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NGC 2266
NGC 2266 is an open cluster of stars in the constellation of Gemini. It was discovered by German-British astronomer William Herschel on 7 December 1785. This is a relatively dim cluster with an integrated visual magnitude of 9.5 and an angular size of . The stellar members can be readily resolved with an amateur telescope. NGC 2266 is located at a distance of from the Sun. It is located close to the opposite part of the sky from the Galactic Center, or the anti-center. This is a rich cluster that is well condensed. It is of intermediate age; similar to the ages of the Hyades and Praesepe clusters. However, it has a lower metallicity than either cluster. NGC 2266 has a heliocentric radial velocity of . A 2008 study found 12 variable stars in the field of this cluster, although they lie outside the cluster radius. A single candidate blue straggler has been identified. References External links * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:NGC 2266 2266 Open clusters Gemini (constellation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
J2000
In astronomy, an epoch or reference epoch is a instant, moment in time used as a reference point for some time-varying astronomical quantity. It is useful for the celestial coordinates or orbital elements of a Astronomical object, celestial body, as they are subject to Perturbation (astronomy), perturbations and vary with time. These time-varying astronomical quantities might include, for example, the mean longitude or mean anomaly of a body, the node of its orbit relative to a reference plane, the direction of the apogee or Perihelion and aphelion, aphelion of its orbit, or the size of the major axis of its orbit. The main use of astronomical quantities specified in this way is to calculate other relevant parameters of motion, in order to predict future positions and velocities. The applied tools of the disciplines of celestial mechanics or its subfield orbital mechanics (for predicting orbital paths and positions for bodies in motion under the gravitational effects of other bodi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hyades (star Cluster)
The Hyades (; Greek Ὑάδες, also known as Caldwell 41, Collinder 50, or Melotte 25) is the nearest open cluster and one of the best-studied star clusters. Located about away from the Sun, it consists of a roughly spherical group of hundreds of stars sharing the same age, place of origin, chemical characteristics, and motion through space.Bouvier J, Kendall T, Meeus G, Testi L, Moraux E, Stauffer JR, James D, Cuillandre J-C, Irwin J, McCaughrean MJ, Baraffe I, Bertin E. (2008) Brown dwarfs and very low mass stars in the Hyades cluster: a dynamically evolved mass function. ''Astronomy & Astrophysics'', 481: 661-672. Abstract at http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008A%26A...481..661B. From the perspective of observers on Earth, the Hyades Cluster appears in the constellation Taurus, where its brightest stars form a "V" shape along with the still-brighter Aldebaran. However, Aldebaran is unrelated to the Hyades, as it is located much closer to Earth and merely happens to lie alon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Open Clusters
An open cluster is a type of star cluster made of up to a few thousand stars that were formed from the same giant molecular cloud and have roughly the same age. More than 1,100 open clusters have been discovered within the Milky Way galaxy, and many more are thought to exist. They are loosely bound by mutual gravitational attraction and become disrupted by close encounters with other clusters and clouds of gas as they orbit the Galactic Center. This can result in a migration to the main body of the galaxy and a loss of cluster members through internal close encounters. Open clusters generally survive for a few hundred million years, with the most massive ones surviving for a few billion years. In contrast, the more massive globular clusters of stars exert a stronger gravitational attraction on their members, and can survive for longer. Open clusters have been found only in spiral and irregular galaxies, in which active star formation is occurring. Young open clusters may be cont ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NGC Objects
The ''New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars'' (abbreviated NGC) is an astronomical catalogue of deep-sky objects compiled by John Louis Emil Dreyer in 1888. The NGC contains 7,840 objects, including galaxies, star clusters and emission nebulae. Dreyer published two supplements to the NGC in 1895 and 1908, known as the ''Index Catalogues'' (abbreviated IC), describing a further 5,386 astronomical objects. Thousands of these objects are best known by their NGC or IC numbers, which remain in widespread use. The NGC expanded and consolidated the cataloguing work of William and Caroline Herschel, and John Herschel's ''General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars''. Objects south of the celestial equator are catalogued somewhat less thoroughly, but many were included based on observation by John Herschel or James Dunlop. The NGC contained multiple errors, but attempts to eliminate them were made by the ''Revised New General Catalogue'' (RNGC) by Jack W. Sulenti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blue Straggler
A blue straggler is a main-sequence In astronomy, the main sequence is a continuous and distinctive band of stars that appears on plots of stellar color versus brightness. These color-magnitude plots are known as Hertzsprung–Russell diagrams after their co-developers, Ejnar Hert ... star in an open cluster, open or globular cluster that is more luminosity, luminous and stellar classification, bluer than stars at the main sequence turnoff point for the cluster. Blue stragglers were first discovered by Allan Sandage in 1953 while performing photometry (astronomy), photometry of the stars in the globular cluster Messier 3, M3. Standard theories of stellar evolution hold that the position of a star on the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram should be determined almost entirely by the initial mass of the star and its age. In a cluster, stars all formed at approximately the same time, and thus in an H–R diagram for a cluster, all stars should lie along a clearly defined curve set by the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Variable Star
A variable star is a star whose brightness as seen from Earth (its apparent magnitude) changes with time. This variation may be caused by a change in emitted light or by something partly blocking the light, so variable stars are classified as either: * Intrinsic variables, whose luminosity actually changes; for example, because the star periodically swells and shrinks. * Extrinsic variables, whose apparent changes in brightness are due to changes in the amount of their light that can reach Earth; for example, because the star has an orbiting companion that sometimes eclipses it. Many, possibly most, stars have at least some variation in luminosity: the energy output of the Sun, for example, varies by about 0.1% over an 11-year solar cycle. Discovery An ancient Egyptian calendar of lucky and unlucky days composed some 3,200 years ago may be the oldest preserved historical document of the discovery of a variable star, the eclipsing binary Algol. Of the modern astronomers, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radial Velocity
The radial velocity or line-of-sight velocity, also known as radial speed or range rate, of a target with respect to an observer is the temporal rate of change, rate of change of the distance or Slant range, range between the two points. It is equivalent to the vector projection of the target-observer relative velocity onto the relative direction (geometry), relative direction connecting the two points. In astronomy, the point is usually taken to be the observer on Earth, so the radial velocity then denotes the speed with which the object moves away from the Earth (or approaches it, for a negative radial velocity). Formulation Given a differentiable vector \mathbf \in \mathbb^3 defining the instantaneous position of a target relative to an observer. Let with \mathbf \in \mathbb^3, the instantaneous velocity of the target with respect to the observer. The magnitude of the position vector \mathbf is defined as The quantity range rate is the time derivative of the magnitud ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metallicity
In astronomy, metallicity is the abundance of elements present in an object that are heavier than hydrogen and helium. Most of the normal physical matter in the Universe is either hydrogen or helium, and astronomers use the word ''"metals"'' as a convenient short term for ''"all elements except hydrogen and helium"''. This word-use is distinct from the conventional chemical or physical definition of a metal as an electrically conducting solid. Stars and nebulae with relatively high abundances of heavier elements are called "metal-rich" in astrophysical terms, even though many of those elements are nonmetals in chemistry. The presence of heavier elements hails from stellar nucleosynthesis, where the majority of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium in the Universe (''metals'', hereafter) are formed in the cores of stars as they evolve. Over time, stellar winds and supernovae deposit the metals into the surrounding environment, enriching the interstellar medium and providing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beehive Cluster
The Beehive Cluster (also known as Praesepe (Latin for "manger" or "crib"), M44, NGC 2632, or Cr 189), is an open cluster in the constellation Cancer. One of the nearest open clusters to Earth, it contains a larger population of stars than other nearby bright open clusters holding around 1,000 stars. Under dark skies, the Beehive Cluster looks like a small nebulous object to the naked eye, and has been known since ancient times. Classical astronomer Ptolemy described it as a "nebulous mass in the breast of Cancer". It was among the first objects that Galileo studied with his telescope. Age and proper motion coincide with those of the Hyades, suggesting they may share similar origins. Both clusters also contain red giants and white dwarfs, which represent later stages of stellar evolution, along with many main sequence stars. Distance to M44 is often cited to be between 160 and 187 parsecs (520–610 light years), but the revised Hipparcos parallaxes (2009) for Praesepe membe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galactic Center
The Galactic Center or Galactic Centre is the rotational center, the barycenter, of the Milky Way galaxy. Its central massive object is a supermassive black hole of about 4 million solar masses, which is called Sagittarius A*, a compact radio source which is almost exactly at the galactic rotational center. The Galactic Center is approximately away from Earth in the direction of the constellations Sagittarius, Ophiuchus, and Scorpius, where the Milky Way appears brightest, visually close to the Butterfly Cluster (M6) or the star Shaula, south to the Pipe Nebula. There are around 10 million stars within one parsec of the Galactic Center, dominated by red giants, with a significant population of massive supergiants and Wolf–Rayet stars from star formation in the region around 1 million years ago. The core stars are a small part within the much wider galactic bulge. Discovery Because of interstellar dust along the line of sight, the Galactic Center cannot be studied at v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gemini (constellation)
Gemini is one of the constellations of the zodiac and is located in the northern celestial hemisphere. 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. Its old astronomical symbol is (♊︎). Location Gemini lies between Taurus to the west and Cancer to the east, with Auriga and Lynx to the north, Monoceros and Canis Minor to the south and Orion to the south-west. In classical antiquity, Cancer was the location of the Sun on the first day of summer (June 21). During the first century AD, axial precession shifted it into Gemini. In 1990, the location of the Sun on the first day of summer moved from Gemini into Taurus, where it will remain until the 27th century AD and then move into Aries. The Sun will move through Gemini from June 21 to July 20 through 2062. Gemini i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Angular Size
The angular diameter, angular size, apparent diameter, or apparent size is an angular distance describing how large a sphere or circle appears from a given point of view. In the vision sciences, it is called the visual angle, and in optics, it is the angular aperture (of a lens). The angular diameter can alternatively be thought of as the angular displacement through which an eye or camera must rotate to look from one side of an apparent circle to the opposite side. Humans can resolve with their naked eyes diameters of up to about 1 arcminute (approximately 0.017° or 0.0003 radians). This corresponds to 0.3 m at a 1 km distance, or to perceiving Venus as a disk under optimal conditions. Formula The angular diameter of a circle whose plane is perpendicular to the displacement vector between the point of view and the center of said circle can be calculated using the formula :\delta = 2\arctan \left(\frac\right), in which \delta is the angular diameter, and d is the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
