herschel described it as coarsely scattered clusters of stars.

Telescopic observations of the cluster reveal about 80 stars within a field of view of 1.3 across.
At the clusters estimated distance of 980 light years this corresponds to an actual diameter of 25
light years. The tidal radius of the cluster is 40.1 ly (12.3 pc) and it has a combined mass of about
735 times the mass of the Sun. The age of the cluster is around 200 million years while the brightest
member star is of magnitude 5.6. In terms of composition, the cluster contains a similar abundance
of elements other than hydrogen and helium as the Sun.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorpius]

Sculptor

[http://www.slivoski.com/astronomy/sculptor.htm]

Sculptor is a small and faint constellation in the southern sky. It represents a sculptor. It was
introduced by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in the 18th century. Sculptor is bordered by Aquarius and
Cetus to the north, Fornax to the east, Phoenix to the south, Grus to the southwest, and Piscis
Austrinus to the west. The bright star Fomalhaut is nearby. In the equatorial coordinate system,
the right ascension coordinates of the constellation lie between 23h 06.4m and 01h 45.5m, while
the declination coordinates are between 24.80 and 39.37.

Sculptor, shown under the name Apparatus Sculptoris, on Chart XVII of the Uranographia of
Johann Bode (1801)

The faint constellation south of Cetus and Aquarius was invented by the French astronomer
Nicolas Louis de Lacaille during his mapping of the southern skies in 1751-52. His original name
for it, given on his planisphere of 1756, was lAtelier du Sculpteur, the sculptors studio. It
consisted of a carved head on a tripod table, with the artists mallet and two chisels on a block of
marble next to it. On Lacailles 1763 planisphere the title was Latinized to Apparatus Sculptoris.
Johann Bode in 1801 dispensed with the block of marble and moved the sculptors tools to the top
of the table along with the carved bust, as depicted here. In place of the marble block he created
the constellation Machina Electrica, but that figure never achieved wide currency.

In 1844 the English astronomer John Herschel proposed shortening the name to Sculptor. This
suggestion was adopted by Francis Baily in his British Association Catalogue of 1845, and it has
been known simply as Sculptor ever since.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/sculptor.htm]

[http://oneminuteastronomer.com/4786/silver-coin-galaxy/]

[http://www.dibonsmith.com/scl_con.htm]

No stars brighter than 3rd magnitude are located in Sculptor. This is explained by the fact that
Sculptor contains the south galactic pole where stellar density is very low.

Alpha Sculptoris has an apparent visual magnitude of +4.30, which makes it the brightest star in
this generally faint constellation. It is roughly 780 light-years (240 parsecs) distant from Earth.
Alpha Sculptoris is a blue-white B-type giant. It is classified as an SX Arietis type variable star
and its magnitude varies by 0.01. Its luminosity is around 1700 times that of the Sun while its
surface temperature is 14,000 K. The radius of Alpha Sculptoris is calculated to be 7 times solar
while its mass is 5.5 times that of our own star.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Sculptoris]

Beta Sculptoris is a blue-white B-type subgiant with an apparent magnitude of +4.38. It is

approximately 178 light years from Earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Sculptoris]
Gamma Sculptoris ( Scl, Sculptoris) is a star in the constellation Sculptor.

Gamma Sculptoris is an orange K-type giant with an apparent magnitude of +4.41. It is

approximately 179 light years from Earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_Sculptoris]

Delta Sculptoris is a triple star system, approximately 143 light years from Earth. The primary
component, Delta Sculptoris A, is a white A-type main sequence dwarf with an apparent
magnitude of +4.59. It has a faint, 11th magnitude companion, Delta Sculptoris B, 4 arcseconds,
or more than 175 astronomical units, away from it. Orbiting this pair at the much greater separation
of 74 arcseconds, is the yellow G-type Delta Sculptoris C, which has an apparent magnitude of
+9.4.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Sculptoris]

R Sculptoris is an asymptotic giant branch semi-regular variable red giant star located 1,500 lightyears (460 parsecs) away in the constellation of Sculptor. Observations have revealed a spiral
structure in the material around it. The spiral is suspected to be caused by an unseen companion
star:

A Spiral Nebula Surrounding Star R Sculptoris

Whats happening around that star? An unusual spiral structure has been discovered around the
Milky Way star R Sculptoris, a red giant star located about 1,500 light years away toward the
constellation of the Sculptor (Sculptoris). The star was observed with the new Atacama Large
Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the most powerful telescopic array observing near
millimeter wavelengths, that part of the spectrum situated well beyond red light but before
microwaves and radio waves. Data from ALMA observations was used to create a 3D visualization
of the gas and dust immediately surrounding the star. A digital slice through this data showed the
unexpected spiral structure. Although unusual, a similar spiral pattern was discovered in visible
light recently around LL Pegasi. Upon analyzing the data, a hypothesis was drawn that the red
giant star in R Sculptoris might be puffing gas toward an unseen binary companion star. The
dynamics of this system might be particularly insightful because it may be giving clues as to how
giant stars evolve toward the end of their lives- and so release some constituent elements back to
the interstellar medium so that new stars may form.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap121016.html]

Commented [CT5]:

Artists impression of a star like WASP-8

WASP-8 is a magnitude 9.9 main sequence yellow dwarf star. It is reported to be a G type star of
temperature 5600 K, mass of 0.93 solar masses, radius of 0.93 solar radius, and a luminosity of
0.79 of solar luminosity.

The star is orbited by two known extrasolar planet, designated WASP-8b and WASP-8c. They was
cataloged as part of the SuperWASP mission and discovered by the astronomical transit method.
WASP-8c has the longest orbital period of any exoplanet discovered by WASP with a period of
4,323 days, over 400 times the period of the second furthest planet, WASP-117b with a period of
10.02 days. Measurements of WASP-8bs radius and mass give it an estimated density of 2.53
g/cm3, about twice the density of Jupiter.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WASP-8]

Deep-sky objects in the constellation Sculptor include:

NGC 253: Dusty Island Universe

Shiny NGC 253 is one of the brightest spiral galaxies visible, and also one of the dustiest. Some
call it the Silver Dollar Galaxy for its appearance in small telescopes, or just the Sculptor Galaxy
for its location within the boundaries of the southern constellation Sculptor. First swept up in 1783
by mathematician and astronomer Caroline Herschel, the dusty island universe lies a mere 10
million light-years away. About 70 thousand light-years across, NGC 253 is the largest member
of the Sculptor Group of Galaxies, the nearest to our own Local Group of Galaxies. In addition to
its spiral dust lanes, tendrils of dust seem to be rising from a galactic disk laced with young star
clusters and star forming regions in this sharp color image. The high dust content accompanies
frantic star formation, earning NGC 253 the designation of a starburst galaxy. NGC 253 is also
known to be a strong source of high-energy x-rays and gamma rays, likely due to massive black
holes near the galaxys center.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140726.html]

Irregular Galaxy NGC 55

Irregular galaxy NGC 55 is thought to be similar to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). But while
the LMC is about 180,000 light-years away and is a well known satellite of our own Milky Way
Galaxy, NGC 55 is more like 6 million light-years distant and is a member of the Sculptor Galaxy
Group. Classified as an irregular galaxy, in deep exposures the LMC itself resembles a barred disk
galaxy. However, spanning about 50,000 light-years, NGC 55 is seen nearly edge-on, presenting
a flattened, narrow profile in contrast with our face-on view of the LMC. Just as large star forming
regions create emission nebulae in the LMC, NGC 55 is also seen to be producing new stars. This
gorgeous galaxy portrait highlights a bright core, telltale pinkish emission regions, and young blue
star clusters in NGC 55.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap081010.html]

A spectacular head-on collision between two galaxies is seen in this NASA Hubble Space
Telescope true-color image of the Cartwheel Galaxy

The Cartwheel Galaxy (also known as ESO 350-40) is a lenticular galaxy and ring galaxy about
500 million light-years away in the constellation Sculptor. It is an estimated 150,000 light-years
across, has a mass of about 2.9- 4.8 109 solar masses, and rotates at 217 km/s.

It was discovered by Fritz Zwicky in 1941. Zwicky considered his discovery to be one of the most
complicated structures awaiting its explanation on the basis of stellar dynamics.

The galaxy was once a normal spiral galaxy before it apparently underwent a head-on collision
with a smaller companion approximately 200 million years ago (i.e., 200 million years prior to the
image). When the nearby galaxy passed through the Cartwheel Galaxy, the force of the collision
caused a powerful shock wave through the galaxy, like a rock being tossed into a sandbed. Moving
at high speed, the shock wave swept up gas and dust, creating a starburst around the galaxys center
portion that were unscathed. This explains the bluish ring around the center, brighter portion. It

can be seen that the galaxy is beginning to retake the form of a normal spiral galaxy, with arms
spreading out from a central core.

The Cartwheel galaxy in different light spectra (X-ray, ultraviolet, visible, and infrared). The
image combines data from four different space-based observatories: the Chandra X-ray
Observatory (purple), the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (ultraviolet/blue), the Hubble Space
Telescope (visible/green), and the Spitzer Space Telescope (infrared/red). Image is 160 arcsec
across.

The unusual shape of the Cartwheel Galaxy may be due to a collision with a smaller galaxy such
as those in the lower left of the image. The most recent star burst (star formation due to
compression waves) has lit up the Cartwheel rim, which has a diameter larger than the Milky Way.
Star formation via starburst galaxies, such as the Cartwheel Galaxy, results in the formation of

large and extremely luminous stars. When massive stars explode as supernovas, they leave behind
neutron stars and black holes. Some of these neutron stars and black holes have nearby companion
stars, and become powerful sources of X-rays as they pull matter off their companions (also known
as ultra and hyperluminous X-ray sources). The brightest X-ray sources are likely black holes with
companion stars, and appear as the white dots that lie along the rim of the X-ray image. The
Cartwheel contains an exceptionally large number of these black hole binary X-ray sources,
because many massive stars formed in the ring.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartwheel_Galaxy]

NGC 300 is so interesting because it is so normal. An Sc-type spiral galaxy in the nearby Sculptor
group of galaxies, NGC 300 shows typical flowing blue spiral arms, an expected compact nucleus,
and the requisite amount of stars, star clusters, and nebulae. Therefore, studying NGC 300 should
indicate how, exactly, a normal spiral galaxy works. Toward this goal, NGC 300 and the
surrounding area were studied in exquisite detail, creating and combining a series of high resolution images to create the above conglomerate picture. NGC 300 lies only 7 million light

years away, spans nearly the same amount of sky as the full moon, and is visible with a small
telescope toward the constellation of Sculptor.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap020821.html]

The Sculptor Dwarf Galaxy, pictured in this new image from the Wide Field Imager camera,
installed on the 2.2-metre MPG/ESO telescope at ESOs La Silla Observatory, is a close neighbour
of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Despite their close proximity, both galaxies have very distinct
histories and characters. This galaxy is much smaller and older than the Milky Way, making it a
valuable subject for studying both star and galaxy formation in the early Universe. However, due
to its faintness, studying this object is no easy task.

The Sculptor Dwarf Galaxy- also known as the Sculptor Dwarf Elliptical or the Sculptor Dwarf
Spheroidal- is a dwarf spheroidal galaxy, and is one of the fourteen known satellite galaxies
orbiting the Milky Way. These galactic hitchhikers are located close by in the Milky Ways
extensive halo, a spherical region extending far beyond our galaxys spiral arms. As indicated by
its name, this galaxy is located in the southern constellation of Sculptor and lies about 280 000
light-years away from Earth. Despite its proximity, the galaxy was only discovered in 1937, as its
stars are faint and spread thinly across the sky.

Although difficult to pick out, the Sculptor Dwarf Galaxy was among the first faint dwarf galaxies
found orbiting the Milky Way. The tiny galaxys shape intrigued astronomers at the time of its
discovery, but nowadays dwarf spheroidal galaxies play a more important role in allowing
astronomers to dig deeply into the Universes past.

The Milky Way, like all large galaxies, is thought to have formed from the build-up of smaller
galaxies during the early days of the Universe. If some of these small galaxies still remain today,
they should now contain many extremely old stars. The Sculptor Dwarf Galaxy fits the bill as a
primordial galaxy, thanks to a large number of ancient stars, visible in this image.

Astronomers can determine the age of stars in the galaxy because their light carries the signatures
of only a small quantity of heavy chemical elements. These heavy elements accumulate in galaxies
with successive generations of stars. A low level of heavy elements thus indicates that the average
age of the stars in the Sculptor Dwarf Galaxy is high.

This quantity of old stars makes the Sculptor Dwarf Galaxy a prime target for studying the earliest
periods of star formation. In a recent study, astronomers combined all the data available for the
galaxy to create the most accurate star formation history ever determined for a dwarf spheroidal
galaxy. This analysis revealed two distinct groups of stars in the galaxy. The first, predominant
group is the older population, which is lacking in heavier elements. The second, smaller
population, in contrast, is rich with heavy elements. Like young people crowding into city centres,
this youthful stellar population is concentrated toward the galaxys core.

The stars within dwarf galaxies like the Sculptor Dwarf Galaxy can exhibit complex star formation
histories. But as most of these dwarf galaxies stars have been isolated from each other and have
not interacted for billions of years, each collection of stars has charted its own evolutionary course.
Studying the similarities in dwarf galaxies histories, and explaining the occasional outliers, will
help to explain the development of all galaxies, from the most unassuming dwarf to the grandest
spirals. There is indeed much for astronomers to learn from the Milky Ways shy neighbours.
[https://www.eso.org/public/usa/news/eso1536/]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sculptor_(constellation)]

Scutum

Scutum constellation lies in the southern sky. Its name means shield in Latin. It is the fifth
smallest constellation in the sky. Scutum is the 84th constellation in size, occupying an area of
only 109 square degrees. It is located in the fourth quadrant of the southern hemisphere (SQ4) and
can be seen at latitudes between +80 and -90. The neighboring constellations are Aquila,
Sagittarius and Serpens Cauda.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/scutum-constellation/]

Scutum shown under the name Scutum Sobiesii on Chart IX of the Uranographia of Johann Bode
(1801)

Scutum was introduced in 1684 by the Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius under the title Scutum
Sobiescianum, Sobieskis Shield. He named it in honour of King John III Sobieski of Poland who
helped Hevelius rebuild his observatory after a disastrous fire in 1679.
Heveliuss description and chart of the constellation first appeared in August 1684 in Acta
Eruditorum, a leading scientific journal of the day. Hevelius quoted Edmond Halleys invention
six years earlier of Robur Carolinum, honouring King Charles II of England, as the precedent.
Robur Carolinum did not survive but Scutum did, and is in fact the only constellation introduced
for political reasons that is still in use.
Even so, Scutum nearly didnt make it. John Flamsteed ignored it in his catalogue and atlas,
although he accepted six other Hevelius inventions. Johann Bode reinstated it to the sky in his

Uranometria of 1801 under the name Scutum Sobiesii. The American astronomer Benjamin Gould
included it as plain Scutum in his Uranometria Argentina catalogue of 1879 and allocated Greek
letters to its stars for the first time, cementing its permanence.

In the Chinese constellation system, five or six stars of northern Scutum, including Alpha, Beta,
and Eta Scuti, were grouped with others in Aquila to form a nine-star constellation called Tianbian.
This represented a team of trade officials overseeing the organization and operation of markets.
The area of sky to the west, incorporating much of Ophiuchus and Serpens plus southern Hercules,
was visualized as a marketplace.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/scutum.htm]

[http://www.steamboattoday.com/news/2010/aug/24/jimmy-westlake-scutum-star-cloud/]

[http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/Sct.html]

Alpha Scuti is a fourth-magnitude star, an orange K-type giant with an apparent magnitude of
+3.85. Alpha Scuti is a known variable star. It is approximately 174 light years from Earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Scuti]

Beta Scuti is approximately 690 light years from Earth. The primary star is radiating about 1,270
times the luminosity of the Sun from its outer atmosphere at an effective temperature of 4,622 K.
The star is a yellow G-type bright giant with an apparent magnitude of +4.22.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Scuti]

Gamma Scuti is a white A-type subgiant with an apparent magnitude of +4.67. It is approximately
291 light years from Earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_Scuti]

Delta Scuti is a giant star in the southern constellation Scutum. It has an apparent visual magnitude
of 4.72, and it is located about 202 light-years (62 parsecs) from Earth. Delta Scuti is the prototype
of the Delta Scuti type variable stars. It is a high-amplitude Scuti type pulsator with light
variations of about 0.15 minutes. This star has two optical companions. The first is a +12.2
magnitude star located is 15.2 arcseconds from Delta Scuti. The second is a +9.2 magnitude star
that is 53 arcseconds away.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Scuti]

Close to Delta Scuti, Epsilon Scuti is a star system, approximately 523 light years from Earth. The
primary component, Epsilon Scuti A, is a yellow G-type bright giant with an apparent magnitude
of +4.88. It has at least three faint companions, two 14th magnitude stars, B and D, separated from
the primary by 13.6 and 15.4 arcseconds respectively, and the 13th magnitude C, which is 38
arcseconds away.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_Scuti]

An illustration of the approximate size of UY Scuti compared to the Sun

UY Scuti is a bright red supergiant and pulsating variable star in the constellation Scutum. It is a
leading candidate for being the largest known star by radius and is also one of the most luminous
of its kind. It has an estimated average median radius of 1,708 solar radii; thus a volume nearly 5
billion times that of the Sun. It is approximately 2.9 kiloparsecs (9,500 ly) from Earth. If placed at
the center of the Solar System, its photosphere would at least engulf the orbit of Jupiter, although
the radius is not known for certain.

Under exceptionally good conditions with no light pollution, UY Scuti can be seen using a small
telescope or large binoculars as a reddish star with a faint smudge along the stars of the Milky

Way. It is located a few degrees north of the A-type naked-eye star Gamma Scuti, and 2 arcminutes
northwest of the Eagle Nebula. Although the star is very luminous it is, at its brightest, only 11th
magnitude as viewed from Earth, due to its distance and location in the Zone of Avoidance within
the Cygnus rift.

Stellar evolutionary models conclude that the initial mass of a star (the mass of a star when it is
formed) reaching the red supergiant stage like UY Scuti would have been around 25 solar masses
(possibly up to 40 solar masses for a non-rotating star), and has probably lost more than half of
that. Based on current models of stellar evolution, UY Scuti has begun to fuse helium and continues
to fuse hydrogen in a shell around the core. UY Scuti should fuse lithium, carbon, oxygen, neon,
and silicon in its core within the next million years. After this, its core will begin to produce iron,
disrupting the balance of gravity and radiation in its core and resulting in a core collapse supernova.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UY_Scuti]

Although not a large constellation, Scutum contains several open clusters, as well as a globular
cluster and a planetary nebula. The two best known deep sky objects in Scutum are M11 (the Wild
Duck Cluster) and the open cluster M26 (NGC 6694).

The Wild Duck Cluster (M11-NGC 6705)

The Wild Duck Cluster (also known as Messier 11, or NGC 6705) is an open cluster in the
constellation Scutum. It was discovered by Gottfried Kirch in 1681. Charles Messier included it
in his catalogue in 1764.

The Wild Duck Cluster is one of the richest and most compact of the known open clusters,
containing about 2900 stars. Its age has been estimated to about 250 million years. Its name derives
from the brighter stars forming a triangle which could resemble a flying flock of ducks (or, from
other angles, one swimming duck).

The globular cluster NGC 6712 and the planetary nebula IC 1295 can be found in the eastern part
of the constellation, only 24 arcminutes apart.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Duck_Cluster]

M26 (also known as Messier Object 26 or NGC 6694) is another open cluster in the constellation
Scutum. It was discovered by Charles Messier in 1764.

M26 spans about 22 light years across and is at a distance of 5,000 light years from the Earth. The
brightest star is of magnitude 11.9 and the age of this cluster has been calculated to be 89 million
years. An interesting feature of M26 is a region of low star density near the nucleus, one hypothesis
was that it was caused by an obscuring cloud of interstellar matter between us and the cluster, but
James Cuffey suggested that this is not possible and that it really is a shell of low stellar space
density. Recently, Michael Merrifield said that there is, as yet, no clear explanation for the
phenomenon.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_26]

The Scutum Star Cloud contains an immense number of stars and is bounded and crossed by
numerous dark nebulae. Looking in its direction, we see the next spiral arm of the Milky Way
inward from our own at a distance of 6,000 light years. M11 (Wild Duck Cluster) is the bright blob
left of center.

If the ducks in the Wild Duck Cluster (M11) in the constellation Scutum should ever decide to
seek refuge, theyll have their choice of many a dark and shapely pond. The entire region is
saturated with them- inky, starless areas of all shapes and depths that dot the Shield like
Minnesotas 10,000 lakes.
Of course were talking about dark nebulae, enormous clouds of interstellar dust and gas that blot
out the more distant stars, creating the illusion of holes or in the starry fabric of the Milky Way.
Theyre made of materials similar to those of bright nebulae like Orion or the Lagoon, but lack a
nearby star or stars to set them aglow.

Although the density of these dark clouds is only on the order of 100-300 molecules per cubic
centimeter, it really adds up over a depth of several light years or more. Some dark nebulae appear
nearly opaque without a single star to relieve the gloom.

Deep inside these clouds, where hydrogen, carbon dust, water ice, and other compounds feel the
contractive force of gravity strongest, new stars are forming that only radio and infrared telescopes
can see. Dark nebulae are crucial to the life cycle of the universe because they provide the raw
materials for the next generation of stars and planets. It may appear youre staring into nothingness,
but nothing could be further from the truth.
[http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/dive-into-scutums-dark-nebulae071520151507/]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scutum]

Serpens

[http://www.davidmalin.com/fujii/source/Ser.html]

[http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/S/Ser.html]
Serpens constellation lies in the northern hemisphere. Its name means serpent in Latin. Serpens
is the 23rd constellation in size, occupying an area of 637 square degrees. Serpens Caput, the
western part of the constellation, representing the serpents head, is located in the third quadrant
of the northern hemisphere (NQ3). Serpens Cauda, the eastern part, representing the serpents tail,
is found in the third quadrant of the southern hemisphere (SQ3). The constellation can be seen at
latitudes between +80 and -80. The constellations bordering Serpens Caput are Botes, Corona
Borealis, Hercules, Libra, Ophiuchus and Virgo. The constellations bordering Serpens Cauda are
Aquila, Ophiuchus, Sagittarius and Scutum.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/serpens-constellation/]

Serpens held by Ophiuchus, as depicted in Uranias Mirror, a set of constellation cards published
in London c. 1825. Above the tail of the serpent is the now-obsolete constellation Taurus
Poniatovii while below it is Scutum.

Serpens is the only one of the 88 modern constellations to be split into two disconnected regions
in the sky: Serpens Caput (the head) and Serpens Cauda (the tail). The constellation is also unusual
in that it depends on another constellation for context; specifically, it is being held by the Serpent
Bearer Ophiuchus.

In Greek mythology, Serpens represents a snake held by the healer Asclepius. Represented in the
sky by the constellation Ophiuchus, Asclepius once killed a snake, but the animal was
subsequently resurrected after a second snake placed a revival herb on it before its death. As snakes
shed their skin every year, they were known as the symbol of rebirth in ancient Greek society, and
legend says Asclepius would revive dead humans using the same technique he witnessed.
Although this is likely the logic for Serpens presence with Ophiuchus, the true reason is still not
fully known. Sometimes, Serpens was depicted as coiling around Ophiuchus, but the majority of
atlases showed Serpens passing either behind Ophiuchus' body or between his legs.

In some ancient atlases, the constellations Serpens and Ophiuchus were depicted as two separate
constellations, although more often they were shown as a single constellation. One notable figure
to depict Serpens separately was Johann Bayer; thus, Serpens' stars are cataloged with separate
Bayer designations from those of Ophiuchus. When Eugne Delporte established modern

constellation boundaries in the 1920s, he elected to depict the two separately. However, this posed
the problem of how to disentangle the two constellations, with Deporte deciding to split Serpens
into two areas- the head and the tail- separated by the continuous Ophiuchus. These two areas
became known as Serpens Caput and Serpens Cauda, caput being the Latin word for head and
cauda the Latin word for tail.

In Chinese astronomy, most of the stars of Serpens represented part of a wall surrounding a
marketplace, known as Tianshi, which was in Ophiuchus and part of Hercules. Serpens also
contains a few Chinese constellations. Two stars in the tail represented part of Shilou, the tower
with the market office. Another star in the tail represented Liesi, jewel shops. One star in the head
(Mu Serpentis) marked Tianru, the crown prince's wet nurse, or sometimes rain.
There were two serpent constellations in Babylonian astronomy, known as Muuu and
Bamu. It appears that Muuu was depicted as a hybrid of a dragon, a lion and a bird, and
loosely corresponded to Hydra. Bamu was a horned serpent (c.f. Ningishzida) and roughly
corresponds to the constellation of Eudoxus of Cnidus on which the (Serpens) of
Ptolemy is based.

Serpens is a constellation that is connected physically with Ophiuchus, the serpent bearer. Serpens
Caput is the head of the serpent, while Serpens Cauda is the tail. The tail lies in the Milky Way a
little south of the bright star Altair in Aquilla. The neck and head of the serpent go up over
Ophiuchus in the direction of Corona Borealis. The head is marked by a small compact triangle of
stars. Although the constellation is dim, it holds the distinction of being at least partly visible from
anywhere on Earth.
[http://starryskies.com/The_sky/constellations/serpens.html]

[ http://www.dibonsmith.com/ser_con.htm]

Alpha Serpentis is a double star in the heart of the serpent (Serpens Caput). It has the traditional
name Unukalhai. With an apparent visual magnitude of 2.6, this star is the brightest in the
constellation and it can be viewed with the naked eye from most of the Earth. Its distance is about
74 light-years (23 parsecs) from Earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Serpentis]

Eta Serpentis is the second brightest star in the constellation Serpens. It lies in Serpens Cauda, the
snakes tail. The star has an apparent visual magnitude of 3.260,[2] making it visible to the naked
eye. Its distance is 60.5 light-years (18.5 parsecs) from the Earth.

This star is larger than the Sun, with twice the mass and almost six times the radius. The spectrum
matches a stellar classification of K0 III-IV, with the luminosity class of III-IV corresponding to
an evolved star that lies between the subgiant and giant stages. The expanded outer envelope star
is radiating about 19 times the luminosity of the Sun at an effective temperature of 4,890 K. At
this temperature, it has an orange hue typical of a K-type star. Eta Serpentis displays solar-like
oscillations with a period of 0.09 days.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eta_Serpentis]

Mu Serpentis is located in the body of Serpens and marks the lower part of Serpens Caput. Mu
Serpentis is a white A-type main sequence dwarf with an apparent magnitude of +3.54. It is
approximately 156 light years from Earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_Serpentis]

Beta, Gamma, and Iota Serpentis form a distinctive triangular shape marking the head of the snake,
with Kappa Serpentis being roughly midway between Gamma and Iota. The brightest of the four,
Beta Serpentis, is a star system. The primary component, Beta Serpentis A, is a white A-type main
sequence dwarf with an apparent magnitude of +3.65. It has two companions, the magnitude +9.9
B, 31 arcseconds distant, and the magnitude +10.7 C, 201 arcseconds away. Beta Serpentis is
approximately 150 light years from Earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Serpentis]

Delta Serpentis, forming part of the body of the snake between the heart and the head, is a multiple
star system positioned around 70 parsecs from Earth. Consisting of four stars, the system has a
total apparent magnitude of 3.79 as viewed from Earth, although two of the stars, with a combined
apparent magnitude of 3.80, provide nearly all the light. The primary, a white subgiant, is a Delta
Scuti variable with an average apparent magnitude of 4.23.

Epsilon Serpentis is another star in the body of Serpens. It is a white A-type main sequence dwarf
with an apparent magnitude of +3.71. This star has 1.8 times the Suns radius and it is radiating 12
times the luminosity of the Sun from its outer envelope at an effective temperature of 8,084 K. It
is approximately 70.3 light years from Earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_Serpentis]

Several stars in Serpens have been found to have planets. The brightest, Omega Serpentis, located
between Epsilon and Mu, is an orange giant with a planet of approximately 1.7 Jupiter-masses.

[http://www.allplanets.ru/star.php?star=NN%20Serpentis]

NN Serpentis (NN Ser) is an eclipsing post-common envelope binary system approximately 1670
light-years away. The system comprises an eclipsing white dwarf and red dwarf. The two stars
orbit each other every 0.13 days.

A planetary system has been inferred to exist around NN Ser by several teams. All of these teams
rely on the fact that Earth sits in the same plane as the NN Serpentis binary star system, so we can
see the larger red dwarf eclipse the white dwarf every 0.13 days. Astronomers are then able to use
these frequent eclipses to spot a pattern of small but significant irregularities in the orbit of stars,
which could be attributed to the presence and gravitational influence of circumbinary planets.

Chen (2009) used these eclipse timing variations to suggesting a putative orbital period spanning
between 30 and 285 years and a minimum mass between 0.0043 and 0.18 Solar masses. In late
2009, Qian estimated a minimum mass of 10.7 Jupiter masses and orbital period of 7.56 years for
this planet, probably located at 3.29 Astronomical Units. This has since been disproven by further
measurements of the eclipse times of the binary stars.

In late 2009 and 2010, researchers suggested that the eclipse timing variations are caused by two
gas giant planets. The more massive gas giant is about 6 times the mass of Jupiter and orbits the
binary star every 15.5 years, the other orbits every 7.75 years and is about 1.6 times the mass of
Jupiter.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NN_Serpentis]

An artists rendering of the Oort cloud and the Kuiper belt

Gliese 710 is a star in the constellation Serpens Cauda with an apparent visual magnitude of 9.69.
It has a stellar classification of K7 Vk, which means it is a main sequence star that is generating
energy through the thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen at its core. (The suffix k indicates that the
spectrum shows absorption lines from interstellar matter.) The mass of this star is about 60% of
the Suns mass and it has an estimated 67% of the Suns radius. It is a suspected variable star that
may vary in magnitude from 9.65- 9.69.

This star is currently about 63.8 light-years (19.6 parsecs) from Earth, but its proper motion,
distance, and radial velocity indicate that it will approach within a very small distance- perhaps
under one light year- from the Sun within 1.4 million years, based on past and current Hipparcos
data. At closest approach it will be a first-magnitude star about as bright as Antares.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliese_710]

[http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2391879,00.asp]

PSR J1719-1438 is a millisecond pulsar with a spin period of 5.8 ms located about 4000 ly from
Earth in the direction of Serpens Cauda, one minute from the border with Ophiuchus. Millisecond
pulsars are generally thought to begin as normal pulsars and then spin up by accreting matter from
a binary companion.

PSR J1719-1438 was discovered in 2011 by the High Time Resolution Survey, a radio astronomy
search for astronomical objects that rapidly vary in radio brightness, such as pulsars. Timing
measurements using the Parkes Telescope and Lovell Telescope showed that it has a low-mass
companion: PSR J1719-1438 b. The companion has a mass similar to that of Jupiter but 40% of
the diameter. It orbits the pulsar with a period of about 2 hours, at a distance of around 600,000
km (0.89 solar radii). The companion is likely the remnant of a star whose outer layers were
siphoned off by the more massive pulsar.

Because the companion to PSR J1719-1438 is planet-sized, made primarily of carbon (with an
unknown amount of oxygen), and very dense, it may be similar to a large diamond, so that in the
science press the object has been called the Diamond Planet.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSR_J1719-1438]

PSR B1534+11 is a system consisting of two neutron stars orbiting each other, one of which is a
pulsar with a period of 37.9 milliseconds. Situated approximately 1000 parsecs distant, the system
was used to test Albert Einsteins theory of general relativity, validating the systems relativistic
parameters to within 0.2% of values predicted by the theory. The X-ray emission from the system
has been found to be present when the non-pulsar star intersects the equatorial pulsar wind of the
pulsar, and the systems orbit has been found to vary slightly.

As the galactic plane does not pass through the head of the serpent (Serpens Caput), a view to
many galaxies beyond it is possible. However, a few structures of the Milky Way Galaxy are
present in Serpens Caput, such as M5, a globular cluster positioned approximately 8 southwest
of Serpentis, next to the star 5 Serpentis. Barely visible to the naked eye under good conditions,
M5 is located approximately 25,000 ly distant. The cluster contains a large number of known RR
Lyrae variable stars, and is receding from us at over 50 km/s. The cluster contains two millisecond
pulsars, one of which is in a binary, allowing the proper motion of the cluster to be measured. The
binary could help our understanding of neutron degenerate matter. The cluster has been used to
test for magnetic dipole moments in neutrinos, which could shed light on some hypothetical
particles such as the axion. Another globular cluster is Palomar 5, found just south of Messier 5.
Many stars are leaving this globular cluster due to the Milky Ways gravity, forming a tidal tail
over 30000 light-years long. Another globular cluster is Palomar 5, found just south of Messier 5.
Many stars are leaving this globular cluster due to the Milky Way's gravity, forming a tidal tail
over 30000 light-years long.

NGC 5962
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_5962]

Outside of the Milky Way, there are no bright deep-sky objects for amateur astronomers in Serpens
Caput, with nothing else above 10th magnitude. The brightest is NGC 5962, a spiral galaxy
positioned around 28 megaparsecs distant with an apparent magnitude of 11.34. Slightly fainter is
NGC 5921, a barred spiral galaxy with a LINER-type active galactic nucleus situated somewhat
closer at a distance of 21 megaparsecs. A type II supernova was observed in this galaxy in 2001
and was designated SN 2001X. Fainter still are the spirals NGC 5964 and NGC 6118, with the
latter being host to the supernova SN 2004dk.

Hoags Object: A Strange Ring Galaxy

Is this one galaxy or two? This question came to light in 1950 when astronomer Art Hoag chanced
upon this unusual extragalactic object. On the outside is a ring dominated by bright blue stars,
while near the center lies a ball of much redder stars that are likely much older. Between the two
is a gap that appears almost completely dark. How Hoags Object formed remains unknown,
although similar objects have now been identified and collectively labeled as a form of ring galaxy.
Genesis hypotheses include a galaxy collision billions of years ago and the gravitational effect of
a central bar that has since vanished. The above photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in

July 2001 revealed unprecedented details of Hoags Object. More recent observations in radio
waves indicate that Hoags Object has not accreted a smaller galaxy in the past billion years.
Hoags Object spans about 100,000 light years and lies about 600 million light years away toward
the constellation of the Snake (Serpens). Coincidentally, visible in the gap (at about one oclock)
is yet another ring galaxy that likely lies far in the distance.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130728.html]
The predominant theory regarding the formation of Hoags Object is that the progenitor galaxy
was a barred spiral galaxy whose arms had velocities too great to keep the galaxys coherence and
therefore detached.

Wide angle (2.4 ) view of Apr 220 by Hubble Space Telescope

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arp_220]

Arp 220 is another unusual galaxy in Serpens. This prototypical ultraluminous infrared galaxy is
somewhat closer than Hoags Object at 250 million light-years from Earth. It consists of two large
spiral galaxies in the process of colliding with their nuclei orbiting at a distance of 1,200 lightyears, causing extensive star formation throughout both components. It possesses a large cluster
of more than a billion stars, partially covered by thick dust clouds near one of the galaxies core.

Another interacting galaxy pair, albeit in an earlier stage, consists of the galaxies NGC 5953 and
NGC 5954. In this case, both are active galaxies, with the former a Seyfert 2 galaxy and the latter
a LINER-type galaxy. Both are undergoing a burst of star formation triggered by the interaction.

Seyferts Sextet
What will survive this battle of the galaxies? Known as Seyferts Sextet, this intriguing group of
galaxies lies in the head portion of the split constellation of the Snake (Serpens). The sextet actually
contains only four interacting galaxies, though. Near the center of this Hubble Space Telescope
picture, the small face-on spiral galaxy lies in the distant background and appears only by chance
aligned with the main group. Also, the prominent condensation on the upper left is likely not a
separate galaxy at all, but a tidal tail of stars flung out by the galaxies gravitational interactions.
About 190 million light-years away, the interacting galaxies are tightly packed into a region around

100,000 light-years across, comparable to the size of our own Milky Way galaxy, making this one
of the densest known galaxy groups. Bound by gravity, the close-knit group may coalesce into a
single large galaxy over the next few billion years.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap131210.html]
Astronomers predict that the four separate interacting galaxies of Seyferts Sextet will eventually
merge to form a large elliptical galaxy.

Consisting of two quasars with a separation of less than 5 arcseconds, the quasar pair 4C 11.50 is
one of the visually closest pairs of quasars in the sky. The two have markedly different redshifts,
however, and are thus unrelated. The foreground member of the pair (4C 11.50 A) does not have
enough mass to refract light from the background component (4C 11.50 B) enough to produce a
lensed image, although it does have a true companion of its own.

An even stranger galaxy pair is 3C 321. Unlike the previous pair, the two galaxies making up 3C
321 are interacting with each other and are in the process of merging. Both members appear to be
active galaxies; the primary radio galaxy may be responsible for the activity in the secondary by
means of the formers jet driving material onto the latters supermassive black hole:

3C321: Black Hole Fires at Neighboring Galaxy

This composite image shows the jet from a black hole at the center of a galaxy striking the edge
of another galaxy, the first time such an interaction has been found. In the image, data from several
wavelengths have been combined. X-rays from Chandra (colored purple), optical and ultraviolet
(UV) data from Hubble (red and orange), and radio emission from the Very Large Array (VLA)
and MERLIN (blue) show how the jet from the main galaxy on the lower left is striking its
companion galaxy to the upper right. The jet impacts the companion galaxy at its edge and is then
disrupted and deflected, much like how a stream of water from a hose will splay out after hitting a
wall at an angle.

Each wavelength shows a different aspect of this system, known as 3C321. The Chandra X-ray
image provides evidence that each galaxy contains a rapidly growing supermassive black hole at
its center. Hubble's optical light images (orange) show the glow from the stars in each galaxy. A

bright spot in the VLA and MERLIN radio image shows where the jet has struck the side of the
galaxy- about 20,000 light years from the main galaxy- dissipating some of its energy. An even
larger hotspot of radio emission detected by reveals that the jet terminates much farther away
from the galaxy, at a distance of about 850,000 light years away. The Hubble UV image shows
large quantities of warm and hot gas in the vicinity of the galaxies, indicating the supermassive
black holes in both galaxies have had a violent past. Faint emission from Chandra, Hubble and
Spitzer, not shown in this image, indicate that the galaxies are orbiting in a clockwise direction,
implying that the companion galaxy is swinging into the path of the jet.

Since the Chandra data shows that particle acceleration is still occurring in this hotspot, the jet
must have struck the companion galaxy relatively recently, less than about a million years ago (i.e.
less than the light travel time to the hotspot). This relatively short cosmic time frame makes this
event a very rare phenomenon.
This death star galaxy will produce large amounts of high-energy radiation, which may cause
severe damage to the atmospheres of any planets in the companion galaxy that lie in the path of
the jet. From the Earth we look down the barrel of jets from supermassive black holes, however
these so-called blazars are at much safer distances of millions or billions of light years.
[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2007/3c321/]

The discovery of the Galaxy system 3C 321 was announced by NASA on 18 December 2007. It
is located at a distance of 370 Mpc (1.2 billion light years).
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3C_321]

Part of the galactic plane passes through the tail, and thus Serpens Cauda is rich in deep-sky objects
within our own galaxy. The Eagle Nebula and its associated star cluster, Messier 16 lie 7,000 lightyears from Earth in the direction of the galactic center. The nebula contains the Pillars of Creation,
three dust clouds that became famous for the image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope:

M16 and the Eagle Nebula

A star cluster around 2 million years young, M16 is surrounded by natal clouds of dust and glowing
gas also known as The Eagle Nebula. This beautifully detailed image of the region includes cosmic
sculptures made famous in Hubble Space Telescope close-ups of the starforming complex.
Described as elephant trunks or Pillars of Creation, dense, dusty columns rising near the center are
light-years in length but are gravitationally contracting to form stars. Energetic radiation from the
cluster stars erodes material near the tips, eventually exposing the embedded new stars. Extending

from the left edge of the frame is another dusty starforming column known as the Fairy of Eagle
Nebula. M16 and the Eagle Nebula lie about 7,000 light-years away, an easy target for binoculars
or small telescopes in a nebula rich part of the sky toward the split constellation Serpens Cauda
(the tail of the snake).
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140607.html]

M16: Pillars of Creation

It was one of the most famous images of the 1990s. This image, taken with the Hubble Space
Telescope in 1995, shows evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs) emerging from pillars of
molecular hydrogen gas and dust. The giant pillars are light years in length and are so dense that
interior gas contracts gravitationally to form stars. At each pillars end, the intense radiation of
bright young stars causes low density material to boil away, leaving stellar nurseries of dense
EGGs exposed. The pillars of creation were imaged again in 2007 by the orbiting Spitzer Space
Telescope in infrared light, leading to the conjecture that the pillars may already have been
destroyed by a local supernova, but light from that event has yet to reach the Earth.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120722.html]

The Fairy of Eagle Nebula

The dust sculptures of the Eagle Nebula are evaporating. As powerful starlight whittles away these
cool cosmic mountains, the statuesque pillars that remain might be imagined as mythical beasts.
Pictured above is one of several striking dust pillars of the Eagle Nebula that might be described
as a gigantic alien fairy. This fairy, however, is ten light years tall and spews radiation much hotter
than common fire. The greater Eagle Nebula, M16, is actually a giant evaporating shell of gas and

dust inside of which is a growing cavity filled with a spectacular stellar nursery currently forming
an open cluster of stars. The above image in scientifically re-assigned colors was released in 2005
as part of the fifteenth anniversary celebration of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130929.html]

MWC 922 is a star surrounded by a planetary nebula, the Red Square Nebula:

MWC 922: The Red Square Nebula

What could cause a nebula to appear square? No one is quite sure. The hot star system known as
MWC 922, however, appears to be embedded in a nebula with just such a shape. The above image
combines infrared exposures from the Hale Telescope on Mt. Palomar in California, and the Keck2 Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. A leading progenitor hypothesis for the square nebula is
that the central star or stars somehow expelled cones of gas during a late developmental stage. For
MWC 922, these cones happen to incorporate nearly right angles and be visible from the sides.
Supporting evidence for the cone hypothesis includes radial spokes in the image that might run
along the cone walls. Researchers speculate that the cones viewed from another angle would
appear similar to the gigantic rings of supernova 1987A, possibly indicating that a star in MWC
922 might one day itself explode in a similar supernova.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap121216.html]

The Serpens cloud is a massive star-forming molecular cloud situated in the southern part of
Serpens Cauda. Two million years old and 420 parecs distant, the cloud is known to contain many
protostars. The Serpens South protocluster was uncovered by NASAs Spitzer Space Telescope in
the southern portion of the cloud, and it appears that star formation is still continuing in the region.

Blue: X-ray (Chandra ACIS); Green: 5.8 m (Spitzer IRAC); Red: 8.0 m (Spitzer IRAC)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westerhout_40]

Another site of star formation is the Westerhout 40 complex, consisting of a prominent HII region
adjacent to a molecular cloud. Located around 500 parsecs distant, it is one of the nearest massive
regions of star formation, but as the molecular cloud obscures the HII region, rendering it and its
embedded cluster tough to see visibly, it is not as well-studied as others. The embedded cluster
likely contains over 600 stars above 0.1 solar masses, with several massive stars, including at least
one O-type star, being responsible for lighting the HII region and the production of a bubble.

There are two daytime meteor showers that radiate from Serpens, the Omega Serpentids and the
Sigma Serpentids. Both showers peak between December 18 and December 25.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpens]

Sextans

Sextans constellation lies in the southern sky, near the celestial equator. It represents the
astronomical sextant. Sextans is the 47th constellation in size, occupying an area of 314 square
degrees. It is located in the second quadrant of the southern hemisphere (SQ2) and can be seen at
latitudes between +80 and -90. The neighboring constellations are Crater, Hydra and Leo.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/sextans-constellation/]

Sextans above the coils of Hydra, illustrated in the Atlas Coelestis of John Flamsteed (1729)

A faint constellation south of Leo, introduced by the Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius in 1687
under the name Sextans Uraniae to commemorate the instrument with which he measured star
positions, and which was destroyed along with other instruments in a fire at his observatory in
1679.

Hevelius had continued to make naked-eye sightings with his sextant throughout his life, even
though he used telescopes for observing the Moon and planets; it was perhaps to demonstrate the
keenness of his eyes that he formed Sextans out of such faint stars, as he also did with another of
his inventions, Lynx.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/sextans.htm]

[http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/sextans-t.html]

[http://bjmoler.org/ephemeris/sosprsky.htm]

Sextans as a constellation covers a rather dim, sparse region of the sky. It has only one star above
the fifth magnitude, namely Alpha Sextantis at 4.49m. The constellation contains a few double
stars, including , 35, and 40 Sextantis. There are a few notable variable stars, including , 25, 23
Sextantis, and LHS 292.

Alpha Sextantis is the brightest star in the constellation. It is a white A-type giant with an apparent
magnitude of +4.48. It is approximately 287 light years from Earth. Alpha Sextantis is considered
an informal equator star, as it lies less than a quarter of a degree south of the celestial equator. In
1900, it was 7 minutes of arc north of the equator. As a result of movement of the Earths axial
tilt, it crossed over to the Southern Hemisphere in December 1923.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Sextantis]

Gamma Sextantis is a triple star system. It is approximately 262 light years from Earth. The
combined apparent magnitude of the system is +5.07. The system is composed of a close binary
star, Gamma Sextantis A and B, which is given the stellar classification A1. The two component
stars are approximately 0.38 arcseconds apart, or approximately 30 Astronomical Units, and have
apparent magnitudes of +5.8 and +6.2. They complete one orbit every 77.6 years. Orbiting the
binary star, at a distance of 36 arcseconds, roughly a hundred times farther out, is Gamma Sextantis
C, a 12th magnitude companion.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_Sextantis]

Beta Sextantis is a variable star, a blue-white B-type main sequence dwarf. It is approximately 345
light years from Earth. It is classified as an Alpha2 Canum Venaticorum variable and its brightness
varies from magnitude +5.00 to +5.10. The period of this variability is unclear but may be around
15.4 days.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Sextantis]

Delta Sextantis is also a blue-white B-type main sequence dwarf with an apparent magnitude of
+5.19. It is approximately 300 light years from Earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Sextantis]

Epsilon Sextantis is a yellow-white F-type giant with an apparent magnitude of +5.25. It is

approximately 183 light years from Earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_Sextantis]

Generic rendering of LHS 292 flare star

LHS 292 is a red dwarf in the constellation Sextans. It is far too faint to be seen with the unaided
eye and requires a large amateur telescope to be seen visually. It lies relatively close to the Sun at
a distance of about 14.8 light years. It is a flare star, which means it can suddenly increase in
brightness for short periods of time.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LHS_292]

Irregular galaxy Sextans A. The bright Milky Way foreground stars appear yellowish in this view.
Beyond them lie the stars of Sextans A with young blue star clusters clearly visible.

Sextans A (also known as UGCA 205), is a tiny dwarf irregular galaxy. It spans about 5000 lightyears across, and is located within the Local Group of galaxies, which includes the Milky Way
galaxy. At 4.3 million light-years away from Earth, Sextans A is one of the most distant members
of the Local Group, and is notable for its peculiar square shape. Massive short-lived stars exploded
in supernovae that caused more star formation, triggering yet more supernovae, ultimately
resulting in an expanding shell. Young blue stars now highlight areas and shell edges high in
current star formation, which from the perspective of observers on Earth appears roughly square.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sextans_A]

Sextans B
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sextans_B]

Sextans B (also known as UGC 5373 and DDO 70) is, like Sextans A, an irregular dwarf galaxy
that may be part of the Local Group, or lie just beyond it. Sextans B is 4.44 million light-years
away from Earth and thus is one of the most distant members of the Local Group, if it is indeed a
member. It forms a pair with its neighbouring galaxy Sextans A. It is a type Ir IV-V galaxy

according to the galaxy morphological classification scheme. Sextans B may also be

gravitationally associated with the galaxies NGC 3109 and the Antlia Dwarf.

Unraveling NGC 3169

Bright spiral galaxy NGC 3169 appears to be unraveling in this cosmic scene, played out some 70
million light-years away just below bright star Regulus toward the faint constellation Sextans. Its
beautiful spiral arms are distorted into sweeping tidal tails as NGC 3169 (left) and neighboring
NGC 3166 interact gravitationally, a common fate even for bright galaxies in the local universe.
In fact, drawn out stellar arcs and plumes, indications of gravitational interactions, seem rampant
in the deep and colorful galaxy group photo. The picture spans 20 arc minutes, or about 400,000
light-years at the groups estimated distance, and includes smaller, dimmer NGC 3165 at the right.

NGC 3169 is also known to shine across the spectrum from radio to X-rays, harboring an active
galactic nucleus that is likely the site of a supermassive black hole.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130328.html]

Composite image of NGC 3115 from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Very Large
Telescope.

NGC 3115 (also called the Spindle Galaxy or Caldwell 53) is a field lenticular galaxy in the
constellation Sextans. The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on February 22, 1787. At
about 32 million light-years away from us it is several times bigger than the Milky Way. It is a
lenticular (S0) galaxy because it contains a disk and a central bulge of stars, but without a

detectable spiral pattern. NGC 3115 is seen almost exactly edge-on, but was nevertheless misclassified as elliptical. There is some speculation that NGC 3115, in its youth, was a quasar.

NGC 3115 has consumed most of the gas of its youthful accretion disk. It has very little gas and
dust left that would trigger new star formation. The vast majority of its component stars are very
old.
In 2011, NASAs Chandra X-ray Observatory examined the black hole at the center of the large
galaxy. A flow of hot gas toward the supermassive black hole has been imaged, making this the
first time clear evidence for such a flow has been observed in any black hole. As gas flows toward
the black hole, it becomes hotter and brighter. The researchers found the rise in gas temperature
begins at about 700 light years from the black hole, giving the location of the Bondi radius. This
suggests that the black hole in the center of NGC 3115 has a mass of about two billion solar masses,
supporting previous results from optical observations. This would make NGC 3115 the nearest
billion-solar-mass black hole to Earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_3115]

Sextans is the location of the field studied by the COSMOS project, undertaken by the Hubble
Space Telescope. In June 2015, astronomers reported evidence for Population III stars in the
Cosmos Redshift 7 galaxy (at z = 6.60) found in the Sextans constellation. Such stars are likely to
have existed in the very early universe (i.e., at high redshift), and may have started the production
of chemical elements heavier than hydrogen that are needed for the later formation of planets and
life as we know it:

VLT discovers CR7, the brightest distant galaxy, and signs of Population III stars
Astronomers using ESOs Very Large Telescope have discovered by far the brightest galaxy yet
found in the early Universe and found strong evidence that examples of the first generation of stars
lurk within it. These massive, brilliant, and previously purely theoretical objects were the creators
of the first heavy elements in history- the elements necessary to forge the stars around us today,
the planets that orbit them, and life as we know it. The newly found galaxy, labelled CR7, is three
times brighter than the brightest distant galaxy known up to now.

Astronomers have long theorised the existence of a first generation of stars- known as Population
III stars- that were born out of the primordial material from the Big Bang. All the heavier chemical
elements- such as oxygen, nitrogen, carbon and iron, which are essential to life- were forged in the
bellies of stars. This means that the first stars must have formed out of the only elements to exist
prior to stars: hydrogen, helium and trace amounts of lithium.

These Population III stars would have been enormous- several hundred or even a thousand times
more massive than the Sun- blazing hot, and transient- exploding as supernovae after only about
two million years. But until now the search for physical proof of their existence had been
inconclusive.
A team led by David Sobral has now used ESOs Very Large Telescope (VLT) to peer back into
the ancient Universe, to a period known as reionisation, approximately 800 million years after the
Big Bang. Instead of conducting a narrow and deep study of a small area of the sky, they broadened
their scope to produce the widest survey of very distant galaxies ever attempted.

The team discovered- and confirmed- a number of surprisingly bright very young galaxies. One of
these, labelled CR7, was an exceptionally rare object, by far the brightest galaxy ever observed at
this stage in the Universe. With the discovery of CR7 and other bright galaxies, the study was
already a success, but further inspection provided additional exciting news.

The instruments on the VLT found strong ionised helium emission in CR7 but- crucially and
surprisingly- no sign of any heavier elements in a bright pocket in the galaxy. This meant the team
had discovered the first good evidence for clusters of Population III stars that had ionised gas
within a galaxy in the early Universe.
The discovery challenged our expectations from the start, said David Sobral, as we didnt
expect to find such a bright galaxy. Then, by unveiling the nature of CR7 piece by piece, we
understood that not only had we found by far the most luminous distant galaxy, but also started to
realise that it had every single characteristic expected of Population III stars. Those stars were the
ones that formed the first heavy atoms that ultimately allowed us to be here. It doesnt really get
any more exciting than this.

Within CR7, bluer and somewhat redder clusters of stars were found, indicating that the formation
of Population III stars had occurred in waves- as had been predicted. What the team directly
observed was the last wave of Population III stars, suggesting that such stars should be easier to

find than previously thought: they reside amongst regular stars, in brighter galaxies, not just in the
earliest, smallest, and dimmest galaxies, which are so faint as to be extremely difficult to study.
Jorryt Matthee, second author of the paper, concluded: I have always wondered where we come
from. Even as a child I wanted to know where the elements come from: the calcium in my bones,
the carbon in my muscles, the iron in my blood. I found out that these were first formed at the very
beginning of the Universe, by the first generation of stars. With this discovery, remarkably, we are
starting to actually see such objects for the first time.

Further observations with the VLT, ALMA, and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope are
planned to confirm beyond doubt that what has been observed are Population III stars, and to
search for and identify further examples.
[http://www.eso.org/public/usa/news/eso1524/]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sextans]

Taurus

Taurus (Latin for the Bull) is one of the constellations of the zodiac. It is a large and prominent
constellation in the northern hemispheres winter sky. It is one of the oldest constellations, dating
back to at least the Early Bronze Age when it marked the location of the Sun during the spring
equinox. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of the constellation
lie between 03h 23.4m and 05h 53.3m, while the declination coordinates are between 31.10 and
1.35. Because a small part of the constellation lies to the south of the celestial equator, this can
not be a completely circumpolar constellation at any latitude.

Taurus lies between Aries to the west and Gemini to the east; to the north lie Perseus and Auriga,
to the southeast Orion, to the south Eridanus, and to the southwest Cetus. In September and
October, Taurus is visible in the evening along the eastern horizon. The most favorable time to
observe Taurus in the night sky is during the months of December and January. By March and
April, the constellation will appear to the west during the evening twilight.

This constellation forms part of the zodiac, and hence is intersected by the ecliptic. This circle
across the celestial sphere forms the apparent path of the Sun as the Earth completes its annual
orbit. As the orbital plane of the Moon and the planets lie near the ecliptic, they can usually be
found in the constellation Taurus during some part of each year. The galactic plane of the Milky
Way intersects the northeast corner of the constellation and the galactic anticenter is located near
the border between Taurus and Auriga. Taurus is the only constellation crossed by all three of the
galactic equator, celestial equator, and ecliptic. A ring-like galactic structure known as the Gould's
Belt passes through the Taurus constellation.

Taurus is the second astrological sign in the present Zodiac. It spans the 30-60th degree of the
zodiac. The Sun is in the sign of Taurus from about April 21 until about May 21 (Western
astrology) or from about May 16 to June 16 (sidereal astrology). People born between these dates,
depending on which system of astrology they subscribe to, may be called Taureans. The symbol
of the bull is based on the Cretan Bull, the white bull that fathered the Minotaur who was killed
by Theseus. The Sun transits the constellation of Taurus from May 14 to June 19.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurus_(astrology)]

Taurus as depicted in Uranias Mirror, a set of constellation cards published in London c.1825

The identification of the constellation of Taurus with a bull is very old, certainly dating to the
Chalcolithic, and perhaps even to the Upper Paleolithic. Michael Rappenglck believes that Taurus
is represented in a cave painting at the Hall of the Bulls in the caves at Lascaux (dated to roughly
15,000 BCE), which he believes is accompanied by a depiction of the Pleiades. The name seven
sisters has been used for the Pleiades in the languages of many cultures, including indigenous
groups of Australia, North America and Siberia. This suggests that the name may have a common
ancient origin.

Taurus marked the point of vernal (spring) equinox in the Chalcolithic and the Early Bronze Age,
from about 4000 BCE to 1700 BCE, after which it moved into the neighboring constellation Aries.
The Pleiades were closest to the Sun at vernal equinox around the 23rd century BCE. In
Babylonian astronomy, the constellation was listed in the MUL.APIN as GU4.AN.NA, The Bull

of Heaven. As this constellation marked the vernal equinox, it was also the first constellation in
the Babylonian zodiac and they described it as The Bull in Front. The Akkadian name was Alu.

In the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the earliest works of literature, the goddess Ishtar
sends Taurus, the Bull of Heaven, to kill Gilgamesh for spurning her advances. Some locate
Gilgamesh as the neighboring constellation of Orion, facing Taurus as if in combat, while others
identify him with the sun whose rising on the equinox vanquishes the constellation. In early
Mesopotamian art, the Bull of Heaven was closely associated with Inanna, the Sumerian goddess
of sexual love, fertility, and warfare. One of the oldest depictions shows the bull standing before
the goddess standard; since it has 3 stars depicted on its back (the cuneiform sign for starconstellation), there is good reason to regard this as the constellation later known as Taurus.

The same iconic representation of the Heavenly Bull was depicted in the Dendera zodiac, an
Egyptian bas-relief carving in a ceiling that depicted the celestial hemisphere using a planisphere.
In these ancient cultures, the orientation of the horns was portrayed as upward or backward. This
differed from the later Greek depiction where the horns pointed forward. To the Egyptians, the
constellation Taurus was a sacred bull that was associated with the renewal of life in spring. When
the spring equinox entered Taurus, the constellation would become covered by the Sun in the
western sky as spring began. This sacrifice led to the renewal of the land. To the early Hebrews,
Taurus was the first constellation in their zodiac and consequently it was represented by the first
letter in their alphabet, Aleph.

In Greek mythology, Taurus was identified with Zeus, who assumed the form of a magnificent
white bull to abduct Europa, a legendary Phoenician princess. In illustrations of Greek mythology,
only the front portion of this constellation are depicted; this was sometimes explained as Taurus
being partly submerged as he carried Europa out to sea. A second Greek myth portrays Taurus as
Io, a mistress of Zeus. To hide his lover from his wife Hera, Zeus changed Io into the form of a
heifer. Greek mythographer Acusilaus marks the bull Taurus as the same that formed the myth of
the Cretan Bull, one of The Twelve Labors of Heracles.

Taurus became an important object of worship among the Druids. Their Tauric religious festival
was held while the Sun passed through the constellation.

Among the arctic people known as the Inuit, the constellation is called Sakiattiat and the Hyades
is Nanurjuk, with the latter representing the spirit of the polar bear. Aldebaran represents the bear,
with the remainder of the stars in the Hyades being dogs that are holding the beast at bay.

In Buddhism, legends hold that Gautama Buddha was born when the Full Moon was in Vaisakha,
or Taurus. Buddhas birthday is celebrated with the Wesak Festival, or Veskha, which occurs on
the first or second Full Moon when the Sun is in Taurus.

According to traditional Chinese uranography, the modern constellation Taurus is located within
the western quadrant of the sky, which is symbolized as the White Tiger of the West (X Fng Bi
H). The name of the western constellation in modern Chinese jn ni zu, meaning the golden
bull constellation.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurus_(Chinese_astronomy)]

The constellations Orion (center), Taurus (upper right) and Canis Major (lower left). If you can
find Orion, finding Taurus is easy. Just extend the line of Orions belt to the northwest until you
find a bright orange star nestled in a V-shaped cluster of stars. The bright star is Aldebaran, a
swollen giant star some 45x the diameter of our own sun. The V which marks the head of the
bull, is the nearby Hyades star cluster. Its remarkably beautiful in dark sky, with several close
star pairs to challenge your visual acuity. Just northwest of the V, the Pleiades is perhaps the
most famous of all star groupings.
[http://astronomer.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Taurus-Orion.jpg]

[http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/Tau.html]

[http://www.dibonsmith.com/tau_con.htm]

A number of features exist that are of interest to astronomers. Taurus hosts two of the nearest open
clusters to Earth, the Pleiades and the Hyades, both of which are visible to the naked eye. At first
magnitude, the red giant Aldebaran is the brightest star in the constellation. In the northwest part
of Taurus is the supernova remnant Messier 1, more commonly known as the Crab Nebula. One
of the closest regions of active star formation, the Taurus-Auriga complex, crosses into the
northern part of the constellation. The variable star T Tauri is the prototype of a class of pre-mainsequence stars;

Aldebaran
[http://skylightsblog.blogspot.gr/2014/12/an-new-deep-sky-object-outshined-by.html]

Alpha Tauri (Aldebaran) is an orange giant star located about 65 light years away. It is the brightest
star of Taurus and the fourteenth brightest star in the nighttime sky. The name Aldebaran is Arabic
(al-dabarn) and means the Follower, presumably because it rises near and soon after the
Pleiades.

Aldebaran is classified as a type K5 III star, which indicates it is an orange-hued giant star that has
evolved off the main sequence band of the HertzsprungRussell diagram after exhausting the
hydrogen at its core. The collapse of the centre of the star into a degenerate helium core has ignited
a shell of hydrogen outside the core and Aldebaran is now a red giant. This has caused it to expand
to 44.2 times the diameter of the Sun, equivalent to approximately 61 million kilometres. Stellar
models predict it only has about 50% more mass than the Sun, yet it shines with 425 times the
Suns luminosity due to the expanded radius. Aldebaran is a slightly variable star, of the slow

irregular variable type LB. It varies by about 0.2 in apparent magnitude from 0.75 to 0.95. With a
near-infrared J band magnitude of 2.1, only Betelgeuse (2.9), R Doradus (2.6), and Arcturus
(2.2) are brighter.

The three medium-bright stars of Orions Belt point to reddish Aldebaran

[http://earthsky.org/brightest-stars/aldebaran-is-taurus-bloodshot-eye]

Aldebaran is one of the easiest stars to find in the night sky, partly due to its brightness and partly
due to its spatial relation to one of the more noticeable asterisms in the sky. If one follows the three
stars of Orions belt from left to right (in the Northern Hemisphere) or right to left (in the
Southern), the first bright star found by continuing that line is Aldebaran. Since the star is located
(by chance) in the line of sight between the Earth and the Hyades, it has the appearance of being
the brightest member of the more scattered Hyades open star cluster that makes up the bulls-headshaped asterism; however, the star cluster is actually more than twice as far away, at about 150
light years.

Aldebaran disappears behind the Moon (Rome, 29 Oct. 2015, 10:41 PM)
[http://www.virtualtelescope.eu/2015/10/15/29-oct-2015-the-moon-occults-aldebaran/]

Aldebaran is close enough to the ecliptic to be occulted by the Moon. Such occultations occur
when the Moons ascending node is near the autumnal equinox. A series of 49 occultations occur
starting at 29 Jan 2015 and ending at 3 Sep 2018. Each event is visible from a different location
on Earth, but always in the northern hemisphere or close to the equator. That means that people in
e.g. Australia or South Africa can never observe an Aldebaran occultation. This is due to the fact
that Aldebaran is slightly too far south of the ecliptic. A reasonably accurate estimate for the
diameter of Aldebaran was obtained during the September 22, 1978 occultation. Aldebaran is in
conjunction with the Sun around June 1 of each year.

On March 11, of 509 AD, a lunar occultation of Aldebaran was observed in Athens, Greece.
English astronomer Edmund Halley studied the timing of this event, and in 1718 concluded that
Aldebaran must have changed position since that time, moving several minutes of arc further to

the north. This, as well as observations of the changing positions of stars Sirius and Arcturus, led
to the discovery of proper motion. Based on present day observations, the position of Aldebaran
has shifted 7 in the last 2000 years; roughly a quarter the diameter of the full Moon.

Five faint stars are positioned so that they appear close to Aldebaran. These double stars were
given alphabetic secondary star designations more or less in the order of their discovery, with the
letter A reserved for the primary star (Aldebaran). Some surveys have indicated that Alpha Tauri
B may have about the same proper motion and parallax as Aldebaran and thus may be a physical
binary system. However these measurements are difficult to make because the dim B component
appears so close to the bright primary star. The resulting margin of error is too large to positively
establish (or exclude) a physical relationship between the two stars. So far neither the B
component, nor anything else, has been unambiguously shown to be physically associated with
Aldebaran.

In 1993, radial velocity measurements of Aldebaran, Arcturus and Pollux showed that Aldebaran
exhibited a long-period radial velocity oscillation, which could be interpreted as a substellar
companion. The measurements for Aldebaran implied a companion with a minimum mass 11.4
times that of Jupiter in a 643-day orbit at a separation of 2.0 AU (300 Gm) in a mildly eccentric
orbit. However, all three stars surveyed showed similar oscillations yielding similar companion
masses, and the authors concluded that the variation was likely to be intrinsic to the star rather than
due to the gravitational effect of a companion. In 2015 a study showed stable longterm evidence
for both a planetary companion and stellar activity.

The planetary exploration probe Pioneer 10 is currently heading in the general direction of the star
and should make its closest approach in about two million years.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldebaran]

Beta Tauri (Elnath) is the second brightest star in the constellation Taurus, with an apparent
magnitude of 1.68. The stars traditional name Elnath (Arabic an-na) is a reference to the
butting of the bulls horns. Elnaths absolute magnitude is -1.34, similar to another Taurean star,
Maia in the Pleiadian star cluster. Like Maia, Elnath is a B class giant with a luminosity 700 times

solar. However being approximately 130 light years distant compared to Maias estimated 360
light years, Elnath ranks as the second brightest star in the constellation.

Uniquely positioned along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy a few degrees west of the galactic
anticenter, Elnath heralds a rich collection of nebulae and star clusters. This star can be occulted
by the moon. Such occultations occur when the moons ascending node is near the vernal equinox,
as was the case in 2007. Most occultations are visible only in parts of the Southern Hemisphere,
because the star lies at the northern edge of the lunar occultation zone. Rarely, it may be occulted
as far north as southern California.

There is a faint star that appears close enough to Elnath for astronomers to consider it a double
star. Its visual companion, known as BD+28 795B, has a position angle of 239 degrees and is
separated from the main star by 33.4 arcseconds.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Tauri]

Alcyone (Eta Tauri) is a star system in the constellation Taurus. It is the third brightest star in
Taurus and the brightest star in the Pleiades cluster. Alcyone is approximately 440 light years from
Earth. It is named after the mythological figure Alcyone, one of the mythological Pleiades. It has
an apparent magnitude of +2.87 (absolute magnitude 2.39), and a radius almost 10 times that of
the Sun. Its temperature is approximately 13,000 K giving it a total luminosity that is 2,400 times
solar. The spectral type of B7IIIe indicates that emission lines are present in its spectrum.

The main star of the system, Alcyone A, consists of three components, the brightest being a Btype giant star. The closest companion has a very low mass and is less than 1 milli-arcsecond away,
with a likely orbital period just over four days. The other star is about half the mass of the giant
and they are separated by 0.031 arcseconds, or about the distance from the Sun to Jupiter, orbiting
in about 830 days. Further four companions are all fainter than 11th magnitude, and component D
is itself double with two nearly equal components separated by 0.30".
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcyone_(star)]

To the west, the two horns of the bull are formed by Beta Tauri and Zeta Tauri; Zeta Tauri is a
binary star with an apparent visual magnitude of 3.0, which is bright enough to be seen with the
naked eye. It lies at a distance of roughly 440 light-years from the Earth. This is a single-lined
spectroscopic binary system, which means the two components are orbiting so close to each other
that they can not be resolved with a telescope. Instead, the orbital motion of the primary component
is indicated by Doppler effect shifts in the absorption lines in its spectrum. The two components
are separated by an estimated distance of about 1.17 Astronomical Units, or 117% of the distance
from the Earth to the Sun. They are following circular orbits with a period of nearly 133 days.

Compared to the Sun, the primary is an enormous star with more than 11 times the mass and 5-6
times the radius. It is rotating rapidly with a projected rotational velocity of 125 km s1. The
companion has about 94% the mass of the Sun, although it is unknown whether this is a main
sequence star, a neutron star, or a white dwarf. If it is a main sequence star, then the mass indicates
it may have a stellar classification of G4.

The spectrum of the primary component has a stellar classification of B2 IIIpe. A luminosity class
of III indicates this is a giant star that has exhausted the hydrogen at its core and evolved away
from the main sequence. The e suffix is used for stars that show emission lines in their spectrum.
For Be stars such as this, the emission lines are produced by a rotating circumstellar disk of gas,
made of material that has been ejected from the stars outer envelope. An oscillatory pattern in this
spectrum is being caused by a single-armed spiral density wave in the disk. The disk may be
precessing from the gravitational influence of the secondary component.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeta_Tauri]

Theta Tauri is a double star in the constellation Taurus and the brightest member of the Hyades
open cluster. It dominated by two 3rd magnitude stars, 1 Tauri and 2 Tauri, which are separated
by 5.62 arcminutes (0.094) on the sky. The first component, 1 Tauri, is located at a distance of
154.4 ly (47.3 pc), while the second component, 2 Tauri is at a distance of 150.4 light-years (46.1
parsecs). If these estimates are correct, then the two components are separated by about four light
years and hence are unlikely to form a binary star system.

1 Tauri is the dimmer star, an orange K-type giant with an apparent magnitude of +3.84. 2 Tauri
is a white A-type giant with a mean apparent magnitude of +3.40. 2 Tauri is classified as a Delta
Scuti type variable star and its brightness varies from magnitude +3.35 to +3.42 with a period of
1.82 hours. Both bright stars are spectroscopic binaries and have at least one closer companion.
1 Tauri has a 7th magnitude companion 0.082 arcseconds, or at least 4 astronomical units (AU),
away from the primary. 2 has a 6th magnitude companion 0.005 arcseconds, or at least 2 AU,
distant. It completes an orbit once every 141 days.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theta_Tauri]

Lambda Tauri is an eclipsing binary star, with an 11th magnitude companion 182 arcseconds from
the primary. This system consists of a spectral class B3 star being orbited by a less massive class
A4 star. The plane of their orbit lies almost along the line of sight to the Earth. Every 3.953 days
the system temporarily decreases in brightness by 1.1 magnitudes as the brighter star is partially
eclipsed by the dimmer companion. The two stars are separated by only 0.1 astronomical units, so
their shapes are modified by mutual tidal interaction. This results in a variation of their net
magnitude throughout each orbit.

Epsilon Tauri is an orange giant star located approximately 45 parsecs (147 light-years) from the
Sun. It has the traditional name Ain (Arabic for eye) and was given the name Oculus Boreus
(Latin for Northern eye) by John Flamsteed. It is a member of the Hyades open cluster. It is
claimed to be the heaviest among planet-harboring stars with reliable initial masses, although the
star HD 13189 is potentially more massive. Given its large mass, this star, though presently of
spectral type K0 III, was formerly of spectral type A that has now evolved off the main sequence
into the giant phase. It is regarded as a red clump giant; that is, a core-helium burning star.

Since Epsilon Tauri lies near the plane of the ecliptic, it is sometimes occulted by the Moon and
(very rarely) by planets. In 2007 a massive extrasolar planet was reported orbiting the star with a
period of 1.6 years in a somewhat eccentric orbit. Its discoverers claimed it was the first planet
ever discovered in an open cluster.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_Tauri]

T Tauri and Hinds Variable Nebula

The yellowish star near center in this dusty telescopic skyview is T Tauri, prototype of the class
of T Tauri variable stars. Just next door is the yellow cosmic cloud historically known as Hinds
Variable Nebula (NGC 1555). Over 400 light-years away, at the edge of an otherwise invisible
molecular cloud, both star and nebula are seen to vary significantly in brightness but not
necessarily at the same time, adding to the mystery of the intriguing region. T Tauri stars are now
generally recognized as young (less than a few million years old), sun-like stars still in the early

stages of formation. To further complicate the picture, infrared observations indicate that T Tauri
itself is part of a multiple system and suggest that the associated Hinds Nebula may also contain
a very young stellar object. The naturally colored image spans about 7 light-years at the estimated
distance of T Tauri.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140503.html]

T Tauri is located about 1.8 west of Epsilon Tauri. This star undergoes erratic changes in
luminosity, varying between magnitude 9 to 13 over a period of weeks or months. It is a newly
formed stellar object that is just emerging from its envelope of gas and dust, but has not yet become
a main sequence star. The surrounding reflection nebula NGC 1555 is illuminated by T Tauri, and
thus is also variable in luminosity.

The Hyades open star cluster anchored by the bright orange Aldebaran, the eye of the bull in the
Taurus constellation.

[http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2014/03/03/4-sky-events-this-week-seven-sisters-and-astellar-sandwich/]
Forming the profile of a Bulls face, the V-shaped asterism of stars is created by prominent
members of the Hyades, the nearest distinct open star cluster after the Ursa Major Moving Group.
In this profile, Aldebaran forms the bulls bloodshot eye. The Hyades span about 5 of the sky, so
that they can only be viewed in their entirety with binoculars or the unaided eye. It includes their
brightest star, a naked eye double star, Theta Tauri, with a separation of 5.6 arcminutes;

Hyades for the Holidays

Recognized since antiquity and depicted on the shield of Achilles according to Homer, stars of the
Hyades cluster form the head of the constellation Taurus the Bull. Their general V-shape is
anchored by Aldebaran, the eye of the Bull and by far the constellations brightest star. Yellowish
in appearance, red giant Aldebaran is not a Hyades cluster member, though. Modern astronomy
puts the Hyades cluster 151 light-years away making it the nearest established open star cluster,

while Aldebaran lies at less than half that distance, along the same line-of-sight. Along with
colorful Hyades stars, this stellar holiday portrait locates Aldebaran just below center, as well as
another open star cluster in Taurus, NGC 1647 at the left, some 2,000 light-years or more in the
background. The central Hyades stars are spread out over about 15 light-years. Formed some 800
million years ago, the Hyades star cluster may share a common origin with M44 (Praesepe), a
naked-eye open star cluster in Cancer, based on M44s motion through space and remarkably
similar age.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap121224.html]

Bright stars in the core of the Hyades Cluster

In Greek mythology, the Hyades were the five daughters of Atlas and half-sisters to the Pleiades.
After the death of their brother, Hyas, the weeping sisters were transformed into a cluster of stars
that was afterwards associated with rain.

The five brightest member stars of the Hyades have all evolved away from the Main Sequence and
now lie at the bottom of the giant branch. Four of these stars, Gamma, Delta1, Epsilon, and Theta
Tauri, form the head of Taurus the Bull. The other is Zeta1 Tauri, which lies 2 further south.

While the clusters core has a radius of 2.7 parsecs (corresponding to a diameter of 17.6 light
years), the clusters tidal radius is 10 parsecs (corresponding to a diameter of 65 light years).
However, about one-third of confirmed member stars have been observed well outside this
boundary, in the clusters extended halo; these stars are probably in the process of escaping from
its gravitational influence.

All stars form in clusters, but most clusters break up less than 50 million years after star formation
concludes. The astronomical term for this process is evaporation. Only extremely massive
clusters, orbiting far from the Galactic center, can avoid evaporation over extended timescales. As
one such survivor, the Hyades Cluster probably contained a much larger star population in its
infancy. Estimates of its original mass range from 800 to 1600 times the mass of our Sun, implying
still larger numbers of individual stars.

Over the next few hundred million years, the Hyades will continue to lose both mass and
membership as its brightest stars evolve off the main sequence and its dimmest stars evaporate out
of the cluster halo. It may eventually be reduced to a remnant containing about a dozen star
systems, most of them binary or multiple, which will remain vulnerable to ongoing dissipative
forces.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyades_(star_cluster)]

M45 (The Pleiades)

[https://www.spacetelescope.org/projects/fits_liberator/fitsimages/davidedemartin_5/]

In the northeastern quadrant of the Taurus constellation lie the Pleiades (M45), one of the best
known open clusters, easily visible to the naked eye. The seven most prominent stars in this cluster
are at least visual magnitude six, and so the cluster is also named the Seven Sisters. However,
many more stars are visible with even a modest telescope;

Find the Pleiades cluster by facing east and looking 2-3 fists above the eastern horizon in late
October around 10 p.m. local time.
Theyre called the Seven Sisters, but can you see all seven? Better known as the Pleiades star
cluster, this lovely group in the shape of a miniature Big Dipper enchants the eye on autumn nights.
Theres nothing quite like it in the heavens. Most stars are single and separate from each other, but
the Pleiades packs more than a handful into a compact bunch that stands apart from nearly
everything else in the sky.

The Pleiades star cluster is located in Taurus and dominated by hot blue stars that formed within
the past 100 million years. It is one of brightest star clusters in the sky. It contains some 3,000 stars
and lies about 444 light-years from Earth. Side to side the group spans 13 light-years, or about
halfway from Earth to the bright star Vega. Like a school of fish, its members move together as a
gravitationally-bound swarm through space.

In late October the group clears the treetops around 9:30 p.m. local time and remains visible the
rest of the night.

When asked how many stars they see in the cluster, beginning observers will usually say five.
Thats what most of us see at a glance, and it makes sense because the five brightest PleiadesAlcyone, Atlas, Electra, Maia, and Merope- range from magnitude 2.9 to 4.2, well within the grasp
of most observers from a reasonably dark sky site. But can we do better?

The brighter of the Pleiades stars with names are shown along with their magnitudes. After spotting
the five easy ones, try Taygeta and then Pleione to make seven.

According to Agnes Clerke, a late 19th-century/early 20th-century astronomer and writer,

Carrington and Denning (British amateur astronomers) counted fourteen. Robert Burnham, in his
3-volume Celestial Handbook, writes that there are at least 20 stars in the group which might be
glimpsed under the finest conditions.

Wow! Really? Lets start with the next two easier targets. Extend a line from Alcyone through
Maia to find Taygeta. Most amateur astronomers can spot this one with ease. A touch of averted
vision, a technique of looking around the object of interest instead of directly at it, should make
this a snap. Its the next one, Pleione, that gives many observers trouble. Not only is it dimmer,
but the star nestles against brighter Atlas. For me, seeing it requires good dark adaption, patience,
and a mix of averted and direct vision.

This view shows the bright central cluster plus additional fainter members and several unrelated
but helpful guide stars nearby along with their magnitudes. In addition to the core cluster, stars
circled in red are Pleiades members.
Thats seven. Ready to move on to the challenge round? We now go deep, pinging stars ranging
from magnitude 5.4 to the inky sky limit of 6.5. Fully dark-adapted eyes and a moonless,
transparent sky are musts. The dim Asterope duo and Celaeno beckon near the Pleiades core, but
thats the problem. Theyre so close to other member stars, theyre difficult to distinguish on their
own.

Ive caught tantalizing hints of both with averted vision when the clusters high in the sky.
Asterope presents a special challenge as the pair is separated by only 2.4 arc minutes- more than
one arc minute closer than the famous Double-Double Epsilon Lyrae, itself no easy split, and
nearly two magnitudes fainter. At best, you might see them as a single elongated star.

Once we move beyond the distraction of the central cluster, hunting gets easier. The magnitude
5.4 star (HD 23753) below the dipper handle is relatively easy, but the 6.0 (HD 23950) will place
greater demands on your visual cortex. 18 Tauri likewise is relatively easy with averted vision, but
beware of the 6.1 and 6.5 members south of Atlas. Theyll push your vision to the limit. But thats
where you want to be, right? Limits tempt us to go that extra step.

By the way, I keep a pair of binoculars at my side to not only verify Pleiades star sightings, but to
help me know just where to look if Im having difficulty finding a star. They also provide a
splendid and visually refreshing look at the cluster after straining to see its fainter members.
So lets add up our starry gems. The bright five plus two not-so-difficult core cluster stars make
seven. Add in seven more faint hanger-ons (well count Asterope as one) and youve got 14. Not
bad, not bad at all.
[http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/observing-news/many-pleiades-cansee10222014/]
The name of the Pleiades comes from Ancient Greek. It probably derives from plein (to sail)
because of the clusters importance in delimiting the sailing season in the Mediterranean Sea: the
season of navigation began with their heliacal rising. However, the name was later mythologized
as the name of seven divine sisters, whose name was imagined to derive from that of their mother
Pleione, effectively meaning daughters of Pleione. In reality, the name of the star-cluster almost
certainly came first, and Pleione was invented to explain it.

The Pleiades are a prominent sight in winter in the Northern Hemisphere, and have been known
since antiquity to cultures all around the world, including the Celts, Mori, Aboriginal Australians,

the Persians, the Arabs (who called them Thurayya), the Chinese, the Japanese, the Maya, the
Aztec, the Sioux and the Cherokee.

The earliest known depiction of the Pleiades is likely a Bronze Age artifact known as the Nebra
sky disk (Germany), dated to approximately 1600 BCE. The Babylonian star catalogues name the
Pleiades MUL.MUL or star of stars, and they head the list of stars along the ecliptic, reflecting
the fact that they were close to the point of vernal equinox around the 23rd century BCE. The
Ancient Egyptians may have used the names Followers and Ennead in the prognosis texts of
the Calendar of Lucky and Unlucky Days. Some Greek astronomers considered them to be a
distinct constellation, and they are mentioned by Hesiod, and in Homers Iliad and Odyssey. They
are also mentioned three times in the Bible. Some scholars of Islam suggested that the Pleiades
(ath-thurayya) are the star mentioned in the Najm of the Quran.

In Hinduism, the Pleiades are known as Krittika and are associated with the war-god Kartikeya
(Murugan, Skanda), who derives his name from them. The god is raised by the six Krittika sisters,
also known as the Matrikas. He is said to have developed a face for each of them.
The Persian equivalent of the cluster is Nahid (pronounced Naheed).
In Japan, the constellation is mentioned under the name Mutsuraboshi (six stars) in the 8th
century Kojiki and Manyosyu documents. The constellation is also known in Japan as Subaru
(unite).

The rising of the Pleiades before dawn (usually at the beginning of June) has long been regarded
as the start of the New Year in Mori culture, with the star group being known as Matariki. The
rising of Matariki is celebrated as a midwinter festival in New Zealand. In Hawaiian culture the
cluster is known as the Makalii and their rising shortly after sunset marks the beginning of
Makahiki, a 4-month time of peace in honor of the god Lono.

Galileo Galilei was the first astronomer to view the Pleiades through a telescope. He thereby
discovered that the cluster contains many stars too dim to be seen with the naked eye. He published

his observations, including a sketch of the Pleiades showing 36 stars, in his treatise Sidereus
Nuncius in March 1610.

The cluster core radius is about 8 light years and tidal radius is about 43 light years. The cluster
contains over 1,000 statistically confirmed members, although this figure excludes unresolved
binary stars. It is dominated by young, hot blue stars, up to 14 of which can be seen with the naked
eye depending on local observing conditions. The arrangement of the brightest stars is somewhat
similar to Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. The total mass contained in the cluster is estimated to be
about 800 solar masses.
The cluster contains many brown dwarfs, which are objects with less than about 8% of the Suns
mass, not heavy enough for nuclear fusion reactions to start in their cores and become proper stars.
They may constitute up to 25% of the total population of the cluster, although they contribute less
than 2% of the total mass. Astronomers have made great efforts to find and analyse brown dwarfs
in the Pleiades and other young clusters, because they are still relatively bright and observable,
while brown dwarfs in older clusters have faded and are much more difficult to study.

The cluster is slowly moving in the direction of the feet of what is currently the constellation of
Orion. Like most open clusters, the Pleiades will not stay gravitationally bound forever. Some
component stars will be ejected after close encounters with other stars; others will be stripped by
tidal gravitational fields. Calculations suggest that the cluster will take about 250 million years to
disperse, with gravitational interactions with giant molecular clouds and the spiral arms of our
galaxy also hastening its demise.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades]

NGC 1514
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_1514]

In the northern part of the constellation to the northwest of the Pleiades lies the Crystal Ball Nebula,
known by its catalogue designation of NGC 1514. This planetary nebula is of historical interest
following its discovery by German-born English astronomer William Herschel in 1790. Prior to
that time, astronomers had assumed that nebulae were simply unresolved groups of stars. However,
Herschel could clearly resolve a star at the center of the nebula that was surrounded by a nebulous
cloud of some type. In 1864, English astronomer William Huggins used the spectrum of this nebula
to deduce that the nebula is a luminous gas, rather than stars. The distance to this nebula is 700 pc
(2200 light years).
A degree to the northwest of Tauri is the Crab Nebula (M1), a supernova remnant:

The Crab Nebula

The Crab Nebula, the result of a supernova noted by Earth-bound chroniclers in 1054 A.D., is
filled with mysterious filaments that are are not only tremendously complex, but appear to have
less mass than expelled in the original supernova and a higher speed than expected from a free
explosion. The Crab Nebula spans about 10 light-years. In the nebulas very center lies a pulsar: a
neutron star as massive as the Sun but with only the size of a small town. The Crab Pulsar rotates
about 30 times each second.

[https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1604.html]

This supernova explosion was bright enough to be observed during the day, and is mentioned in
Chinese historical texts. At its peak the supernova reached magnitude 4, but the nebula is
currently magnitude 8.4 and requires a telescope to observe. North American peoples also
observed the supernova, as evidenced from a painting on a New Mexican canyon and various
pieces of pottery that depict the event. However, the remnant itself was not discovered until 1731,
when John Bevis found it.

NGC 1410/1409: Intergalactic Pipeline

These two galaxies are interacting in a surprising way, connected by a pipeline of obscuring
material that runs between them over 20,000 light-years of intergalactic space. Silhouetted by

starlight, the dark, dusty ribbon appears to stretch from NGC 1410 (the galaxy at the left) and wrap
itself around NGC 1409 (at right). A mere 300 million light-years distant in the constellation of
Taurus, the pair's recent collision has likely drawn out this relatively thin lane of material which is
only about 500 light-years wide. Though the Hubble Space Telescope image dramatically
illustrates how galaxies exchange matter when they collide, it also presents challenges to current
pictures of galaxy evolution. The titanic collision has triggered star formation in NGC 1410 as
evidenced by its blue star forming regions, yet NGC 1409 remains devoid of hot, young blue stars
even though observations indicate that material is flowing into it. Bound by gravity, these two
galaxies are doomed to future collisions, merging over time into one.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap010112.html]

Taurus includes part of the Taurus-Auriga complex, or Taurus dark clouds, a star-forming region
containing sparse, filamentary clouds of gas and dust. This spans a diameter of 98 light-years (30
parsecs) and contains 35,000 solar masses of material, which is both larger and less massive than
the Orion Nebula. At a distance of 490 light-years (150 parsecs), this is one of the nearest active
star forming regions. Located in this region, about 10 to the northeast of Aldebaran, is the asterism
NGC 1746 spanning a width of 45 arcminutes.

During November, the Taurid meteor shower appears to radiate from the general direction of this
constellation. The Beta Taurid meteor shower occurs during the months of June and July in the
daytime, and is normally observed using radio techniques. In October, between the 18th and the
29th, both the Northern Taurids and the Southern Taurids are active; though the latter stream is
stronger. However, between November 1 and 10, the two streams equalize.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurus_(constellation)]

Telescopium

[https://gr.pinterest.com/pin/567735096753692284/]

Telescopium is a minor constellation in the southern celestial hemisphere, one of twelve named in
the 18th century by French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille and one of several depicting
scientific instruments. Its name is a Latinized form of the Greek word for telescope. Telescopium
was later much reduced in size by Francis Baily and Benjamin Gould.

Telescopium is bordered by Sagittarius and Corona Australis to the north, Ara to the west, Pavo
to the south, and Indus to the east, cornering on Microscopium to the northeast. In the equatorial
coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of the constellation between 18h 09.1m and 20h

29.5m, while the declination coordinates are between 45.09 and 56.98. The whole
constellation is visible to observers south of latitude 33N.

Telescopium, shown under the name Tubus Astronomicus on Chart XV of the Uranographia by
Johann Bode (1801), was envisaged as a long-tubed refractor operated by ropes and pulleys.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/telescopium.htm]

Telescopium was introduced in 175152 by Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille with the French name le
Telescope, depicting an aerial telescope, after he had observed and catalogued 10,000 southern
stars during a two-year stay at the Cape of Good Hope. He devised 14 new constellations in
uncharted regions of the Southern Celestial Hemisphere not visible from Europe. Covering 40

degrees of the night sky, the telescope stretched out northwards between Sagittarius and Scorpius.
Lacaille had Latinized its name to Telescopium by 1763.

The constellation was known by other names. It was called Tubus Astronomicus in the eighteenth
century, during which time three constellations depicting telescopes were recognized- Tubus
Herschelii Major between Gemini and Auriga and Tubus Herschelii Minor between Taurus and
Orion, both of which had fallen out of use by the nineteenth century. Johann Bode called it the
Astronomische Fernrohr in his 1805 Gestirne and kept its size, but later astronomers Francis Baily
and Benjamin Gould subsequently shrank its boundaries. The much-reduced constellation lost
several brighter stars to neighbouring constellations.

[http://space.about.com/od/starsplanetsgalaxies/ig/Constellations-Pictures/telescopium.htm]

Alpha Telescopii is the brightest star in the constellation Telescopium, with an apparent visual
magnitude of 3.5. It is 278 light-years (85 parsecs) distant from Earth. This star is much larger than
the Sun, with an estimated 5.20.4 times the mass and 3.30.5 times the radius. The spectrum of

the star matches a stellar classification of B3 IV, where the luminosity class of IV indicates this
is a subgiant star that has nearly exhausted the supply of hydrogen at its core and is evolving away
from the main sequence. It is a bright star that is radiating nearly 800 times the Suns luminosity.
This energy is being emitted from the stars outer envelope at an effective temperature of around
16,700 K, giving it the characteristic blue-white hue of a B-type star.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Telescopii]

Zeta Telescopii is the second brightest star in the constellation Telescopium. An orange K-type
giant of spectral type K1III-IV, with an apparent magnitude of +4.13 and surface temperature of
4720 K, it is around 1.53 times as massive as the Sun and shining with around 512 times its
luminosity. It is approximately 127 light years from Earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeta_Telescopii]

Epsilon Telescopii is a binary star, approximately 420 light years from Earth. The primary
component, Epsilon Telescopii A, is an orange K-type giant with an apparent magnitude of +4.52.
It has a 13th magnitude companion, Epsilon Telescopii B, 21 arcseconds away from the primary.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_Telescopii]

Close by Alpha Telescopii are the two blue-white stars sharing the designation of Delta Telescopii.
Delta1 Telescopii is of spectral type B6IV and apparent magnitude 4.9, while Delta2 Telescopii is
of spectral type B3III and magnitude 5.1. They form an optical double, as the stars are estimated
to be around 710 and 1190 light-years away respectively.

The faint (magnitude 12.23) Gliese 754, a red dwarf of spectral type M4.5V, is one of the nearest
100 stars to Earth at 19.3 light-years distant. Its eccentric orbit around the Galaxy indicates that it
may have originated in the Milky Ways thick disk.

The globular cluster NGC 6584, as observed with the Hubble Space Telescope

The globular cluster NGC 6584 lies near Theta Arae and is 45,000 light-years distant from Earth.
It is an Oosterhoff type I cluster, and contains at least 69 variable stars, most of which are RR
Lyrae variables. The planetary nebula IC 4699 is of 13th magnitude and lies midway between
Alpha and Epsilon Telescopii. IC 4889 is an elliptical galaxy of apparent magnitude 11.3, which
can be found 2 degrees north-north-west of 5.3-magnitude Nu Telescopii. Observing it through a
40 cm telescope will reveal its central region and halo.

The third way of galaxies

The subject of this image is NGC 6861, a galaxy discovered in 1826 by the Scottish astronomer
James Dunlop. Almost two centuries later we now know that NGC 6861 is the second brightest
member of a group of at least a dozen galaxies called the Telescopium Group- otherwise known
as the NGC 6868 Group- in the small constellation of Telescopium (The Telescope).

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope view shows some important details of NGC 6861. One
of the most prominent features is the disc of dark bands circling the centre of the galaxy. These
dust lanes are a result of large clouds of dust particles obscuring the light emitted by the stars
behind them.

Dust lanes are very useful for working out whether we are seeing the galaxy disc edge-on, face-on
or, as is the case for NGC 6861, somewhat in the middle. Dust lanes like these are typical of a
spiral galaxy. The dust lanes are embedded in a white oval shape, which is made up of huge
numbers of stars orbiting the centre of the galaxy. This oval is, rather puzzlingly, typical of an
elliptical galaxy.

So which is it- spiral or elliptical? The answer is neither! NGC 6861 does not belong to either the
spiral or the elliptical family of galaxies. It is a lenticular galaxy, a family which has features of
both spirals and ellipticals.

The relationships between these three kinds of galaxies are not yet well understood. A lenticular
galaxy could be a faded spiral that has run out of gas and lost its arms, or the result of two galaxies
merging. Being part of a group increases the chances for galactic mergers, so this could be the case
for NGC 6861.
[https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1502a/]

The Telescopium group is group of twelve galaxies spanning three degrees in the northeastern part
of the constellation, lying around 37 megaparsecs (120 million light-years) from our own galaxy.
The brightest member is the elliptical galaxy NGC 6868, and to the west lies the spiral galaxy (or,
perhaps, lenticular galaxy) NGC 6861. These are the brightest members of two respective
subgroups within the galaxy group, and are heading toward a merger in the future.

NGC 6845 in Telescopium

[http://www.capella-observatory.com/ImageHTMLs/Galaxies/NGC6845.htm]

Occupying an area of around 4' 2', NGC 6845 is an interacting system of four galaxies- two
spiral and two lenticular galaxies- that is estimated to be around 88 megaparsecs (287 million lightyears) distant. SN 2008da was a type II supernova observed in one of the spiral galaxies, NGC
6845A, in June 2008.

SN 1998bw
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1998bw]

SN 1998bw was a luminous supernova observed in the spiral arm of the galaxy ESO184-G82 in
April 1998, and is notable in that it is highly likely to be the source of the gamma-ray burst GRB
980425.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescopium]

Triangulum

Triangulum is a small constellation in the northern sky. Its name is Latin for triangle, derived
from its three brightest stars, which form a long and narrow triangle. Known to the ancient
Babylonians and Greeks, Triangulum was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century
astronomer Ptolemy. The celestial cartographers Johann Bayer and John Flamsteed catalogued the
constellations stars, giving six of them Bayer designations.

A small constellation, Triangulum is bordered by Andromeda to the north and west, Pisces to the
west and south, Aries to the south, and Perseus to the east. The centre of the constellation lies half
way between Gamma Andromedae and Alpha Arietis. In the equatorial coordinate system, the

right ascension coordinates of the constellation lie between 01h 31.3m and 02h 50.4m, while the
declination coordinates are between 25.60 and 37.35. Covering 132 square degrees and 0.320%
of the night sky, Triangulum ranks 78th of the 88 constellations in size.

Triangulum constellation, John Flamsteed, Atlas Coelestis, London: 1729

[http://starrytransit.mmoca.org/showFullImage.php?image=glowacki_33_full.jpg&caption=Tria
ngulum%20constellation%2C%20John%20Flamsteed%2C%20%3Ci%3EAtlas%20Coelestis%3
C/i%3E%2C%20London:%201729.&alt=Constellation,%20John%20Flamsteed]

In the Babylonian star catalogues, Triangulum, together with Gamma Andromedae, formed the
constellation known as MULAPIN The Plough. It is notable as the first constellation presented
on (and giving its name to) a pair of tablets containing canonical star lists that were compiled
around 1000 BCE, the MUL.APIN. The Plough was the first constellation of the Way of Enlilthat is, the northernmost quarter of the Suns path, which corresponds to the 45 days on either side

of summer solstice. Its first appearance in the pre-dawn sky (heliacal rising) in February marked
the time to begin spring ploughing in Mesopotamia.
The Ancient Greeks called Triangulum Deltoton (), as the constellation resembled an
upper-case Greek letter delta (). It was transliterated by Roman writers, then later Latinised as
Deltotum. Eratosthenes linked it with the Nile Delta, while the Roman writer Hyginus associated
it with the triangular island of Sicily, formerly known as Trinacria due to its shape. It was also
called Sicilia, because the Romans believed Ceres, patron goddess of Sicily, begged Jupiter to
place the island in the heavens. Greek astronomers such as Hipparchos and Ptolemy called it
Trigonon (), and later, it was Romanized as Trigonum. Other names referring to its shape
include Tricuspis and Triquetrum.

Later, the 17th-century German celestial cartographer Johann Bayer called the constellation
Triplicitas and Orbis terrarum tripertitus, for the three regions Europe, Asia, and Africa. Triangulus
Septentrionalis was a name used to distinguish it from Triangulum Australe, the Southern Triangle.
Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius excised three faint stars- 6, 10 and 12 Trianguli- to form the
new constellation of Triangulum Minus, renaming the original as Triangulum Majus, but is no
longer in use.

In Chinese astronomy, Gamma Andromedae and neighbouring stars including Beta, Gamma and
Delta Trianguli were called Teen Ta Tseang Keun (Heavens great general), representing honour
in astrology and a great general in mythology.

To find the Triangulum Galaxy, also known as M33, look just 15 almost directly below the
Andromeda Galaxy. M33 is located 4 off the tip of Triangulums triangle.
[http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/watch-andromeda-blossom-inbinoculars091620151609/]

[http://astrojunkie.friendhood.net/t139-constellation-guide-triangulum]

[http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/Tri.html]

Three stars (alpha, beta and gamma Trianguli) make up the long narrow triangle that gives the
constellation its name. The brightest member is the white giant star Beta Trianguli of apparent
magnitude 3.00, lying 127 light-years distant from Earth. It is actually a spectroscopic binary
system; the primary is a white star of spectral type A5IV with 3.5 times the mass of our sun that is
beginning to expand and evolve off the main sequence. The secondary is poorly known, but
calculated to be a yellow-white F-type main-sequence star around 1.4 solar masses. The two orbit
around a common centre of gravity every 31 days, and are surrounded by a ring of dust that extends
from 50 to 400 AU away from the stars.

The second-brightest star, the yellow-white subgiant star Alpha Trianguli with a close dimmer
companion, is also known as Caput Trianguli or Ras al Muthallath, and is at the apex of the
triangle. It lies around 7 degrees north-northwest of Alpha Arietis.

Making up the triangle is Gamma Trianguli, a white main sequence star of spectral type A1Vnn
of apparent magnitude 4.00 about 112 light-years from Earth. It is around double the size of and
around 33 times as luminous as the sun and rotates rapidly. Like Beta, it is surrounded by a dusty
debris disk, which has a radius 80 times the distance of the Earth from the Sun.

Three star systems appear to have planets. HD 9446 is a sun-like star around 171 light-years distant
that has two planets of masses 0.7 and 1.8 times that of Jupiter, with orbital periods of 30 and 193
days respectively. WASP-56 is a sun-like star of spectral type G6 and apparent magnitude 11.48
with a planet 0.6 the mass of Jupiter that has a period of 4.6 days. HD 13189 is an orange giant of
spectral type K2II about 2-7 times as massive as the sun with a planetary or brown dwarf
companion between 8 and 20 times as massive as Jupiter, which takes 472 days to complete an
orbit. It is one of the largest stars discovered to have a planetary companion.

M33: Triangulum Galaxy

The small, northern constellation Triangulum harbors this magnificent face-on spiral galaxy, M33.
Its popular names include the Pinwheel Galaxy or just the Triangulum Galaxy. M33 is over 50,000
light-years in diameter, third largest in the Local Group of galaxies after the Andromeda Galaxy
(M31), and our own Milky Way. About 3 million light-years from the Milky Way, M33 is itself
thought to be a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy and astronomers in these two galaxies would
likely have spectacular views of each others grand spiral star systems. As for the view from planet
Earth, this sharp composite image, a 25 panel mosaic, nicely shows off M33s blue star clusters
and pinkish star forming regions that trace the galaxy's loosely wound spiral arms. In fact, the
cavernous NGC 604 is the brightest star forming region, seen here at about the 1 o'clock position
from the galaxy center. Like M31, M33s population of well-measured variable stars have helped
make this nearby spiral a cosmic yardstick for establishing the distance scale of the Universe.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap121220.html]

NGC 604: Giant Stellar Nursery

Stars are sometimes born in the midst of chaos. About 3 million years ago in the nearby galaxy
M33, a large cloud of gas spawned dense internal knots which gravitationally collapsed to form
stars. NGC 604 was so large, however, it could form enough stars to make a globular cluster. Many
young stars from this cloud are visible in the above image from the Hubble Space Telescope, along
with what is left of the initial gas cloud. Some stars were so massive they have already evolved
and exploded in a supernova. The brightest stars that are left emit light so energetic that they create
one of the largest clouds of ionized hydrogen gas known, comparable to the Tarantula Nebula in
our Milky Ways close neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap121211.html]

In addition to M33 and NGC 604, there are several NGC galaxies of visual magnitudes 12 to 14.
The largest of these include the 10 arcminute long magnitude 12 NGC 925 spiral galaxy and the 5
arcminute long magnitude 11.6 NGC 672 barred spiral galaxy. The latter is close by and appears
to be interacting with IC 1727. The two are 88,000 light-years apart and lie around 18 million
light-years away. These two plus another four nearby dwarf irregular galaxies constitute the NGC
672 group, and all six appear to have had a burst of star formation in the last ten million years. The
group is thought connected to another group of six galaxies known as the NGC 784 group, named
for its principal galaxy, the barred spiral NGC 784. Together with two isolated dwarf galaxies,
these fourteen appear to be moving in a common direction and constitute a group possibly located
on a dark matter filament. 3C 48 was the first quasar ever to be observed, although its true identity
was not uncovered until after that of 3C 273 in 1963. It has an apparent magnitude of 16.2 and is
located about 5 degrees northwest of Alpha Trianguli.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulum]

Triangulum Australe

[http://www.davidmalin.com/fujii/source/Cir.html]

Triangulum Australe is a small constellation in the far Southern Celestial Hemisphere. Its name is
Latin for the southern triangle, which distinguishes it from Triangulum in the northern sky and
is derived from the almost equilateral pattern of its three brightest stars. It is bordered by Norma
to the north, Circinus to the west, Apus to the south and Ara to the east. It lies near the Pointers
(Alpha and Beta Centauri), with only Circinus in between. The constellation is located within the
Milky Way, and hence has many stars. A roughly equilateral triangle, it is easily identifiable.
Triangulum Australe lies too far south in the celestial southern hemisphere to be visible from
Europe, yet is circumpolar from most of the southern hemisphere. In the equatorial coordinate
system, the right ascension coordinates of the constellation lie between 14h 56.4m and 17h 13.5m,

while the declination coordinates are between 60.26 and 70.51. Triangulum Australe
culminates each year at 9 p.m. on 23 August.

Triangulum Australe, with the alternative name Libella, the level, on Chart XX of Johann Bodes
Uranographia (1801). Bode followed Lacaille in showing a plumb bob attached to the triangle,
thereby representing it as a surveyors level. Along with the compasses (Circinus) and a set square
(Norma) it formed a group of surveying instruments in this part of the sky.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/triangulumaustrale.htm]

Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci explored the New World at the beginning of the 16th century.
He learnt to recognize the stars in the southern hemisphere and made a catalogue for his patron
king Manuel I of Portugal, which is now lost. As well as the catalogue, Vespucci wrote descriptions
of the southern stars, including a triangle which may be either Triangulum Australe or Apus. This
was sent to his patron in Florence, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici, and published as Mundus
Novus in 1504.

The first depiction of the constellation was provided in 1589 by Flemish astronomer and clergyman
Petrus Plancius on a 32 12-cm diameter celestial globe published in Amsterdam by Dutch
cartographer Jacob Floris van Langren, where it was called Triangulus Antarcticus and incorrectly

portrayed to the south of Argo Navis. His student Petrus Keyzer, along with Dutch explorer
Frederick de Houtman, coined the name Den Zuyden Trianghel. Triangulum Australe was more
accurately depicted in Johann Bayers celestial atlas Uranometria in 1603, where it was also given
its current name.

Nicolas Louis de Lacaille portrayed the constellations of Norma, Circinus and Triangulum
Australe as a set square and ruler, a compass, and a surveyors level respectively in a set of
draughtsman's instruments in his 1756 map of the southern stars. Also depicting it as a surveyors
level, German Johann Bode gave it the alternate name of Libella in his Uranographia.

The Wardaman people of the Northern Territory in Australia perceived the stars of Triangulum
Australe as the tail of the Rainbow Serpent, which stretched out from near Crux across to Scorpius.
Overhead in October, the Rainbow Serpent gives Lightning a nudge to bring on the wet season
rains in November.

[http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/TrA.html]

The three brightest stars, Alpha, Beta and Gamma, make up the triangle. Readily identified by its
orange hue, Alpha Trianguli Australis is a bright giant star of spectral type K2 IIb-IIIa with an
apparent magnitude of +1.91 that is the 42nd-brightest star in the night sky. It lies 424 light-years
(130 parsecs) away and has an absolute magnitude of 3.68 and is 5500 times more luminous than
our sun. With a diameter 130 times that of our sun, it would almost reach the orbit of Venus if
placed at the centre of the Solar System. The proper name Atria is a contraction of its Bayer
designation.

Beta Trianguli Australis is a double star, the primary being a F-type main-sequence star with a
stellar classification of F1V, and an apparent magnitude of 2.85. Lying only 40 light-years (12

parsecs) away, it has an absolute magnitude of 2.38. Its companion, almost 3 arcminutes away, is
a 13th magnitude star which may or may not be in orbit around Beta.

The remaining member of the triangle is Gamma Trianguli Australis with an apparent magnitude
of 2.87. It is an A-type main sequence star of spectral class A1 V, which lies 180 light-years (55
parsecs) away.

Triangulum Australe contains several cepheid variables, all of which are too faint to be seen with
the naked eye. R Trianguli Australis ranges from apparent magnitude 6.4 to 6.9 over a period of
3.389 days, S Trianguli Australis varies from magnitude 6.1 to 6.8 over 6.323 days, and U
Trianguli Australis brightness changes from 7.5 to 8.3 over 2.568 days. All three are yellow-white
giants. RT Trianguli Australis is an unusual cepheid variable which has been classified as a carbon
cepheid of spectral type R. It varies between magnitudes 9.2 and 9.97 over 1.95 days. Lying nearby
Gamma, X Trianguli Australis is a variable carbon star with an average magnitude of 5.63. It has
two periods of around 385 and 455 days, and is of spectral type C5, 5(Nb).

EK Trianguli Australis, a dwarf nova of the SU Ursae Majoris type, was first noticed in 1978 and
officially described in 1980. It consists of a white dwarf and a donor star which orbit each other
every 1.5 hours. The white dwarf sucks matter from the other star onto an accretion disc and
periodically erupts, reaching magnitude 11.2 in superoutbursts, 12.1 in normal outbursts and
remaining at magnitude 16.7 when quiet. Nova Trianguli Australis 2008 was a slow nova which
peaked at magnitude 8.4 in April 2008, before fading to magnitude 12.4 by September of that year.

Triangulum Australe has few deep-sky objects- one open cluster and a few planetary nebulae and
faint galaxies. NGC 6025 is an open cluster with about 30 stars ranging from 7th to 9th magnitude.
Located 3 degrees north and 1 east of Beta Trianguli Australis, it lies about 2,500 light-years (770
parsecs) away and is about 11 light-years (3.4 parsecs) in diameter. Its brightest star is MQ
Trianguli Australis at apparent magnitude 7.1. NGC 5979, a planetary nebula of apparent
magnitude 12.3, has a blue-green hue at higher magnifications, while Henize 2-138 is a smaller
planetary nebula of magnitude 11.0:

The planetary nebula NGC 5979

This previously unreleased color image of the planetary nebula NGC 5979 is a composite of raw
FITS files made with the ESA/ESO/NASA Photoshop FITS Liberator. The image was composed
from four individual exposures taken through: A blue narrow-band filter (502 nm, 460 seconds
showing the forbidden OIII line), A green wide-band filter (555 nm, 240 seconds), An orange-red
narrow-band filter (658 nm, 1200 seconds showing the forbidden NII line), A red, or near-infrared,
wide-band filter (814 nm, 480 seconds).

Stars like the Sun spend most of their life quietly converting hydrogen into helium. However when
the hydrogen in the stellar core is exhausted, they start a short phase of much more rapid evolution,
growing in size and brightness, to become cooler red giants that begin to eject large amounts of
gas and dust as a slow stellar wind.

When the star has lost most of its mass, it heats up again and brightens so that the ejected material
begins to glow. At the same time a faster wind sweeps through to clear out the cocoon of obscuring
material and so a planetary nebula is born.
[https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0412c/]

A remote spiral galaxy in Triangulum Australe is NGC 5938, around 300 million light-years (90
megaparsecs) away. It is located 5 degrees south of Epsilon Trianguli Australis. ESO 69-6 is a pair
of merging galaxies whose contents have been dragged out in long tails by the interaction:

ESO 69-6

The galaxies of this beautiful interacting pair bear some resemblance to musical notes on a stave.
Long tidal tails sweep out from the two galaxies: gas and stars were stripped out and torn away
from the outer regions of the galaxies. The presence of these tails is the unique signature of an
interaction. ESO 69-6 is located in the constellation of Triangulum Australe, the Southern
Triangle, about 650 million light-years away from Earth.
[https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0810bz/]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulum_Australe]

Tucana

[http://www.davidmalin.com/fujii/source/Tuc.html]

Tucana is a constellation of stars in the southern sky, named after the toucan, a South American
bird. It is one of twelve constellations conceived in the late sixteenth century by Petrus Plancius
from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. Irregular in shape,
Tucana is bordered by Hydrus to the east, Grus and Phoenix to the north, Indus to the west and
Octans to the south. Covering 295 square degrees, Tucana ranks 48th of the 88 constellations in
size. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of the constellation lie
between 22h 08.45m and 01h 24.82m, while the declination coordinates are between -56.31 and
-75.35. As one of the deep southern constellations, it remains below the horizon at latitudes north

of the 30th parallel in the Northern Hemisphere, and is circumpolar at latitudes south of the 50th
parallel in the Southern Hemisphere.

Tucana, holding in its beak a branch with a berry, as seen on Chart XX of the Uranographia star
atlas of Johann Bode (1801). Behind its tail lies Nubecula Minor, the Small Magellanic Cloud (just
visible at the lower right edge of the image), which is now part of the constellation.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/tucana.htm]

Tucana is one of the twelve constellations established by the Dutch astronomer Petrus Plancius
from the observations of the southern sky by the Dutch explorers Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and
Frederick de Houtman, who had sailed on the first Dutch trading expedition, known as the Eerste
Schipvaart, to the East Indies. It first appeared on a 35-centimetre-diameter (14 in) celestial globe
published in 1598 in Amsterdam by Plancius with Jodocus Hondius. The first depiction of this
constellation in a celestial atlas was in the German cartographer Johann Bayer's Uranometria of
1603. Both Plancius and Bayer depict it as a toucan. De Houtman included it in his southern star
catalogue the same year under the Dutch name Den Indiaenschen Exster, op Indies Lang ghenaemt

the Indian magpie, named Lang in the Indies, by this meaning a particular bird with a long beaka hornbill, a bird native to the East Indies. A 1603 celestial globe by Willem Blaeu depicts it with
a casque. It was interpreted on Chinese charts as Neaou Chuy beak bird, and in England as
Brasilian Pye, while Johannes Kepler and Giovanni Battista Riccioli termed it Anser Americanus
American Goose, and Caesius as Pica Indica. Tucana and the nearby constellations Phoenix,
Grus and Pavo are collectively called the Southern Birds.

[http://www.peoplesguidetothecosmos.com/constellations/tucana.htm]

[http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/Tuc.html]

Tucana is not a prominent constellation as all of its stars are third magnitude or fainter. The layout
of the brighter stars of Tucana has been likened to a kite. Within the constellations boundaries are
around 80 stars brighter than an apparent magnitude of 7.

Alpha Tucanae is a binary star system. With an apparent visual magnitude of 2.86, it can be seen
with the naked eye from the southern hemisphere. The distance to this system can be estimated as
200 light-years (61 parsecs). A cool star with a surface temperature of 4300 K, it is 424 times as
luminous as the sun and 37 times its diameter. It is 2.5 to 3 times as massive. It is unclear what
stage of evolution the star is in.

This is a spectroscopic binary, which means that the two stars have not been individually resolved
using a telescope, but the presence of the companion has been inferred from measuring changes in
the spectrum of the primary. The orbital period of the binary system is 4197.7 days (11.5 years).

The primary component has a stellar classification of K3 III, which indicates it is a giant star that
has exhausted the supply of hydrogen at its core and evolved away from the main sequence. It has
the characteristic orange hue of a K-type star.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Tucanae]

Gamma Tucanae is a yellow-white sequence star of spectral type F1III and an apparent magnitude
of 4.00, located around 75 light years from Earth. It also marks the toucans beak. This star has
1.55 times the mass of the Sun.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_Tucanae]

Zeta Tucanae is a spectral class F9.5 main sequence star with an apparent magnitude of +4.23.
Despite having a slightly lower mass, this star is more luminous than the Sun. It is approximately
28.0 light years from Earth. The composition and mass of this star are very similar to the Sun, with
a slightly lower mass and an estimated age of three billion years. The solar-like qualities make it
a target of interest for investigating the possible existence of a life-bearing planet. Based upon an
excess emission of infrared radiation at 70 micrometres, this system is believed to have a debris
disk. The disk is orbiting the star at a minimum radius of 2.3 astronomical units. It is radiating with
a maximum temperature of 218 K. As of 2009, no planet has been discovered in orbit around this
star.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeta_Tucanae]
Epsilon Tucanae traditionally marks the toucans left leg. A B-type subgiant, it has a spectral type
B9IV and an apparent magnitude of 4.49. It is approximately 373 light-years from Earth. It is
around four times as massive as our Sun.

Beta, Delta and Kappa are multiple star systems containing six, two and four stars respectively.
Located near the tail of the toucan, Beta Tucanaes two brightest components, Beta1 and Beta2 are
separated by an angle of 27 arcseconds and have apparent magnitudes of 4.4 and 4.5 respectively.
They can be separated in small telescopes. A third star, Beta3 Tucanae, is separated by 10
arcminutes from the two, and able to be seen as a separate star with the unaided eye. Each star is
itself a binary star, making six in total.

Lying in the southwestern corner of the constellation around 251 light-years away from Earth,
Delta Tucanae consists of a blue-white primary contrasting with a yellowish companion. Delta
Tucanae A is a main sequence star of spectral type B9.5V and an apparent magnitude of 4.49. The
companion has an apparent magnitude of 9.3.

The Kappa Tucanae system shines with a combined apparent magnitude of 4.25, and is located
around 68 light-years from the Solar System. The brighter component is a yellowish star, known
as Kappa Tucanae A with an apparent magnitude of 5.33 and spectral type F6V, while the fainter
lies 5 arcseconds to the northwest. Known as Kappa Tucanae B, it has an apparent magnitude of
7.58 and spectral type K1V. Five arcminutes to the northwest is a fainter star of apparent magnitude
7.24- actually a pair of orange main sequence stars of spectral types K2V and K3V, which can be
seen individually as stars one arcsecond apart with a powerfull telescope.

Five star systems have been found to have planets, four of which have been discovered by the High
Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) in Chile. HD 4308 is a star with around 83%
of the Suns mass located 72 light-years away with a super-Earth planet with an orbital period of
around 15 days. HD 215497 is an orange star of spectral type K3V around 142 light-years distant.
It is orbited by a hot super-Earth every 3 days and a second planet around the size of Saturn with
a period of around 567 days. HD 221287 has a spectral type of F7V and lies 173 light-years away,
and has a super-Jovian planet. HD 7199 has spectral type KOIV/V and is located 117 light-years
away. It has a planet with around 30% the mass of Jupiter that has an orbital period of 615 days.
HD 219077 has a planet around 10 times as massive as Jupiter in a highly eccentric orbit.

After Omega Centauri, 47 Tucanae is the brightest globular cluster in the night sky
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/47_Tucanae]

The second-brightest globular cluster in the sky after Omega Centauri, 47 Tucanae (NGC 104) lies
just west of the Small Magellanic Cloud. Only 14,700 light-years distant from Earth, it is thought
to be around 12 billion years old. Mostly composed of old, yellow stars, it does possess a
contingent of blue stragglers, hot stars that are hypothesized to form from binary star mergers. 47
Tucanae has an apparent magnitude of 3.9, meaning that it is visible to the naked eye; it is a Shapley
class III cluster, which means that it has a clearly defined nucleus. Near to 47 Tucana on the sky,
and often seen in wide-field photographs showing it, are two much more distant globular clusters

associated with the SMC: NGC 121, 10 arcminutes away from the bigger clusters edge, and
Lindsay 8.

NGC 362 is another globular cluster in Tucana with an apparent magnitude of 6.4, 27,700 lightyears from Earth. Like neighboring 47 Tucanae, NGC 362 is a Shapley class III cluster and among
the brightest globular clusters in the sky. Unusually for a globular cluster, its orbit takes it very
close to the center of the Milky Way- approximately 3,000 light-years. It was discovered in the
1820s by James Dunlop. Its stars become visible at 180x magnification through a telescope.

Located at the southern end of Tucana is the Small Magellanic Cloud:

Taken Under the Wing of the Small Magellanic Cloud

The tip of the wing of the Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy is dazzling in this new view from
NASAs Great Observatories. The Small Magellanic Cloud, or SMC, is a small galaxy about
200,000 light-years way that orbits our own Milky Way spiral galaxy.

The colors represent wavelengths of light across a broad spectrum. X-rays from NASA's Chandra
X-ray Observatory are shown in purple; visible-light from NASAs Hubble Space Telescope is
colored red, green and blue; and infrared observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope are
also represented in red.

The spiral galaxy seen in the lower corner is actually behind this nebula. Other distant galaxies
located hundreds of millions of light-years or more away can be seen sprinkled around the edge of
the image.
The SMC is one of the Milky Ways closest galactic neighbors. Even though it is a small, or socalled dwarf galaxy, the SMC is so bright that it is visible to the unaided eye from the Southern
Hemisphere and near the equator. Many navigators, including Ferdinand Magellan who lends his
name to the SMC, used it to help find their way across the oceans.

Modern astronomers are also interested in studying the SMC (and its cousin, the Large Magellanic
Cloud), but for very different reasons. Because the SMC is so close and bright, it offers an
opportunity to study phenomena that are difficult to examine in more distant galaxies. New
Chandra data of the SMC have provided one such discovery: the first detection of X-ray emission
from young stars, with masses similar to our sun, outside our Milky Way galaxy.
[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/multimedia/pia16884.html]

Though the Small Magellanic Cloud probably formed as a disk shape, tidal forces from the Milky
Way have distorted it. Along with the Large Magellanic Cloud, it lies within the Magellanic
Stream, a cloud of gas that connects the two galaxies:

The Magellanic Stream

In an astronomical version of the search for the source of the Nile, astronomers now have strong
evidence for the origin of the Magellanic Stream. This composite image shows the long ribbon of
gas, discovered at radio wavelengths in the 1970s, in pinkish hues against an optical all-sky view
across the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. Both Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, dwarf
satellite galaxies of the the Milky Way, are seen near the head of the stream at the right. Data from
Hubbles Cosmic Origins Spectrograph were used to explore abundances of elements along
sightlines to quasars that intersect the stream. The results indicate that most of the streams material
comes from the Small Magellanic Cloud. The Magellanic Stream is likely the result of
gravitational tidal interactions between the two dwarf galaxies some 2 billion years ago, the Small
Magellanic Cloud losing more material in the encounter because of its lower mass.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130815.html]

NGC 346 is a star-forming region located in the Small Magellanic Cloud. It has an apparent
magnitude of 10.3. Within it lies the triple star system HD 5980, each of its members among the
most luminous stars known.

Tucana Dwarf by HST

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucana_Dwarf]

The Tucana Dwarf galaxy, which was discovered in 1990, is a dwarf spheroidal galaxy of type
dE5 that is an isolated member of the Local Group. It is located 870 kiloparsecs (2,800 kly) from
the Solar System and around 1,100 kiloparsecs (3,600 kly) from the barycentre of the Local Groupthe second most remote of all member galaxies after the Sagittarius Dwarf Irregular Galaxy.

The barred spiral galaxy NGC 7408 is located 3 degrees northwest of Delta Tucanae, and was
initially mistaken for a planetary nebula.

In 1998, part of the constellation was the subject of a two-week observation program by the Hubble
Space Telescope, which resulted in the Hubble Deep Field South. The potential area to be covered
needed to be at the poles of the telescopes orbit for continuous observing, with the final choice
resting upon the discovery of a quasar, QSO J2233-606, in the field.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Deep_Field_South]

Ursa Major

[http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-find-Polaris-the-North-Star/step1/Locate-the-BigDipper-Ursa-Major/]

[http://jedi-counsel.net/a/astronomy/constellation/Ursa-Major/]

Ursa Major (also known as the Great Bear) is a constellation in the northern celestial hemisphere.
One of the 48 constellations listed by Ptolemy (second century AD), it remains one of the 88
modern constellations. It can be visible throughout the year in most of the northern hemisphere.
Its name, Latin for the greater (or larger) she-bear, stands as a reference to and in direct contrast
with Ursa Minor, the smaller she-bear, with which it is frequently associated in mythology and
amateur astronomy. The constellations most recognizable asterism, a group of seven relatively
bright stars commonly known as the Big Dipper, the Wagon or the Plough (among others),
both mimics the shape of the lesser bear (the Little Dipper) and is commonly used as a
navigational pointer towards the current northern pole star, Polaris in Ursa Minor. The Big Dipper

and the constellation as a whole have mythological significance in numerous world cultures,
usually as a symbol of the north.

The third largest constellation in the sky, Ursa Major occupies a large area in the northern celestial
hemisphere. Its 1279.66 square degrees of surface area are equivalent to 3.10% of the total sky.
The constellation boundaries stretch between the right ascension coordinates of 08h 08.3m and
14h 29.0m and the declination coordinates of 28.30 and 73.14. Ursa Major is bordered by eight
other constellations: Draco to the north and northeast, Botes to the east, Canes Venatici to the
east and southeast, Coma Berenices to the southeast, Leo and Leo Minor to the south, Lynx to the
southwest and Camelopardalis to the northwest. Its also the namesake of its constellation family,
which includes all the constellations it borders except for Leo (a member of the Zodiac), and also
Ursa Minor and Corona Borealis.

Ursa Major as depicted on Chart VI of the Uranographia of Johann Bode (1801). The familiar
shape popularly known as the Plough or Big Dipper is made up of seven stars in the rump and tail
of the bear.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/ursamajor.htm]

Stone-age amulet from northern Europe as representation of representation of stars in Ursa Major
and Botes from Maud Makemsons Astronomy in Primitive Religion. Makemson drew on the
work of the pioneer French archaeoastronomer Marcel Baudouin in analysing a map of the stars
in Ursa Major and Botes incised on a fossilized sea-urchin amulet from stone-age northern
Europe. Makemson wrote: The representation of Ursa Major ... is remarkable for two reasons:
first because the relative positions of the stars point to a very great antiquity for the amulet; and
second, because the engraver has taken pains to indicate the difference in brightness of the stars,
by varying the size of the cavities.
[http://members.westnet.com.au/gary-david-thompson/page11-2.html]

The constellation of Ursa Major has been seen as a bear by many distinct civilizations. This may
stem from a common oral tradition stretching back more than 13,000 years. It has been
reconstructed as an Indo-European constellation. It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the
2nd century AD astronomer Ptolemy in his Almagest. It is mentioned by such poets as Homer,
Spenser, Shakespeare, Tennyson and Federico Garcia Lorca (in Song for the Moon). The Finnish
epic Kalevala mentions it, Vincent van Gogh painted it. It may be mentioned in the biblical book
of Job, dated between the 7th and 4th centuries BCE, although this is disputed.

In Roman mythology, Jupiter (the king of the gods) lusts after a young woman named Callisto, a
nymph of Diana. Juno, Jupiter's jealous wife, discovers that Callisto has a son named Arcas, and

believes it is by Jupiter. Juno then transforms the beautiful Callisto into a bear so she no longer
attracts Jupiter. Callisto, while in bear form, later encounters her son Arcas. Arcas almost shoots
the bear, but to avert the tragedy, Jupiter turns Arcas into a bear too and puts them both in the sky,
forming Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Callisto is Ursa Major and her son, Arcas, is Ursa Minor. In
ancient times the name of the constellation was Helike, (turning), because it turns around the
Pole. In Book Two of Lucan it is called Parrhasian Helice, since Callisto came from Parrhasia in
Arcadia, where the story is set. The Odyssey notes that it is the sole constellation that never sinks
below the horizon and bathes in the Oceans waves, so it is used as a celestial reference point for
navigation. It is also referred to as the Wain.

One of the few star groups mentioned in the Bible (Orion and the Pleiades being others), Ursa
Major was also pictured as a bear by the Jewish peoples. (The Bear was translated as Arcturus
in the Vulgate and it persisted in the King James Version.)

In Hinduism, Ursa Major is known as Saptarshi, each of the stars representing one of the Saptarshis
or Seven Sages viz. Bhrigu, Atri, Angirasa, Vasishta, Pulastya, Pulalaha and Kratu. The fact that
the two front stars of the constellations point to the pole star is explained as the boon given to the
boy sage Dhruva by Lord Vishnu.

In Shinto, the 7 largest stars of Ursa Major belong to Amenominakanushi, the oldest and most
powerful of all kami.
In China and Japan, the Big Dipper is called the North Dipper (Chinese: bidu, Japanese:
hokuto), and in ancient times, each one of the seven stars had a specific name, often coming
themselves from ancient China.
In Javanese, as known as Bintang Kartika. This name comes from Sanskrit which refers krttik
the same star cluster. In ancient Javanese this brightest seven stars are known as Lintang Wuluh,
literally means seven stars. This star clusters so popular because its emergence into the start time
marker for planting.

In South Korea, the constellation is referred to as the seven stars of the north. In the related myth,
a widow with seven sons found comfort with a widower, but to get to his house required crossing
a stream. The seven sons, sympathetic to their mother, placed stepping stones in the river. Their
mother, not knowing who put the stones in place, blessed them and, when they died, they became
the constellation.
In Burmese, Pucwan Tr is the name of a constellation comprising stars from the head and
forelegs of Ursa Major; pucwan is a general term for a crustacean, such as prawn, shrimp, crab,
lobster, etc.

The Iroquois Native Americans interpreted Alioth, Mizar, and Alkaid as three hunters pursuing
the Great Bear. According to one version of their myth, the first hunter (Alioth) is carrying a bow
and arrow to strike down the bear. The second hunter (Mizar) carries a large pot- the star Alcoron his shoulder in which to cook the bear while the third hunter (Alkaid) hauls a pile of firewood
to light a fire beneath the pot.
The Wampanoag people (Algonquian) Native Americans referred to Ursa Major as maske,
meaning bear according to Thomas Morton in The New England Canaan.
The Lakota people call the constellation Wihkhiyuhapi, or Great Bear.

In Finnish language, the asterism is sometimes called with its old Finnish name, Otava. The
meaning of the name has been almost forgotten in Modern Finnish; it means a salmon weir.
Ancient Finns believed the bear (Ursus arctos) was lowered to earth in a golden basket off the Ursa
Major, and when a bear was killed, its head was positioned on a tree to allow the bear's spirit to
return to Ursa Major.
In European star charts, the constellation was visualized with the square of the Big Dipper
forming the bears body and the chain of stars forming the Dippers handle as a long tail.
However, bears do not have long tails, and Jewish astronomers considered Alioth, Mizar, and

Alkaid instead to be three cubs following their mother, while the Native Americans saw them as
three hunters.

[https://synchromiss.wordpress.com/tag/robin-thicke/]

Mapping The Night Sky Using Ursa Major: Ursa Major is an important reference point for locating
several surrounding constellations.

Ursa Major: The 7 brightest stars in this constellation form a distinctive shape, known separately
as the plough or big dipper, although the entire constellation is spread over a greater area of the
sky. It is the most famous of all Northern constellations and is circumpolar in England and the
Northern United States.

Ursa Minor: The 7 main stars of this constellation form a shape similar to Ursa Major, but with
the tail of the bear pointing in the opposite direction. A line through the last two stars of Ursa
Major, also known as the pointers, leads to the Polaris.

Cassiopeia: A line through the last star at the handle end of the big dipper and through Polaris will
lead onto a conspicuous W shaped group of stars called Cassiopeia.

Bootes: Following the tail of the Plough down for 30 degrees leads onto Bootes and the beautiful
orange-red giant star Arcturus

Leo: This can be found by following the line on the map through Ursa Major. Leo lies south of the
Ursa Major, and its brightest star Regulus is white.

Gemini: Following the line shown on the map we come to Gemini. It is characterized by two nearly
parallel rows of stars. The northern row if extended would reach Taurus, the southern one Orion.
The two brightest stars in this constellation are Pollux and Castor.
[http://www.astronomytrek.com/step-7-mapping-the-night-sky-using-ursa-major/]

[http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/UMa.html]

[http://www.dibonsmith.com/uma_con.htm]

The Big Dipper is one of the most recognizable asterisms in the sky. It has significance in many
different cultures. The Big Dipper is also very useful in navigation as it points the way to Polaris,
the North Star (Alpha Ursae Minoris), which is a part of another famous asterism, the Little Dipper
in Ursa Minor constellation. If you follow the imaginary line from Merak (Beta Ursae Majoris) to
Dubhe (Alpha Ursae Majoris) and continue the arc, you will eventually reach the Northern Star.

ursa major,big dipper location,polaris,spicaSimilarly, the imaginary line that stretches along the
handle of the Dipper leads to the bright star Arcturus, the bear keeper, located in the constellation
Botes, the Herdsman. If you follow the line further, you will find Spica, the brightest star in the
constellation Virgo and also one of the brightest stars in the sky.

The seven stars that form the Big Dipper are Dubhe (Alpha Ursae Majoris), Merak (Beta UMa),
Phecda (Gamma UMa), Megrez (Delta UMa), Alioth (Epsilon UMa), Mizar (Zeta UMa), and
Alkaid (Eta UMa).

Alioth (Epsilon Ursae Majoris) is the brightest star in Ursa Major and the 31st brightest star in the
night sky. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 1.76 and is approximately 81 light years distant.
The stars traditional name comes from the Arabic word alyat, which means fat tail of a sheep.
Alioth is the star in the bears tail that is closest to the body of the bear.

Alioth belongs to the Ursa Major Moving Group (Collinder 285), a group of stars that includes
most of the brightest stars in the constellation Ursa Major. The stars belonging to the group share
common velocities in space and are believed to have a common origin.
Alioth belongs to the spectral class A0pCr. The p stands for peculiar because the stars spectrum
of light is similar to that of an Alpha-2 Canum Venaticorum variable. Alioth exhibits fluctuations
in its spectral lines with a period of 5.1 days.

Dubhe (Alpha Ursae Majoris) has an apparent magnitude of 1.79 and is 123 light years distant
from the solar system. It is the second brightest star in Ursa Major. The name Dubhe comes from
the Arabic dubb, which means bear, from the phrase ahr ad-dubb al-akbar, or the back of the
Greater Bear. Dubhe does not belong to the Ursa Major Moving Group.

Dubhe is a giant star belonging to the spectral class K1 II-III. It is a spectroscopic binary star. The
companion is a main sequence star that belongs to the spectral type F0 V. It completes the orbit
around the brighter star every 44.4 years from a distance of 23 astronomical units. There is another

binary system about 90,000 AU away from the main pair, which makes Alpha Ursae Majoris a
four star system.

Merak (Beta Ursae Majoris) is a main sequence star, approximately 79.7 light years distant, with
a visual magnitude of 2.37. It belongs to the spectral class A1 V. The star has a debris disk of dust
orbiting it, one with a mass 0.27 percent that of the Earth. It is 2.7 times more massive than the
Sun, has 2.84 times the radius, and is about 68 times more luminous. Beta Ursae Majoris belongs
to the Ursa Major Moving Group and is a suspected variable star. The name Merak comes from
the Arabic al-maraqq, which means the loins.

Alkaid (Eta Ursae Majoris) is the easternmost star in the Big Dipper asterism. It is also known as
Elkeid and Benetnash. It is a young main sequence star belonging to the spectral class B3 V,
approximately 101 light years distant. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 1.85 and is the third
brightest star in the constellation and also the 35th brightest star in the night sky.

Alkaid is notable for being one of the hottest stars that can be seen without binoculars. It has a
surface temperature of 20,000 kelvins. The star has six solar masses and is about 700 times more
luminous than the Sun. Like Dubhe, Alkaid does not belong to the Ursa Major Moving Group.
The stars traditional names, Alkaid and Benetnash (or Benetnasch), come from the Arabic phrase
qid bint nash, which means the leader of the daughters of the bier. The three stars marking
the handle of the Big Dipper represent three mourning maidens, while the stars that form the body
of the bowl represent the bier. The name Alkaid itself means leader.

In spite of being the third brightest star in Ursa Major, Alkaid was designated Eta Ursae Majoris
because Johannes Bayer named the stars of the Big Dipper from west to east, designating the
pointer stars Alpha and Beta.

Phecda (Gamma Ursae Majoris) is the lower left star in the bowl of the Big Dipper. It belongs to
the Ursa Major Moving Group. The stars traditional name, Phecda (or Phad), is derived from the
Arabic phrase fakh ad-dubb, which means the thigh of the bear.

Gamma Ursae Majoris is a main sequence star of the spectral type A0 Ve. It has a visual magnitude
of 2.438 and is approximately 83.2 light years distant. The e in the stars classification refers to
it being an Ae star, one that has an envelope of gas surrounding it and adding emission lines to its
spectrum. Phecdas estimated age is 300 million years. The star is located only 8.55 light years
away from the Mizar-Alcor star system.

Megrez (Delta Ursae Majoris) is the faintest of the seven bright stars that form the Big Dipper
asterism. It is a main sequence star of the spectral type A3 V. It has a visual magnitude of 3.312
and is approximately 58.4 light years distant from the solar system. It is 14 times more luminous
than the Sun and has 63% more mass. The star emits an excess of infrared radiation, which
indicates a debris disk in its orbit. The stars name, Megrez, is derived from the Arabic word almaghriz, which means the base (as in, the base of the bears tail).

Mizar (Zeta Ursae Majoris) is a system composed of two binary stars. It has an apparent visual
magnitude of 2.23 and is approximately 82.8 light years distant. It can be found in the Big Dippers
handle- it is the second star from the end. The name Mizar is derived from the Arabic mzar, which
means girdle or waistband.

Mizar was the first double star ever to be photographed. Early American photographer and inventor
John A. Whipple and astronomer George P. Bond took the photo of the binary system in 1857
using a wet collodion plate and the 15-inch refractor telescope at Harvard College Observatory.
Bond had previously also photographed the star Vega in Lyra constellation in 1850.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/ursa-major-constellation/]
Another asterism known as the Three Leaps of the Gazelle is recognized in Arab culture, a series
of three pairs of stars found along the southern border of the constellation; From southeast to
southwest, the first leap, comprising and Ursae Majoris (Alula Borealis and Australis,
respectively); the second leap, comprising and Ursae Majoris (Tania Borealis and Australis);
and the third leap, comprising and Ursae Majoris, (Talitha Borealis and Australis).

W Ursae Majoris is the prototype of a class of contact binary variable stars, and ranges between
7.75m and 8.48m.

Orbits of the planets in the 47 Ursae Majoris system. The orbit of 47 UMa d is currently quite
uncertain; both it and that of 47 UMa c may be circular.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/47_Ursae_Majoris]

47 Ursae Majoris is a Sun-like star with a three-planet system. 47 Ursae Majoris b, discovered in
1996, orbits every 1078 days and is 2.53 times the mass of Jupiter. 47 Ursae Majoris c, discovered
in 2001, orbits every 2391 days and is 0.54 times the mass of Jupiter. 47 Ursae Majoris d,
discovered in 2010, has an uncertain period, lying between 8907 and 19097 days; it is 1.64 times
the mass of Jupiter. The star is of magnitude 5.0 and is approximately 46 light-years from Earth.

The HD 80606/7 binary star system on GALEX sky

HD 80606 and HD 80607 are two stars comprising a binary star system approximately 190 lightyears away in the constellation of Ursa Major. Both stars orbit each other at an average distance
of 1,200 astronomical units. An extrasolar planet has been confirmed to orbit HD 80606 in a highly
elliptical orbit. As a result of this high eccentricity, the planet's distance from its star varies from
0.03 to 0.88 AU. With a mass 4 times that of Jupiter, it is a gas giant. Its density is slightly less
than Earths. The planet has wild variations in its weather as it orbits its parent star. Computer

models predict the planet heats up 555 C (1,000 F) in just a matter of hours triggering shock
wave storms with winds that move faster than the speed of sound, at 3 miles per second.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_80606_and_HD_80607]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_80606_b]

Ursa Major is home to many deep-sky objects including seven Messier objects, four other NGC
objects and I Zwicky 18, the youngest known galaxy in the visible universe;

M81 versus M82

Here in the Milky Way galaxy we have astronomical front row seats as M81 and M82 face-off, a
mere 12 million light-years away. Locked in a gravitational struggle for the past billion years or
so, the two bright galaxies are captured in this deep telescopic snapshot, constructed from 25 hours
of image data. Their most recent close encounter likely resulted in the enhanced spiral arms of
M81 (left) and violent star forming regions in M82 so energetic the galaxy glows in X-rays. After
repeated passes, in a few billion years only one galaxy will remain. From our perspective, this

cosmic moment is seen through a foreground veil of the Milky Way's stars and clouds of dust.
Faintly reflecting the foreground starlight, the pervasive dust clouds are relatively unexplored
galactic cirrus, or integrated flux nebulae, only a few hundred light-years above the plane of the
Milky Way.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130925.html]

M81 is a nearly face-on spiral galaxy which, like most spiral galaxies, has a core made up of old
stars, with arms filled with young stars and nebulae. Along with M82, it is a part of the galaxy
cluster closest to the Local Group. M82 is the brightest infrared galaxy in the sky. SN 2014J, an
apparent Type Ia supernova, was observed in M82 on 21 January 2014:

Bright Supernova in M82

Astronomers really dont find supernovae by looking for the arrows. But in this image taken
January 23rd, an arrow does point to an exciting, new supernova, now cataloged as SN 2014J, in
nearby bright galaxy M82. Located near the Big Dipper in planet Earths sky, M82 is also known
as the Cigar Galaxy, a popular target for telescopes in the northern hemisphere. In fact, SN 2014J
was first spotted as an unfamiliar source in the otherwise familiar galaxy by teaching fellow Steve
Fossey and astronomy workshop students Ben Cooke, Tom Wright, Matthew Wilde and Guy
Pollack at the University College London Observatory on the evening of January 21. M82 is a
mere 12 million light-years away (so the supernova explosion did happen 12 million years ago,
that light just now reaching Earth), making supernova SN 2014J one of the closest to be seen in
recent decades. Spectra indicate it is a Type Ia supernova caused by the explosion of a white dwarf
accreting matter from a companion star. By some estimates one week away from its maximum
brightness, SN 2014J is already the brightest part of M82 and visible in small telescopes in the
evening sky.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140124.html]

M101: The Pinwheel Galaxy

Why do many galaxies appear as spirals? A striking example is M101, shown above, whose
relatively close distance of about 27 million light years allows it to be studied in some detail.
Observational evidence indicates that a close gravitational interaction with a neighboring galaxy
created waves of high mass and condensed gas which continue to orbit the galaxy center. These
waves compress existing gas and cause star formation. One result is that M101, also called the
Pinwheel Galaxy, has several extremely bright star-forming regions (called HII regions) spread
across its spiral arms. M101 is so large that its immense gravity distorts smaller nearby galaxies.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150614.html]

Messier 97, Owl Nebula

The Owl Nebula (M97, NGC 3587) is a planetary nebula located approximately 2,030 light years
away in the constellation Ursa Major. It was discovered by French astronomer Pierre Mchain on
February 16, 1781. When William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, observed the nebula in 1848, his
hand-drawn illustration resembled an owls head. It has been known as the Owl Nebula ever since.

The nebula is approximately 8,000 years old. It is approximately circular in cross-section with a
little visible internal structure. It was formed from the outflow of material from the stellar wind of
the central star as it evolved along the asymptotic giant branch. The nebula is arranged in three
concentric shells, with the outermost shell being about 20-30% larger than the inner shell. The
owl-like appearance of the nebula is the result of an inner shell that is not circularly symmetric,
but instead forms a barrel-like structure aligned at an angle of 45 to the line of sight.

The nebula holds about 0.13 solar masses of matter, including hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, oxygen,
and sulfur; all with a density of less than 100 particles per cubic centimeter. Its outer radius is
around 0.91 ly (0.28 pc) and it is expanding with velocities in the range of 27-39 km/s into the
surrounding interstellar medium.

The 14th magnitude central star has since reached the turning point of its evolution where it
condenses to form a white dwarf. It has 5560% of the Suns mass, 41-148 times the brightness of
the Sun, and an effective temperature of 123,000 K. The star has been successfully resolved by the
Spitzer Space Telescope as a point source that does not show the infrared excess characteristic of
a circumstellar disk.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owl_Nebula]

NGC 2787: A Barred Lenticular Galaxy

Lenticular galaxies arent supposed to be photogenic. Like spiral galaxies, they contain a disk, but
like elliptical galaxies, they are usually short on dust, gas, and pretty spiral arms. Lenticulars are
relatively little studied, possibly because of their seemingly benign nature. Famous galaxies
historically classified as lenticular include M84, M85, and M86. Recent pictures and evidence,
however, indicate that lenticulars can be both photogenic and scientifically interesting. For

example, the above image of NGC 2787 taken with the Hubble Space Telescope shows that the
center of this lenticular galaxy has interesting structure. The image was taken to help determine
how lenticular galaxies formed, and what happens in their centers. The span of NGC 2787 in the
above image is about 4500 light years, while the galaxy lies about 25 million light years away
toward the constellation of Ursa Major.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap020408.html]

NGC 4013 and the Tidal Stream

Nearly 50 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major, NGC 4013 was long
considered an isolated island universe. Seen edge-on, the gorgeous spiral galaxy was known for
its flattened disk and central bulge of stars, cut by silhouetted dust lanes. But this deep color image
of the region reveals a previously unknown feature associated with NGC 4013, an enormous, faint
looping structure extending (above and toward the left) over 80 thousand light-years from the
galaxy's center. A detailed exploration of the remarkable structure reveals it to be a stream of stars
originally belonging to another galaxy, likely a smaller galaxy torn apart by gravitational tides as

it merged with the larger spiral. Astronomers argue that the newly discovered tidal stream also
explains a warped distribution of neutral hydrogen gas seen in radio images of NGC 4013 and
offers parallels to the formation of our own Milky Way galaxy.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080207.html]

I Zwicky 18: The Case of the Aging Galaxy

How old is this galaxy? The galaxy on the left, I Zwicky 18, was once thought to be one of the
youngest galaxies on record since its bright stars indicated an age of only 500 million years. The
galaxy was also intriguing because it resembled galaxies forming in the very early universe, but
mysterious since it is so nearby- only 59 million light years away- and surrounded by galaxies that
are significantly older. Recent images of I Zwicky 18 by the Hubble Space Telescope have helped
resolve this mystery, discovering a population of old faint stars intermixed with the bright star
population. Therefore I Zwicky 18 is now thought to be just as old as its neighbors, roughly 10

billion years old, but with an intense episode of relative new star formation. Possibly the trigger
for this recent episode of bright star formation is the changing gravitational influence of I Zwicky
18s smaller companion galaxy, visible at the upper right.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap071017.html]
The Hubble Deep Field is located to the northeast of Ursae Majoris.

The Kappa Ursae Majorids are a newly discovered meteor shower, peaking between November 1
and November 10.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursa_Major]

Ursa Minor

Ursa Minor (Latin: Smaller She-Bear, contrasting with Ursa Major), also known as the Little
Bear, is a constellation in the Northern Sky. It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2ndcentury astronomer Ptolemy, and remains one of the 88 modern constellations. Ursa Minor has
traditionally been important for navigation, particularly by mariners, because of Polaris being the
North Star. Like the Great Bear, the tail of the Little Bear may also be seen as the handle of a ladle,
hence the North American name, Little Dipper: seven stars with four in its bowl like its partner the
Big Dipper. The star at the end of the dipper handle is Polaris. Polaris can also be found by
following a line through the two stars- Alpha and Beta Ursae Majoris- that form the end of the

bowl of the Big Dipper, for 30 degrees (three upright fists at arms length) across the night sky.
The four stars constituting the bowl of the Little Dipper are of second, third, fourth, and fifth
magnitudes, and provide an easy guide to determining what magnitude stars are visible, useful for
city dwellers or testing ones eyesight.

Ursa Minor is bordered by Camelopardalis to the west, Draco to the west, and Cepheus to the east.
Covering 256 square degrees, it ranks 56th of the 88 constellations in size. In the equatorial
coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of the constellation lie between 08h 41.4m and
22h 54.0m, while the declination coordinates range from the north celestial pole south to 65.40.
Its position in the far northern celestial hemisphere means that the whole constellation is only
visible to observers in the northern hemisphere.

Ursa Minor from the Atlas Coelestis of John Flamsteed (1729). Polaris, the North Pole star, lies at
the tip of its unnaturally long tail.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/ursaminor.htm]

Ursa Minor has traditionally been important for navigation, particularly by mariners, because of
Polaris being the North Star. Polaris is currently less than one degree away from the north celestial
pole (hence the alternative name Pole Star) so its position in the sky is largely unaffected by the
rotation of the Earth. From any point in the Northern Hemisphere the direction to Polaris is always
north and its angular altitude is roughly equal to the latitude.

The first mention of Ursa Minor in Greek texts was by philosopher Thales of Miletus in the 6th
century BCE. He pointed out that it was a more accurate guide to finding true north than Ursa
Major. This knowledge had reportedly come from the Phoenicians in the eastern Mediterranean,
and the constellation bore the term Phoinik. Homer had previously only referred to one bear
raising the question of what he saw the stars of Ursa Minor as, or whether they were recognized
as a constellation at all.

Ursa Minor and Ursa Major were related by the Greeks to the myth of Callisto and her son Arcas,
both placed in the sky by Zeus. In a variant of the story in which Botes represents Arcas, Ursa
Minor represents a dog. This is the older tradition, which explains both the length of the tail and
the obsolete alternate name of Cynosura (the dogs tail) for Polaris, the North Star. Cynosura is
also described as a nurse of Zeus, honoured by the god with a place in the sky. An alternate myth
tells of two bears that saved Zeus from his murderous father Kronos by hiding him on Mount Ida.
Later Zeus set them in the sky, but their tails grew long from being swung by the god. Because
Ursa Minor consists of seven stars, the Latin word for North (i.e., where Polaris points) is
septentrio, from septem (seven) and triones (oxen), from seven oxen driving a plough, which the
seven stars also resemble. This name has also been attached to the main stars of Ursa Major.

In the Babylonian star catalogues, Ursa Minor was known as MAR.GID.DA.AN.NA, the Wagon
of Heaven, Damkianna. It appeared on a pair of tablets containing canonical star lists that were
compiled around 1000 BCE, the MUL.APIN, and was one of the Stars of Enlil- that is, the
northern sky. The possible origin of its name was its appearing to rotate like a wheel around the
north celestial pole.

In Inuit astronomy, the three brightest stars- Polaris, Kochab and Pherkad- were known as
Nuutuittut never moving, though the term is more frequently used in the singular to refer to
Polaris alone. The Pole Star is too high in the sky at far northern latitudes to be of use in navigation.

[http://prancer.physics.louisville.edu/astrowiki/index.php/Constellations]

Ursa Minor and Ursa Major in relation to Polaris

[https://galacticimages.com/blog/tag/ursa-minor/]

Marking the Little Bears tail, Polaris, or Alpha Ursae Minoris, is the brightest star in the
constellation, varying between apparent magnitude 1.97 and 2.00 over a period of 3.97 days.
Located around 432 light-years away from Earth, it is a yellow-white supergiant that varies
between spectral types F7Ib and F8Ib, and has around 6 times the Suns mass, 2,500 times its
luminosity and 45 times its radius. Polaris is the brightest Cepheid variable star visible from Earth.
It is a triple star system, the supergiant primary star having two yellow-white main-sequence star
companions that are 17 and 2,400 astronomical units (AU) distant and take 29.6 and 42,000 years
respectively to complete one orbit.

Traditionally called Kochab, Beta Ursae Minoris at apparent magnitude 2.08 is only slightly less
bright than Polaris. Located around 131 light-years away from Earth, it is an orange giant- an
evolved star that has used up the hydrogen in its core and moved off the main sequence- of spectral
type K4III. Slightly variable over a period of 4.6 days, Kochab has had its mass estimated at 1.3
times that of the Sun via measurement of these oscillations. Kochab is 450 times more luminous
than the Sun and has 42 times its diameter, with a surface temperature of approximately 4,130 K.

Estimated to be around 2.95 billion years old, give or take 1 billion years, Kochab was announced
to have a planetary companion around 6.1 times as massive as Jupiter with an orbit of 522 days.

Traditionally known as Pherkad, Gamma Ursae Minoris has an apparent magnitude that varies
between 3.04 and 3.09 roughly every 3.4 hours. It and Kochab have been termed the guardians of
the pole star. A white bright giant of spectral type A3II-III, with around 4.8 times the Suns mass,
1,050 times its luminosity and 15 times its radius, it is 4878 light-years distant from Earth.
Pherkad belongs to a class of stars known as Delta Scuti variables- short period (six hours at most)
pulsating stars that have been used as standard candles and as subjects to study asteroseismology.

Also possibly a member of this class is Zeta Ursae Minoris, a white star of spectral type A3V,
which has begun cooling, expanding and brightening. It is likely to have been a B3 main-sequence
star and is now slightly variable.

At magnitude 4.95 the dimmest of the seven stars of the Little Dipper is Eta Ursae Minoris. A
yellow-white main-sequence star of spectral type F5V, it is 97 light-years distant. It is double the
Suns diameter, 1.4 times as massive, and shines with 7.4 times its luminosity.

Nearby Zeta lies 5.00-magnitude Theta Ursae Minoris. Located 860 80 light-years distant, it is
an orange giant of spectral type K5III that has expanded and cooled off the main sequence, and
has an estimated diameter around 4.8 times that of the Sun.

Making up the handle of the Little Dipper are Delta and Epsilon Ursae Minoris. Just over 3.5
degrees from the north celestial pole, Delta is a white main-sequence star of spectral type A1V
with an apparent magnitude of 4.35, located 1721 light-years from Earth. Bearing the proper
name of Yildun, it has around 2.8 times the diameter and 47 times the luminosity of the Sun.

A triple star system, Epsilon Ursae Minoris shines with a combined average light of magnitude
4.22. A yellow giant of spectral type G5III, the primary is an RS Canum Venaticorum variable
star. It is a spectroscopic binary, with a companion 0.36 AU distant, and a third star- an orange
main-sequence star of spectral type K0- 8100 AU distant.

Located close to Polaris is Lambda Ursae Minoris, a red giant of spectral type M1III. It is a
semiregular variable varying from magnitudes 6.35 to 6.45. The northerly nature of the
constellation means that the variable stars can be observed all year.

RW Ursae Minoris is a cataclysmic variable star system that flared up as a nova in 1956, reaching
magnitude 6. In 2003, it was still two magnitudes brighter than its baseline, and dimming at a rate
of 0.02 magnitude a year. Its distance has been calculated as 5,000800 parsecs (16,300 lightyears), which puts its location in the galactic halo.

Eclipsing variables are star systems that vary in brightness because of one star passing in front of
the other rather than from any intrinsic change in luminosity. W Ursae Minoris is one such system,
its magnitude ranging from 8.51 to 9.59 over 1.7 days.

Taken from the villain in The Magnificent Seven, Calvera is the nickname given to an X-ray source
known as 1RXS J141256.0+792204. It has been identified as an isolated neutron star, one of the
closest of its kind to Earth.

Ursa Minor has two enigmatic white dwarfs. H1504+65 is a faint (magnitude 15.9) star that with
the hottest surface temperature- 200,000 K- yet discovered for a white dwarf. Its atmosphere,
composed of roughly half carbon, half oxygen and 2% neon, is devoid of hydrogen and heliumits composition unexplainable by current models of stellar evolution. WD 1337+705 is a cooler
white dwarf that has magnesium and silicon in its spectrum, suggesting a companion or
circumstellar disk, though no evidence for either has come to light. WISE 1506+7027 is a brown
dwarf of spectral type T6 that is about just 10 light-years away from Earth. A faint object of
magnitude 14, it was discovered by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) in 2011.

Kochab aside, three more stellar systems have been discovered to contain planets. 11 Ursae
Minoris is an orange giant of spectral type K4III around 1.8 times as massive as the Sun. About
1.5 billion years old, it has cooled and expanded since it was an A-type main sequence star. About

390 light-years distant, it shines with an apparent magnitude of 5.04. A planet around 11 times the
mass of Jupiter was discovered orbiting the star with a period of 516 days in 2009. HD 120084 is
another evolved star, this time a yellow giant of spectral type G7III, around 2.4 times the mass of
the Sun. It has a planet 4.5 times the mass of Jupiter with one of the most eccentric planetary orbits.
HD 150706 is a sunlike star of spectral type G0V some 89 light-years distant from the Solar
System. It was thought to have a planet as massive as Jupiter at a distance of 0.6 AU, but this was
discounted in 2007. A further study published in 2012 showed that it has a companion around 2.7
times as massive as Jupiter that takes around 16 years to complete an orbit and is 6.8 AU distant
from its Sun.

Ursa Minor is rather devoid of deep-sky objects. The Ursa Minor Dwarf, a dwarf spheroidal
galaxy, was discovered by Albert George Wilson of the Lowell Observatory in the Palomar Sky
Survey in 1955. Its centre is around 225000 light-years distant from Earth. In 1999, Kenneth
Mighell and Christopher Burke used the Hubble Space Telescope to confirm that it had a single
burst of star formation that lasted around 2 billion years that took place around 14 billion years
ago, and that the galaxy was probably as old as the Milky Way itself.

NGC 6251 is an active supergiant elliptical radio galaxy more than 340 million light-years away
from Earth. It has a Seyfert 2 active galactic nucleus, and is one of the most extreme examples of
a Seyfert galaxy. This galaxy may be associated with gamma-ray source 3EG J1621+8203, which
has high-energy gamma-ray emission. It is also noted for its one-sided radio jet- one of the
brightest known- discovered in 1977.

NGC 6217 is a barred spiral galaxy located some 67 million light-years away, which can be located
with a 10 cm (4 in) or larger telescope as an 11th magnitude object about 2.5 east-northeast of
Zeta Ursae Minoris. It has been characterized as a starburst galaxy, which means it is undergoing
a high rate of star formation compared to a typical galaxy:

Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 6217

Many spiral galaxies have bars across their centers. Even our own Milky Way Galaxy is thought
to have a modest central bar. Prominently barred spiral galaxy NGC 6217, pictured above, was
captured in spectacular detail in this recently released image taken by the newly repaired Advanced
Camera for Surveys on the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. Visible are dark filamentary dust
lanes, young clusters of bright blue stars, red emission nebulas of glowing hydrogen gas, a long

bright bar of stars across the center, and a bright active nucleus that likely houses a supermassive
black hole. Light takes about 60 million years to reach us from NGC 6217, which spans about
30,000 light years across and can be found toward the constellation of the Little Bear (Ursa Minor).
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap091228.html]

The Ursids, a prominent meteor shower that occurs in Ursa Minor, peaks between December 18
and 25. Its parent body is the comet 8P/Tuttle.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursa_Minor]

Vela

Constellations of Antlia, Pyxis and Vela

[http://www.davidmalin.com/fujii/source/Ant.html]

Vela constellation lies in the southern hemisphere. Its name means the sails in Latin. Vela was
once part of the much larger constellation, Argo Navis, which represented the Argonauts ship, but
was eventually divided into three smaller constellations: Vela (the sails), Carina (the keel) and
Puppis (the stern). Vela is the 32nd constellation in size, occupying an area of 500 square degrees.
It is located in the second quadrant of the southern hemisphere (SQ2) and can be seen at latitudes
between +30 and -90. The neighboring constellations are Antlia, Carina, Centaurus, Puppis and
Pyxis.

[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/vela-constellation/]

Traditionally, the sail of Argo has been shown furled around a cross-spar on the main mast, as in
this early illustration from the Uranographia of Johann Bayer in 1603, and not open and billowing
as imagined in some popular representations.

Vela is one of the three sections into which the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille
divided the oversized Greek constellation of Argo Navis, the Argonauts ship, in his southern star
catalogue of 1756. In that catalogue he gave it the French name Voilure du Navire. Vela represents
the ships sails; the other sections are Carina, the Keel, and Puppis, the Stern.

Not only did Lacaille dismantle Argo Navis, he also relabelled its stars, since he was dissatisfied
with Bayers arrangement. But he still used only one set of Greek letters for all three parts of Argo.
As a result, Vela possesses no stars labelled Alpha or Beta, since these letters were allocated to the
two brightest stars in Carina.

[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/vela.htm]

[http://www.peoplesguidetothecosmos.com/constellations/vela.htm]

[http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/Vel.html]

The brightest star in the constellation, Gamma Velorum, is a complex multiple star system. The
brighter component, known as Gamma2 Velorum or Suhail, shines as a blue-white star of apparent
magnitude 1.83. It is a spectroscopic binary made up of two very hot blue stars orbiting each other
every 78.5 days and separated by somewhere between 0.8 and 1.6 Astronomical Units (AU). The
brighter component is a hot blue main-sequence star of spectral type O7.5 and is around 280,000
times as luminous, is around 30 times as massive and is 17 times the diameter of our Sun with a
surface temperature of 35,000 K. The second component is an extremely rare hot star known as a
WolfRayet star, and is the brightest example in the sky. It has a surface temperature of 57,000
and is around 170,000 times as luminous as our sun, though it radiates most of its energy in the
ultraviolet spectrum. Gamma1 is a blue-white star of spectral type B2III and apparent magnitude
4.3. The two pairs are separated by 41 arcseconds, easily separable in binoculars. Parallax
measurements give a distance of 1,116 light years, meaning that they are at least 12,000 AU apart.
Further afield are 7.3-magnitude Gamma Velorum C and 9.4 magnitude Gamma Velorum D, lying
62 and 93 arcseconds southsoutheast from Gamma2.

The next brightest star is Delta Velorum, also a multiple star system and one of the brightest
eclipsing binaries in the sky. Together with Kappa Velorum, Iota and Epsilon Carinae, it forms the
diamond-shaped asterism known as the False Cross-so called because it is sometimes mistaken for
the Southern Cross, causing errors in astronavigation. Like the Southern Cross, three of its main
four stars are whit ish and one orange, but it is larger and fainter. Appearing as a white star of
magnitude 1.95, Delta is actually a triple or possibly quintuple star system located around 80 lightyears from the Solar System. Delta A has a magnitude of 1.99 and is an eclipsing binary composed
of two A-type white stars (Delta Aa and Ab) which orbit each other every 45.2 days and lie 0.5
AU from each other, with a resulting drop in magnitude of 0.4 when the dimmer one passes.in
front of the brighter. Delta B is a 5.1 magnitude yellow G-class star of similar dimensions to our
sun which ranges between 26 and 72 AU away from the brighter pair, taking 142 years to complete
a revolution. Further out still, at a distance of 1700 AU, are two red dwarfs of magnitudes 11 and
13. If they are part of the multiple system, they take 28000 years to complete and orbit.

Also called Markeb, Kappa appears as a blue-white star of spectral type B2IV-V and magnitude
2.47 but is in fact a spectroscopic binary. The two orbit around each other with a period of 116.65
days, but the size, mass and nature of the companion are as yet unclear.

The orange-hued Lambda Velorum, or Suhail, is the third brightest star in the constellation. A
supergiant of spectral type K4Ib-II, it varies between magnitudes 2.14 and 2.3, and lies 545 lightyears distant. It has around 11,000 times the luminosity, 9 to 12 times the mass and 207 times the
diameter or our sun.

Sharpest view ever of dusty disc around aging star

The Very Large Telescope Interferometer at ESOs Paranal Observatory in Chile has obtained the
sharpest view ever of the dusty disc around an aging star. For the first time such features can be
compared to those around young stars- and they look surprisingly similar. It is even possible that
a disc appearing at the end of a stars life might also create a second generation of planets.

As they approach the ends of their lives many stars develop stable discs of gas and dust around
them. This material was ejected by stellar winds, whilst the star was passing through the red giant
stage of its evolution. These discs resemble those that form planets around young stars. But up to
now astronomers have not been able to compare the two types, formed at the beginning and the
end of the stellar life cycle.

Although there are many discs associated with young stars that are sufficiently near to us to be
studied in depth, there are no corresponding old stars with discs that are close enough for us to
obtain detailed images.

But this has now changed. Thanks to the unprecedented sharpness of the images from the Very
Large Telescope Interferometer, and a new imaging technique that can remove the central stars
from the image to reveal what lies around them, a team of scientists could dissect all the building
blocks of the IRAS 08544-4431 system for the first time.

Their target was the old double star IRAS 08544-4431, lying about 4000 light-years from Earth in
the southern constellation of Vela (The Sails). This double star consists of a red giant star, which
expelled the material in the surrounding dusty disc, and a less-evolved more normal star orbiting
close to it.

The most prominent feature of the image is the clearly resolved ring. The inner edge of the dust
ring, seen for the first time in these observations, corresponds very well with the expected start of
the dusty disc: closer to the stars, the dust would evaporate in the fierce radiation from the stars.

The team finds that discs around old stars are indeed very similar to the planet-forming ones around
young stars. Whether a second crop of planets can really form around these old stars is yet to be
determined, but it is an intriguing possibility.
[http://www.eso.org/public/usa/news/eso1608/]

Seven star systems have been found to have planets. HD 75289 is a sunlike star of spectral type
G0V with a hot Jupiter planetary companion that takes only about 3.51 days to revolve at an orbital
distance of 0.0482 AU. WASP-19 is a star of apparent magnitude 12.3 located 815 light years
away, which has a hot Jupiter planet that orbits every 0.7 days. HD 73526 is a sunlike star of
spectral type G6V that has two planets around double the mass of Jupiter each with orbits of 187
and 377 days respectively. HD 85390 is an orange dwarf of spectral type K1.5V lying around 111
light years distant with a planet 42 times as massive as earth orbiting every 788 days. HD 93385
is a sunlike star of spectral type G2/G3V located around 138 light-years away that is orbited by

two super-earths with periods of 13 and 46 days and masses 8.3 and 10.1 times that of Earth
respectively.

The discovery of a binary brown dwarf system named Luhman 16 only 6.6 light years away, the
third closest system to the Solar System, was announced on 11 March 2013.

Of the deep-sky objects of interest in Vela is a planetary nebula known as the NGC 3132,
nicknamed the Eight-Burst Nebula or Southern Ring Nebula. It lies on the border of the
constellation with Antlia:

NGC 3132: The Eight Burst Nebula

Its the dim star, not the bright one, near the center of NGC 3132 that created this odd but beautiful
planetary nebula. Nicknamed the Eight-Burst Nebula and the Southern Ring Nebula, the glowing

gas originated in the outer layers of a star like our Sun. In this representative color picture, the hot
blue pool of light seen surrounding this binary system is energized by the hot surface of the faint
star. Although photographed to explore unusual symmetries, its the asymmetries that help make
this planetary nebula so intriguing. Neither the unusual shape of the surrounding cooler shell nor
the structure and placements of the cool filamentary dust lanes running across NGC 3132 are well
understood.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150607.html]

NGC 3132 is a bright and extensively studied planetary nebula. Its distance from Earth is estimated
at about 550 pc. or 2,000 light-years. Images of NGC 3132 reveal two stars close together within
the nebulosity, one of 10th magnitude, the other 16th. The central planetary nebula nucleus or
white dwarf central star is the fainter of these two stars. This hot central star of about 100,000 K
has now blown off its layers and is making the nebula fluoresce brightly from the emission of its
intense ultraviolet radiation.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_3132]

The Gum Nebula

Named for Australian astronomer Colin Stanley Gum (1924-1960), The Gum Nebula is so large
and close it is actually hard to see. In fact, we are only about 450 light-years from the front edge
and 1,500 light-years from the back edge of this cosmic cloud of glowing hydrogen gas. Covered
in this 41 degree-wide mosaic of H-alpha images, the faint emission region is otherwise easy to
lose against the background of Milky Way stars. The complex nebula is thought to be a supernova
remnant over a million years old, sprawling across the southern constellations Vela and Puppis.
This spectacular wide field view revealS the location of objects embedded in The Gum Nebula,
including the Vela supernova remnant.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060519.html]

Vela Supernova Remnant

The plane of our Milky Way Galaxy runs through this complex and beautiful skyscape. At the
northwestern edge of the constellation Vela (the Sails) the telescopic frame is over 10 degrees
wide, centered on the brightest glowing filaments of the Vela Supernova Remnant, an expanding

debris cloud from the death explosion of a massive star. Light from the supernova explosion that
created the Vela remnant reached Earth about 11,000 years ago. In addition to the shocked
filaments of glowing gas, the cosmic catastrophe also left behind an incredibly dense, rotating
stellar core, the Vela Pulsar. Some 800 light-years distant, the Vela remnant is likely embedded in
a larger and older supernova remnant, the Gum Nebula.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150101.html]

Vela Pulsar: Neutron Star-Ring-Jet

This stunning image from the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory is centered on the Vela pulsarthe collapsed stellar core within the Vela supernova remnant some 800 light-years distant. The

Vela pulsar is a neutron star. More massive than the Sun, it has the density of an atomic nucleus.
About 12 miles in diameter it spins 10 times a second as it hurtles through the supernova debris
cloud. The pulsars electric and magnetic fields accelerate particles to nearly the speed of light,
powering the compact x-ray emission nebula revealed in the Chandra picture. The cosmic
crossbow shape is over 0.2 light-years across, composed of an arrow-like jet emanating from the
polar region of the neutron star and bow-like inner and outer arcs believed to be the edges of tilted
rings of x-ray emitting high energy particles. Impressively, the swept back compact nebula
indicates the neutron star is moving up and to the right in this picture, exactly along the direction
of the x-ray jet. The Vela pulsar (and associated supernova remnant) was created by a massive star
which exploded over 10,000 years ago. Its awesome x-ray rings and jet are reminiscent of another
well-known pulsar powered system, the Crab Nebula.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap000609.html]

NGC 2736

Nearby the Vela Pulsar, and a small part of the Vela Supernova Remnant is NGC 2736, also known
as the Pencil Nebula. The nebulas linear appearance triggered its popular name. It resides about
815 light-years (250 parsecs) away from the Solar System. It is thought to be formed from part of
the shock wave of the larger Vela Supernova Remnant. The Pencil Nebula is moving at roughly
644,000 kilometers per hour (400,000 miles per hour).
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_2736]

HH-47 Star Jet

The star masked by a dust cloud at the left of the above photo is expelling an energetic beam of
charged particles into interstellar space. This jet, moving from left to right, has burrowed through
much interstellar material, and now expands out into the interstellar space. Although jet particles
move at nearly three hundred kilometers per second, we still do not see any daily movement
because of the enormous distances involved. In fact, the jet is trillions of kilometers long. This
stellar jet occurs in a system called HH-47 which is located near the edge of the Gum Nebula.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap951012.html]

Open clusters in Vela include NGC 2670. It has an overall magnitude of 7.8 and is 3200 lightyears from Earth. The stars of NGC 2670, are in a conformation suggesting a bow and arrow. Its
class indicates that it is a poor, loose cluster, though detached from the star field. It is somewhat
concentrated at its center, and its less than 50 stars range moderately in brightness.[26]

Located 2 degrees south of Gamma Velorum, NGC 2547 is another open cluster, containing
around 50 stars of magnitudes 7 to 15.

NGC 3201 is a globular cluster that was discovered by James Dunlop on May 28, 1826. Its stellar
population is inhomogeneous, varying with distance from the core. The effective temperature of
the stars shows an increase with greater distance, with the redder and cooler stars tending to be
located closer to the core. As of 2010, it is one of only two clusters (including Messier 4) that
shows a definite inhomogeneous population.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_(constellation)]

Virgo

Virgo constellation lies in the southern sky. Its name means virgin in Latin. It is one of the 12
zodiac constellations, first catalogued by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy in the 2nd century. It
contains Spica, one of the brightest stars in the night sky. It also contains the autumn equinox point,
which lies close to the star Beta Virginis. This is one of the two points in the sky (the other being
in the constellation Pisces) where the celestial equator intersects with the ecliptic. Virgo is the
second largest constellation in the sky. Virgo is the second largest constellation in the sky,
occupying an area of 1294 square degrees. The only constellation larger in size is Hydra. It is
located in the third quadrant of the southern hemisphere (SQ3) and can be seen at latitudes between
+80 and -80. The neighboring constellations are Botes, Coma Berenices, Corvus, Crater, Hydra,
Leo, Libra and Serpens Caput.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/virgo-constellation/]

Virgo is the sixth astrological sign in the Zodiac and spans the 150-180th degree of the zodiac.
Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun transits this area on average between August 23 and September
22, and under the sidereal zodiac, the sun transits the constellation of Virgo from September 17 to
October 17. The symbol of the maiden is based on Astraea. In Greek mythology, she was the last
immortal to abandon Earth at the end of the Silver Age, when the gods fled to Olympus- hence the
signs association with Earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgo_(astrology)]

Virgo depicted in the Atlas Coelestis of John Flamsteed (1729). In her right hand she carries a
palm frond, while in her left hand she holds an ear of wheat marked by the bright star Spica.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/virgo.htm]

Virgo is often portrayed carrying two sheaves of wheat, one of which is marked by the bright star
Spica.

According to the Babylonian Mul.Apin, which dates from 1000-686 BCE, this constellation was
known as The Furrow, representing the goddess Shalas ear of grain. One star in this
constellation, Spica, retains this tradition as it is Latin for ear of grain, one of the major products
of the Mesopotamian furrow. The constellation was also known as AB.SIN and absinnu. For
this reason the constellation became associated with fertility. According to Gavin White the figure
of Virgo corresponds to two Babylonian constellations: the Furrow in the eastern sector of Virgo
and the Frond of Erua in the western sector. The Frond of Erua was depicted as a goddess holding
a palm-frond- a motif that still occasionally appears in much later depictions of Virgo.

The Greeks and Romans associated Virgo with their goddess of wheat/agriculture, Demeter-Ceres
who is the mother of Persephone-Proserpina. Alternatively, she was sometimes identified as the
virgin goddess Iustitia or Astraea, holding the scales of justice in her hand as the constellation
Libra. Another myth identifies Virgo as Erigone, the daughter of Icarius of Athens. Icarius, who
had been favoured by Dionysus, was killed by his shepherds while they were intoxicated and
Erigone hanged herself in grief; Dionysus placed the father and daughter in the stars as Botes and
Virgo respectively. In the Middle Ages, Virgo was sometimes associated with the Blessed Virgin
Mary.

[http://oneminuteastronomer.com/3642/constellation-virgo/]

Constellation of Virgo (with Crater and Corvus)

[http://www.davidmalin.com/fujii/source/Vir.html]

Spica (Alpha Virginis) is the brightest star in the constellation Virgo, and the 15th brightest star in
the night sky. Located 250 light years from Earth, it is actually a spectroscopic binary and rotating
ellipsoidal variable- a system whose two main stars are so close together they are egg-shaped rather
than spherical, and can only be separated by their spectrum.

The primary is a blue giant and a variable star of the Beta Cephei type. It has a stellar classification
of B1 IIIIV. The luminosity class matches the spectrum of a star that is midway between a
subgiant and a giant star, and it is no longer a B-type main-sequence star. This is a massive star
with more than 10 times the mass of the Sun and seven times the Sun's radius. The total luminosity
of this star is about 12,100 times that of the Sun, and eight times the luminosity of its companion.

It is one of the nearest stars to the Sun that has enough mass to end its life in a Type II supernova
explosion.

The secondary member of this system is one of the few stars with an anomalous change in the
strength of the spectral lines over the course of an orbit, where the lines become weaker as the star
is moving away from the observer. It may be caused by a strong stellar wind from the primary
scattering the light from secondary when it is receding. This star is smaller than the primary, with
about 7 times the mass of the Sun and 3.6 times the Suns radius. Its stellar classification is B2 V,
making this a main-sequence star.

Spica is 2.05 degrees from the ecliptic and can be occulted by the Moon and sometimes by the
planets. The last planetary occultation of Spica occurred when Venus passed in front of the star
(as seen from Earth) on November 10, 1783. The next occultation will occur on September 2,
2197, when Venus again passes in front of Spica. The Sun passes a little more than 2 north of
Spica around October 16 every year, and the star's heliacal rising occurs about two weeks later.
Every 8 years, Venus passes Spica around the time of the star's heliacal rising, as in 2009 when it
passed 3.5 north of the star on November 3.

A method of finding Spica is to follow the arc of the handle of the Big Dipper to Arcturus, and
then continue on the same angular distance to Spica. This can be recalled by the mnemonic phrase,
arc to Arcturus and spike to Spica.
The name Spica derives from Latin spca virginis the virgins ear of [wheat] grain. It was also
anglicized as Virgins Spike. Another alternative name is Azimech, from Arabic al-simk al-azal
the Undefended, and Alarph, Arabic for the Grape Gatherer.

Spica is believed to be the star that gave Hipparchus the data that led him to discover the precession
of the equinoxes. A temple to Menat (an early Hathor) at Thebes was oriented with reference to
Spica when it was built in 3200 BCE, and, over time, precession slowly but noticeably changed
Spicas location relative to the temple. Nicolaus Copernicus made many observations of Spica
with his home-made triquetrum for his researches on precession.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spica]

Gamma Virginis Gamma Virginis is a binary star, consisting of two stars of approximately equal
apparent magnitudes 3.65 and 3.56, and of spectral type F0V. It has has the traditional name
Porrima, the alternative name of Antevorta, one of the Camenae or ancient Roman goddesses of
prophecy. Based upon X-ray emissions- an indicator of the strength of the stellar magnetic fieldthis system has an estimated age of 1.14 billion years. As Gamma Virginis is close to the ecliptic,
it can be occulted by the Moon and (extremely rarely) by planets. In June 2011, Saturn came within
a quarter of a degree from Porrima.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_Virginis]

Epsilon Virginis has the traditional name Vindemiatrix and Vindemiator, which are from Latin
vindmitrix, vindmitor the grape-harvestress. Additional Arabic names are Almuredin and
Alaraph. The apparent visual magnitude of this star is +2.8, making it the third brightest member
of Virgo.

Vindemiatrix is a giant star with a stellar classification of G8 III. With 2.6 times the mass of the
Sun, it has reached a stage in its evolution where the hydrogen fuel in its core is exhausted. As a
result, it has expanded to over ten times the Suns girth and is now radiating around 77 times as
much luminosity as the Sun. This energy is being emitted from its outer atmosphere at an effective
temperature of 5,086 K, which gives it the yellow-hued glow of a G-type star. Since 1943, the
spectrum of this star has served as one of the stable anchor points by which other stars are
classified. Vindemiatrix lies at a distance of about 110 light-years (33.6 parsecs) from Earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_Virginis]

Zeta Virginis has the proper name Heze, which is of unclear origin. It is visible to the naked eye
with has an apparent visual magnitude is +3.376 and is located about a half degree south of the
celestial equator at a distance of 74.1 light-years (22.7 parsecs) from Earth. It is a main sequence
star with a spectral class A3 V, indicating that it is generating energy through the nuclear fusion
of hydrogen at its core. This energy is being radiated from its outer envelope at an effective

temperature of 8,247 K, giving Zeta Virginis the white hue of an A-type star. It has twice the mass
and double the radius of the Sun and is about a half billion years old.
In 2010, a low mass stellar companion was discovered, Virginis B. The object has not been under
observation for a sufficient length of time to determine accurate orbital elements. However, the
pair are estimated to be orbiting at an average separation of at least 24.9 Astronomical Units and
an orbital eccentricity of 0.16 or more. Their orbital period is a minimum of 124 years. This
companion may be a red dwarf star, which would explain the observed X-ray flux from this system.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeta_Virginis]

Delta Virginis has the traditional name Auva. This together with the alternative names Al Awwa
and Minelauva are from the Arabic al cawwa, meaning barking (dog). With an apparent visual
magnitude of 3.4, this star is bright enough to be seen with the naked eye. Based upon parallax
measurements, it is located at a distance of about 198 light-years (61 parsecs) from Earth.

The spectrum of this star matches a stellar classification of M3 III, which places it among the
category of evolved stars called red giants. Indeed, the outer atmosphere of this star has expanded
to around 48 times the radius of the Sun. Even though it has just 1.4 times the mass of the Sun,
this wide envelope gives it a luminosity of roughly 468 times the Suns.

Delta Virginis is a possible binary star, as an 11th magnitude star is located at an angular separation
of 80 arcseconds.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Virginis]

Beta Virginis has the traditional names Zavijava (also Zavijah) and Alaraph. The name Zavijava
(Zavijah, Zavyava, Zawijah) is from the Arabic zwiyat al-cawwa, corner of the barking (dog).
Despite being the beta star of the constellation Virgo it is only the fifth star in order of brightness.
Physically, Beta Virginis is larger and more massive than the Sun, and is comparatively metal-rich
(that is, it has a higher preponderance of elements heavier than helium). Since it is close to the
ecliptic, it can be occulted by the Moon and (very rarely) by planets. The next planetary occultation
of Zavijava will take place on 11 August 2069, by Venus.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Virginis]

70 Virginis system as rendered in Celestia

70 Virginis is a yellow dwarf star approximately 59 light-years away in the constellation Virgo. It
is rather unusually bright for its spectral type and may be just starting to evolve into the subgiant
phase. In 1996, 70 Virginis was discovered to have an extrasolar planet in orbit around it. There is
also a dust disc with a maximum temperature of 153 K located at a minimum distance of 3.4 AU
from the star.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/70_Virginis]

PSR B1257+12, previously designated PSR 1257+12, alternatively designated PSR J1300+1240,
also named Lich, is a pulsar located 2300 light years from the Sun in the constellation of Virgo.
The pulsar has a planetary system with three known extrasolar planets (designated PSR B1257+12
A, B and C; later named Draugr, Poltergeist and Phobetor, respectively). They were both the first
extrasolar planets and the first pulsar planets to be discovered; A and B in 1992 and C in 1994. A
is the lowest mass planet yet discovered by any observational technique, with somewhat less than
twice the mass of Earths moon. Additionally, this system may have an asteroid belt or a Kuiper
belt.

The planets are believed to be the result of a second round of planetary system formation resulting
from unusual supernova remnants or a quark-nova. The discovery of planets orbiting a pulsar
stimulated a search for planets orbiting other pulsars, but it turned out such planets are rare; only
one other pulsar planet, orbiting PSR B1620-26, has been confirmed.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSR_B1257%2B12]

In total, there are 35 verified exoplanets orbiting 29 stars in Virgo, including PSR B1257+12 (three
planets), 70 Virginis (one planet), Chi Virginis (one planet), 61 Virginis (three planets), NY
Virginis (two planets), and 59 Virginis (one planet).

SS Virginis is a variable star with a noticeable red color. It varies in magnitude from a minimum
of 9.6 to a maximum of 6.0 over a period of approximately one year.

Virgo Cluster Galaxies

Well over a thousand galaxies are known members of the Virgo Cluster, the closest large cluster
of galaxies to our own local group. In fact, the galaxy cluster is difficult to appreciate all at once
because it covers such a large area on the sky. Spanning about 5x3 degrees, this careful mosaic of
telescopic images clearly records the central region of the Virgo Cluster through faint foreground
dust clouds lingering above the plane of our own Milky Way galaxy. The cluster's dominant giant
elliptical galaxy M87, is just below center in the frame. Above M87 is the famous interacting
galaxy pair NGC 4438, also known as The Eyes. A closer examination of the image will reveal
many Virgo cluster member galaxies as small fuzzy patches. Sliding your cursor over the image
will label the larger galaxies using NGC catalog designations. Galaxies are also shown with
Messier catalog numbers, including M84, M86, and prominent colorful spirals M88, M90, and
M91. On average, Virgo Cluster galaxies are measured to be about 48 million light-years away.
The Virgo Cluster distance has been used to give an important determination of the Hubble
Constant and the scale of the Universe.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110422.html]

Because of the presence of a galaxy cluster (consequently called the Virgo cluster) within its
borders 5 to 12 west of Vir (Vindemiatrix), this constellation is especially rich in galaxies.
Some examples are Messier 49 (elliptical), Messier 58 (spiral), Messier 59 (elliptical), Messier 60
(elliptical), Messier 61 (spiral), Messier 84 (lenticular), Messier 86 (lenticular), Messier 87
(elliptical and a famous radio source), Messier 89 (elliptical) and Messier 90 (spiral).

M87 is the largest galaxy in the Virgo cluster, and is at a distance of 60 Mly from Earth (redshift
0.0035). It is a major radio source, partially due to its jet of electrons being flung out of the galaxy
by its central supermassive black hole. Because this jet is visible in several different wavelengths,
it is of interest to astronomers who wish to observe black holes in a unique galaxy.

Markarians Eyes

Across the heart of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster lies a string of galaxies known as Markarian's Chain.
Prominent in Markarians Chain are these two interacting galaxies, NGC 4438 (left) and NGC
4435- also known as The Eyes. About 50 million light-years away, the two galaxies appear to be
about 100,000 light-years apart in this sharp close-up, but have likely approached to within an
estimated 16,000 light-years of each other in their cosmic past. Gravitational tides from the close
encounter have ripped away at their stars, gas, and dust. The more massive NGC 4438 managed
to hold on to much of the material torn out in the collision, while material from the smaller NGC
4435 was more easily lost. The remarkably deep image of this crowded region of the universe also
includes many more distant background galaxies.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070608.html]

Trail of Black Holes and Neutron Stars Points to Ancient Collision

The Chandra image of the elliptical galaxy NGC 4261 reveals dozens of black holes and neutron
stars strung out across tens of thousands of light years like beads on a necklace. The spectacular

structure, which is not apparent from the optical image of the galaxy, is thought to be the remains
of a collision between galaxies a few billion years ago.

According to this interpretation, a smaller galaxy was captured and pulled apart by the gravitational
tidal forces of NGC 4261. As the doomed galaxy fell into the larger galaxy, large streams of gas
were pulled out into long tidal tails. Shock waves in these tidal tails triggered the formation of
many massive stars.

Over the course of a few million years, these stars evolved into neutron stars or black holes. A few
of these collapsed stars had companion stars, and became bright X-ray sources as gas from the
companions was captured by their intense gravitational fields.

The currently favored view is that elliptical galaxies are produced by collisions between spiral
galaxies. Computer simulations of galaxy collisions support this idea, and optical evidence of tails,
shells, ripples, arcs and other structures have been interpreted as evidence for this theory.

However as the image shows, the optical evidence rather quickly fades into the starry background
of the galaxy, whereas the X-ray signature lingers for hundreds of millions of years. Chandra's
image of NGC 4261 shows that X-ray observations may be the best way to identify the ancient
remains of mergers between galaxies.
[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2003/ngc4261/]

A noted galaxy that is not part of the cluster is the Sombrero Galaxy (M104), an unusual spiral
galaxy. It is located about 10 due west of Spica:

Sombrero Galaxy
Why does the Sombrero Galaxy look like a hat? Reasons include the Sombreros unusually large
and extended central bulge of stars, and dark prominent dust lanes that appear in a disk that we see
nearly edge-on. Billions of old stars cause the diffuse glow of the extended central bulge. Close
inspection of the bulge in the above photograph shows many points of light that are actually
globular clusters.

The spectacular dust rings harbor many younger and brighter stars, and show intricate details
astronomers dont yet fully understand. The very center of the Sombrero is thought to house a
large black hole. Fifty million-year-old light from the Sombrero Galaxy can be seen with a small
telescope towards the constellation of Virgo.
[http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_283.html]

IC 1101 is a supergiant elliptical galaxy in the Abell 2029 galaxy cluster located about 1.07 Gly
from Earth. At the diameter of 5.5 million light years, or more than 50 times the size of the Milky
Way, it was the largest known galaxy in the universe.

Virgo is also home to the quasar 3C 273 which was the first quasar ever to be identified. With a
magnitude of ~12.9 it is also the optically brightest quasar in the sky:

NASAs Hubble Gets the Best Image of Bright Quasar 3C 273

This image from Hubbles Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) is likely the best of
ancient and brilliant quasar 3C 273, which resides in a giant elliptical galaxy in the constellation
of Virgo (The Virgin). Its light has taken some 2.5 billion years to reach us. Despite this great
distance, it is still one of the closest quasars to our home. It was the first quasar ever to be identified,
and was discovered in the early 1960s by astronomer Allan Sandage.
The term quasar is an abbreviation of the phrase quasi-stellar radio source, as they appear to be
star-like on the sky. In fact, quasars are the intensely powerful centers of distant, active galaxies,
powered by a huge disc of particles surrounding a supermassive black hole. As material from this
disk falls inwards, some quasars, including 3C 273, have been observed to fire off super-fast jets
into the surrounding space. In this picture, one of these jets appears as a cloudy streak, measuring
some 200 000 light-years in length.

Quasars are capable of emitting hundreds or even thousands of times the entire energy output of
our galaxy, making them some of the most luminous and energetic objects in the entire Universe.
Of these very bright objects, 3C 273 is the brightest in our skies. If it was located 30 light-years
from our own planet- roughly seven times the distance between Earth and Proxima Centauri, the
nearest star to us after the sun- it would still appear as bright as the sun in the sky.
[https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasas-hubble-gets-the-best-image-of-bright-quasar-3c273/#.V2RZOjUrRWA]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgo_(constellation)]

Volans

Constellation of Volans
[http://www.davidmalin.com/fujii/source/Vol.html]

Volans constellation lies in the southern sky. It is one of the smallest constellations. It represents
the flying fish. Volans is the 76th constellation in size, occupying an area of 141 square degrees.
It is located in the second quadrant of the southern sky (SQ2) and can be seen at latitudes between
+15 and -90. The neighboring constellations are Carina, Chamaeleon, Dorado, Mensa and Pictor.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/volans-constellation/]

Volans, under its original name Piscis Volans, shown leaping against the side of the ship Argo on
Chart XX of the Uranographia of Johann Bode (1801).
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/volans.htm]

Volans represents a type of tropical fish that can jump out of the water and glide through the air
on wings. In early celestial maps, the flying fish was often depicted as accompanying the ship
Argo Navis, and being chased by the predatory fish represented by the adjoining constellation
Dorado.

Volans is one of the 12 constellations that were introduced by the Dutch navigators Pieter
Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman in the late 16th century. It was first depicted on
Petrus Plancius globe in 1598. Plancius called the constellation Vliegendenvis (flying fish).

In 1603, Johann Bayer included the constellation in his star atlas Uranometria under the name
Piscis Volans, the flying fish. John Herschel proposed shrinking the name to one word in 1844,
noting that Lacaille himself had abbreviated his constellations thus on occasion. This was
universally adopted.

[http://www.koobecaf.hol.es/constellation-volans.html]

[http://astropixels.com/constellations/charts/Vol.html]

The six brightest stars in Volans are:

Gamma Volantis is a binary star approximately 142 light years from Earth. The primary
component, designated Volantis, is an orange K-type giant with an apparent magnitude of +3.78.
Its companion, Volantis, is a yellow-white F-type main sequence dwarf with an apparent
magnitude of +5.68. The two stars are 14.1 arcseconds apart in the sky.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_Volantis]

Beta Volantis is the brightest star of the constellation Volans. Its distance is about 108 light years
and spectral class is K1III.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Volantis]

Zeta Volantis is another binary star approximately 134 light years from Earth. The primary
component, Volantis A, is an orange K-type giant with an apparent magnitude of +3.93. Its
companion, the 10th magnitude Volantis B, lies 16.7 arcseconds away.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeta_Volantis]

Delta Volantis is a yellow-white F-type bright giant with an apparent magnitude of +3.97. It is
approximately 660 light years from Earth.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Volantis]

Alpha Volantis is an Am star (metallic-line star) with an apparent magnitude of +4.00. It is

approximately 125 light years from Earth. This star has an estimated age of 427 million years.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Volantis]

Epsilon Volantis is a triple star system approximately 642 light years from Earth. The primary
component, Epsilon Volantis A, is a spectroscopic binary. It is classified a blue-white B-type
subgiant and has an apparent magnitude of +4.35. The binary system has an orbital period of 14.17
days. The binarys companion, Epsilon Volantis B, is 6.05 arcseconds away and has an apparent
magnitude of +8.1. This star is at the center of the constellation of Volans and connects the wings
of the constellation.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_Volantis]

HD 76700 is a sunlike star some 195 light-years distant that has been found to have a planet. HD
76700 is a yellow dwarf star (spectral type G6V) 195 light years from Earth. It has a mass very
similar to (1.1 times) that of our Sun, but is cooler and brighter (with a surface temperature of 5694
K and luminosity of 1.69 Suns) and thus much older- around 6.9 billion years old. It is orbited by
a recently discovered planet with about 0.233 Jupiter masses, and an orbital period of about four
days.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_76700]

Deep-sky objects in Volans include:

Exploding star in NGC 2397

The latest image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals a sharp view of the spiral
galaxy NGC 2397. This image also shows a rare Hubble view of the late stages of a supernovaSN 2006bc, discovered in March 2006.

Located nearly 60 million light-years away from Earth, the galaxy NGC 2397 is typical of most
spirals, with mostly older, yellow and red stars in its central portion, while star formation continues
in the outer, bluer spiral arms. The brightest of these young, blue stars can be seen individually in
this high resolution view from the Hubbles Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).

One atypical feature of this Hubble image is the view of supernova SN 2006bc taken when its
brightness was on the decrease. Astronomers from Queens University Belfast in Northern Ireland,

led by Professor of Astronomy Stephen J. Smartt, requested the image as part of a long project
studying the massive exploding stars- supernovae. Exactly which types of star will explode and
the lowest mass of star that can produce a supernova are not known.

When a supernova is discovered in a nearby galaxy the group begins a painstaking search of earlier
Hubble images of the same galaxy to locate the star that later exploded; often one of hundreds of
millions of stars in the galaxy. This is a little like sifting through days of CCTV footage to find
one frame showing a suspect. If the astronomers find a star at the location of the later explosion,
they may work out the mass and type of star from its brightness and colour. Only six such stars
have been identified before they exploded and the Queens team have discovered the nature of five
of them.

In their latest work on Hubble images, to be presented at the UK National Astronomy Meeting
2008 in Belfast, the Queens team reveals the results of their ten-year search for these elusive
supernova precursor stars. It appears that stars with masses as low as seven times the mass of the
Sun can explode as supernovae. The team have not found any very massive stars that exploded,
suggesting that the most massive stars may collapse to form black holes either without producing
a supernova or by producing one that is too faint to observe. This intriguing possibility will be
discussed at the meeting.
The images were obtained on 14 October 2006 with Hubbles Advanced Camera for Surveys
(ACS) through three different colour filters (blue, green and near-infrared).
[https://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic0808/]

NGC 2442: Galaxy in Volans

Distorted galaxy NGC 2442 can be found in the southern constellation of the flying fish, (Piscis)
Volans. Located about 50 million light-years away, the galaxys two spiral arms extending from a
pronounced central bar give it a hook-shaped appearance. This deep color image also shows the
arms obscuring dust lanes, young blue star clusters and reddish star forming regions surrounding
a core of yellowish light from an older population of stars. But the star forming regions seem more
concentrated along the drawn-out (right side) spiral arm. The distorted structure is likely the result
of an ancient close encounter with the smaller galaxy seen near the top left of this field of view.

The two interacting galaxies are separated by about 150,000 light-years at the estimated distance
of NGC 2442.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090228.html]

Ring Galaxy AM 0644-741 from Hubble

How could a galaxy become shaped like a ring? The rim of the blue galaxy pictured on the right
is an immense ring-like structure 150,000 light years in diameter composed of newly formed,
extremely bright, massive stars. That galaxy, AM 0644-741, is known as a ring galaxy and was
caused by an immense galaxy collision. When galaxies collide, they pass through each other- their
individual stars rarely come into contact. The ring-like shape is the result of the gravitational
disruption caused by an entire small intruder galaxy passing through a large one. When this
happens, interstellar gas and dust become condensed, causing a wave of star formation to move
out from the impact point like a ripple across the surface of a pond. The intruder galaxy is just
outside of the frame taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. This featured image was taken to

commemorate the anniversary of Hubbles launch in 1990. Ring galaxy AM 0644-741 lies about
300 million light years away.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150419.html]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volans]

Vulpecula

Vulpecula constellation lies in the northern sky. Its name means the little fox in Latin. It is not
associated with any myths. Vulpecula is the 55th constellation in size, occupying an area of 268
square degrees. It is located in the fourth quadrant of the northern hemisphere (NQ4) and can be
seen at latitudes between +90 and -55. The neighboring constellations are Cygnus, Delphinus,
Hercules, Lyra, Pegasus and Sagitta.
[http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/vulpecula-constellation/]

The fox and the goose shown as Vulpec. & Anser on the Atlas Coelestis of John Flamsteed
(1729).

Vulpecula is a constellation introduced in 1687 by the Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius, who
depicted it as a double figure of a fox, Vulpecula, carrying in its jaws a goose, spelt both as Anser
and Ansere. Since then the goose has flown (or been eaten), leaving just the fox. Hevelius placed
the fox near two other hunting animals, the eagle (the constellation Aquila) and the vulture (which
was an alternative identification for Lyra). He explained that the fox was taking the goose to
neighbouring Cerberus, another of his inventions- although this part of the tableau has been spoilt,
as Cerberus is now obsolete.

Hevelius himself was somewhat inconsistent in his naming of this constellation. In his star
catalogue he named the pair Vulpecula cum Ansere, the fox with goose, but showed them
separately as Anser and Vulpecula on his Firmamentum Sobiescianum star atlas. Others
preferred the slightly amended title fox and goose.
[http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/vulpecula.htm]

[http://earthsky.org/?p=4508]

[http://www.dibonsmith.com/vul_con.htm]

Amateur image of dark nebula LDN 778 (center) and Alpha Vulpeculae, (red giant, top center)

There are no stars brighter than 4th magnitude in this constellation. The brightest star in Vulpecula
is Alpha Vulpeculae. It has a traditional name, variously represented as Lukida, Lucida Anseris,
or Anser, a tradition kept from when the constellation had the name Vulpecula et Anser, the fox
and the goose. Alpha Vulpeculae is a red giant of spectral class M1 and has apparent magnitude
+4.4. It is approximately 297 light years from Earth. It forms a wide optical binary with 8
Vulpeculae. It has been analysed as a member of the Arcturus stream, a group of stars with high

proper motion and metal-poor properties thought to be the remnants of a small galaxy consumed
by the Milky Way.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Vulpeculae]

In 1967, the first pulsar, PSR B1919+21, was discovered in Vulpecula by Jocelyn Bell, supervised
by Antony Hewish, in Cambridge. While they were searching for scintillation of radio signals of
quasars, they observed pulses which repeated with a period of 1.3373 seconds. Terrestrial origin
of the signal was ruled out because the time it took the object to reappear was a sidereal day instead
of a solar day. This anomaly was finally identified as the signal of a rapidly rotating neutron star.
Fifteen years after the first pulsar was discovered, the first millisecond pulsar, PSR B1937+21,
was also discovered in Vulpecula, only a few degrees in the sky away from PSR B1919+21.

Vulpecula is also home to HD 189733 b, one of the closest extrasolar planets:

Exoplanet HD 189733b

This graphic depicts HD 189733b, the first exoplanet caught passing in front of its parent star in
X-rays. NASAs Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agencys XMM Newton
Observatory have been used to observe a dip in X-ray intensity as HD 189733b transits its parent
star.

The main figure is an artists impression showing the HD 189733 system, containing a Sun-like
star orbited by HD 189733b, an exoplanet about the size of Jupiter. This hot Jupiter is over 30
times closer to its star than Earth is to the Sun and goes around the star once every 2.2 days, as
determined from previous observations. Also in the illustration is a faint red companion star, which
was detected for the first time in X-rays with these observations. This star orbits the main star
about once every 3,200 years.

The inset contains the Chandra image of HD 189733. The source in the middle is the main star and
the source in the lower right is the faint companion star. The source at the bottom of the image is
a background object not contained in the HD 189733 system.

The exoplanet itself cannot be seen in the Chandra image, as the transits involve measuring small
decreases in X-ray emission from the main star. The authors estimate that the percentage decrease
in X-ray light during the transits is about three times greater than the corresponding decrease in
optical light. This tells them that the region blocking X-rays from the star is substantially larger
than the region blocking optical light from the star, helping to determine the size of the planet's
atmosphere. The extended atmosphere implied by these results is shown by the light blue color
around the planet. Recent observations of HD 189733b with the Hubble Space Telescope have
confirmed that the lower atmosphere of the planet has a deep blue color, due to the preferential
scattering of blue light by silicate particles in its atmosphere.

For about a decade astronomers have known that ultraviolet and X-ray radiation from the main
star in HD 189733 are evaporating the atmosphere of its closely orbiting planet over time. The
authors of the new study estimate that HD 189733b is losing between 100 million and 600 million
kilograms per second. This rate is about 25% to 65% higher than it would be if the planet's
atmosphere were not extended.

At a distance of just 63 light years, HD 189733b is the closest hot Jupiter to Earth, which makes it
a prime target for astronomers who want to learn more about this type of exoplanet and the
atmosphere around it. Chandra was used to make observations of six transits by HD 189733b and
the team also used archival data from XMM-Newton for one transit.

[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/exoplanet-hd-189733b.html]
Two well-known deep-sky objects in Vulpecula are the Dumbbell Nebula (M27), and Brocchis
Cluster (Collinder 399):

M27: The Dumbbell Nebula

The first hint of what will become of our Sun was discovered inadvertently in 1764. At that time,
Charles Messier was compiling a list of diffuse objects not to be confused with comets. The 27th
object on Messiers list, now known as M27 or the Dumbbell Nebula, is a planetary nebula, the
type of nebula our Sun will produce when nuclear fusion stops in its core. M27 is one of the
brightest planetary nebulae on the sky, and can be seen toward the constellation of the Fox

(Vulpecula) with binoculars. It takes light about 1000 years to reach us from M27, shown above
in colors emitted by hydrogen and oxygen. Understanding the physics and significance of M27
was well beyond 18th century science. Even today, many things remain mysterious about bipolar
planetary nebula like M27, including the physical mechanism that expels a low-mass stars
gaseous outer-envelope, leaving an X-ray hot white dwarf.
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140914.html]

Collinder 399: The Coat Hanger

Is this coat hanger a star cluster or an asterism? This cosmic hang-up has been debated over much
of last century, as astronomers wondered whether this binocular-visible object is really a physically
associated open cluster or a chance projection. Chance star projections are known as asterisms, an
example of which is the popular Big Dipper. Recent precise measurements from different vantage
points in the Earths orbit around the Sun have uncovered discrepant angular shifts indicating that
the Coat Hanger is better described as an asterism. Known more formally as Collinder 399, this

bright stellar grouping is wider than the full moon and lies in the constellation of the Fox
(Vulpecula).
[http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150826.html]

NGC 7052 is an edge-on spiral galaxy in Vulpecula at a distance of 214 million light-years from
Earth:

Disk around a Black Hole in Galaxy NGC 7052

Resembling a gigantic hubcap in space, a 3,700 light-year-diameter dust disk encircles a 300
million solar-mass black hole in the centre of the elliptical galaxy NGC 7052. The disk, possibly
a remnant of an ancient galaxy collision, will be swallowed up by the black hole in several billion
years. Because the front end of the disk eclipses more stars than the back, it appears darker. Also,

because dust absorbs blue light more effectively than red light, the disk is redder than the rest of
the galaxy (this same phenomenon causes the Sun to appear red when it sets in a smoggy
afternoon).
[https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9822a/]

Planetary nebula Hen 2-437 is also located in the constellation of Vulpecula:

Hubble Watches the Icy Blue Wings of Hen 2-437

In this cosmic snapshot, the spectacularly symmetrical wings of Hen 2-437 show up in a
magnificent icy blue hue. Hen 2-437 is a planetary nebula, one of around 3,000 such objects known
to reside within the Milky Way.

Located within the faint northern constellation of Vulpecula (The Fox), Hen 2-437 was first
identified in 1946 by Rudolph Minkowski, who later also discovered the famous and equally

beautiful M2-9 (otherwise known as the Twin Jet Nebula). Hen 2-437 was added to a catalog of
planetary nebula over two decades later by astronomer and NASA astronaut Karl Gordon Henize.

Planetary nebulae such as Hen 2-437 form when an aging low-mass star- such as the sun- reaches
the final stages of life. The star swells to become a red giant, before casting off its gaseous outer
layers into space. The star itself then slowly shrinks to form a white dwarf, while the expelled gas
is slowly compressed and pushed outwards by stellar winds. As shown by its remarkably beautiful
appearance, Hen 2-437 is a bipolar nebula- the material ejected by the dying star has streamed out
into space to create the two icy blue lobes pictured here.
[https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2016/hubble-watches-the-icy-blue-wings-of-hen2-437]

The eastern part of Vulpecula is occupied by the Hercules- Corona Borealis Great Wall.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulpecula]

Appendix

Commented [CT6]:

[http://www.vb-tech.co.za/northern.htm]

[http://www.vb-tech.co.za/southern.htm]

email: christselentis@gmail.com
Last revised: 6/20/2016, Chris Tselentis, Athens, Greece.