|
Puppis
Puppis is a constellation in the southern sky. Puppis, the Latin translation of "poop deck", was originally part of an over-large constellation Argo Navis (the ship of Jason and the Argonauts), which centuries after its initial description, was divided into three parts, the other two being Carina (the keel and hull), and Vela (the sails of the ship). Puppis is the largest of the three constellations in square degrees. It is one of the 88 modern constellations recognized by the International Astronomical Union. Features Argo Navis was sub-divided into three sections in 1752 by the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, including Argûs in puppi. Despite the division, Lacaille kept a single set of Bayer designations for the whole constellation, Argo. Therefore, Carina has the α, β, and ε, Vela has γ and δ, Puppis has ζ, and so on. In the 19th century, these three sections of Argo became established as separate constellations and were formally included in the list of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zeta Puppis
Zeta Puppis (ζ Puppis, abbreviated Zeta Pup, ζ Pup), formally named Naos , is a star in the constellation of Puppis. 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 sky's 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 72nd brightest star in terms of apparent magnitude from Earth. It is a runaway star, meaning it has an unusually large pace velocity, probably caused by being ejected from a close binary system when its companion exploded as a supernova. Naos is typical of O-type stars in having an extremely strong stellar wind, measured at 2,500 km/s, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rho Puppis
Rho Puppis (ρ Puppis, abbreviated Rho Pup, ρ Pup), formally named Tureis , is a star in the southern constellation of Puppis. With an average apparent visual magnitude of 2.78, it is the third-brightest member of this generally faint constellation. Based upon parallax measurements made during the Hipparcos mission, Rho Puppis is located at a distance of from the Sun. It is the prototype of the ρ Puppis class of evolved Am stars. Nomenclature ''ρ Puppis'' ( Latinised to ''Rho Puppis'') is the star's Bayer designation. It bore the traditional name ''Tureis'' or ''Turais'', from the Arabic ''تُرَيْس'' ''turays'' "shield" ( diminutive), which was shared by Iota Carinae. In 2016, the International Astronomical Union organized a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) to catalogue and standardize proper names for stars. The WGSN approved the name ''Tureis'' for this star on 12 September 2016 and it is now so entered in the IAU Cata ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Argo Navis
Argo Navis (the Ship Argo), or simply Argo, is one of the 48 Ptolemy's constellations, now a grouping of three IAU constellations. It is formerly a single large constellation in the southern sky. The genitive is "Argus Navis", abbreviated "Arg". Flamsteed and other early modern astronomers called it Navis (the Ship), genitive "Navis", abbreviated "Nav". The constellation proved to be of unwieldy size, as it was 28% larger than the next largest constellation and had more than 160 easily visible stars. The 1755 catalogue of Nicolas Louis de Lacaille divided it into the three modern constellations that occupy much of the same area: Carina (the keel), Puppis (the poop deck) and Vela (the sails). Argo derived from the ship ''Argo'' in Greek mythology, sailed by Jason and the Argonauts to Colchis in search of the Golden Fleece. Some stars of Puppis and Vela can be seen from Mediterranean latitudes in winter and spring, the ship appearing to skim along the "river of the Milky Way." ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canis Major
Canis Major is a constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere, southern celestial hemisphere. In the second century, it was included in Ptolemy's 48 constellations, and is counted among the 88 modern constellations. 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 (constellation), Orion the hunter through the sky. The Milky Way passes through Canis Major and several open clusters lie within its borders, most notably Messier 41, M41. Canis Major contains Sirius, the List of brightest stars, brightest star in the night sky, known as the "dog star". It is bright because of its proximity to the Solar System. In contrast, the other bright stars of the constellation are stars of great distance and high luminosity. At magnitude 1.5, Epsilon Canis Majoris (Adhara) is the second-brightest star of the constellation and the brightest source of extreme ultraviolet radiation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vela (constellation)
Vela is a constellation in the southern sky, which contains the Vela Supercluster. Its name is Latin for the sails of a ship, and it was originally part of a larger constellation, the ship ''Argo Navis'', which was later divided into three parts, the others being Carina (constellation), Carina and Puppis. With an apparent magnitude of 1.8, its brightest star is the hot blue multiple star Gamma Velorum, one component of which is the brightest Wolf–Rayet star, Wolf-Rayet star in the sky. Delta Velorum, Delta and Kappa Velorum, together with Epsilon Carinae, Epsilon and Iota Carinae, form the asterism (astronomy), asterism known as the False Cross. 1.95-magnitude Delta is actually a triple or quintuple star system. History Argo Navis was one of the 48 classical constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and represented the ship ''Argo'', used by Jason and the Argonauts on their quest for the Golden Fleece in Greek mythology. German cartographer Johann Bayer depic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pi Puppids
The pi Puppids are a meteor shower associated with the comet 26P/Grigg-Skjellerup. The meteor stream was viewable around April 23 but only in years around the parent comet's perihelion date, the last being in 2003. However, as the planet Jupiter has now perturbed the comet's perihelion to beyond Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...'s orbit it is uncertain how strong the shower will be in the future. The pi Puppids get their name because their radiant appears to lie in the constellation Puppis, at around Right ascension 112 degrees and Declination −45 degrees. This made them only visible to southern observers. They were discovered in 1972 and have been observed about every 5 years - at each perihelion passage of the comet - but often at very low rates ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pyxis
Pyxis is a small and faint constellation in the southern sky. Abbreviated from Pyxis Nautica, its name is Latin for a mariner's compass (contrasting with Circinus, which represents a draftsman's compasses). Pyxis was introduced by Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in the 18th century, and is counted among the 88 modern constellations. The plane of the Milky Way passes through Pyxis. A faint constellation, its three brightest stars— Alpha, Beta and Gamma Pyxidis—are in a rough line. At magnitude 3.68, Alpha is the constellation's brightest star. It is a blue-white star approximately distant and around 22,000 times as luminous as the Sun. Pyxis is located close to the stars that formed the old constellation Argo Navis, the ship of Jason and the Argonauts. Parts of Argo Navis were the Carina (the keel or hull), the Puppis (the poop deck or stern), and the Vela (the sails). These eventually became their own constellations. In the 19th century, John Herschel suggested renaming ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bayer Designation
A Bayer designation is a stellar designation in which a specific star is identified by a Greek or Latin letter followed by the genitive form of its parent constellation's Latin name. The original list of Bayer designations contained 1,564 stars. The brighter stars were assigned their first systematic names by the German astronomer Johann Bayer in 1603, in his star atlas ''Uranometria''. Bayer catalogued only a few stars too far south to be seen from Germany, but later astronomers (including Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille and Benjamin Apthorp Gould) supplemented Bayer's catalog with entries for southern constellations. Scheme Bayer assigned a lowercase Greek letter (alpha (α), beta (β), gamma (γ), etc.) or a Latin letter (A, b, c, etc.) to each star he catalogued, combined with the Latin name of the star's parent constellation in genitive (possessive) form. The constellation name is frequently abbreviated to a standard three-letter form. For example, Aldebaran in the constellation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carina (constellation)
Carina ( ) is a constellation in the southern sky. Its name is Latin for the keel of a ship, and it was the southern foundation of the larger constellation of Argo Navis (the ship ''Argo'') until it was divided into three pieces, the other two being Puppis (the poop deck), and Vela (the sails of the ship). History and mythology Carina was once a part of Argo Navis, the great ship of Jason and the Argonauts who searched for the Golden Fleece. The constellation of Argo was introduced in ancient Greece. However, due to the massive size of Argo Navis and the sheer number of stars that required separate designation, Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille divided Argo into three sections in 1763, including Carina (the hull or keel). In the 19th century, these three became established as separate constellations, and were formally included in the list of 88 modern IAU constellations in 1930. Lacaille kept a single set of Greek letters for the whole of Argo, and separate sets of Latin letter designa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pictor
Pictor is a constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere, located between the star Canopus and the Large Magellanic Cloud. Its name is Latin for Painting, painter, and is an abbreviation of the older name Equuleus Pictoris (the "painter's easel"). Normally represented as an easel, Pictor was named by Abbé Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in the 18th century. The constellation's brightest star is Alpha Pictoris, a A-type main-sequence star, white main-sequence star around 97 light-years away from Earth. Pictor also hosts RR Pictoris, a cataclysmic variable star system that flared up as a nova, reaching apparent magnitude, apparent (visual) magnitude 1.2 in 1925 before fading into obscurity. Pictor has attracted attention because of its second-brightest star Beta Pictoris, 63.4 light-years distant from Earth, which is surrounded by an unusual dust disk rich in carbon, as well as an exoplanet (extrasolar planet). Another five stars in the constellation have been observed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monoceros (constellation)
Monoceros (Greek: Μονόκερως, "unicorn") is a faint constellation on the celestial equator. 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. Features Stars Monoceros contains only a few fourth magnitude stars, making it difficult to see with the naked eye. Alpha Monocerotis has a visual magnitude of 3.93, while for Gamma Monocerotis it is 3.98. Beta Monocerotis is a triple star system; the three stars form a fixed triangle. The visual magnitudes of the stars are 4.7, 5.2, and 6.1. William Herschel discovered it in 1781 and called it "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 cent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heavenly Waters (astronomy)
Constellation families are collections of constellations sharing some defining characteristic, such as proximity on the celestial sphere, common historical origin, or common mythological theme. In the Western tradition, most of the northern constellations stem from Ptolemy's list in the ''Almagest'' (which in turn has roots that go back to Mesopotamian astronomy), and most of the far southern constellations were introduced by sailors and astronomers who traveled to the south in the 16th to 18th centuries. Separate traditions arose in India and China. Menzel's families Donald H. Menzel, director of the Harvard Observatory, gathered several traditional groups in his popular account, ''A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets'' (1975), and adjusted and regularized them so that his handful of groups covered all 88 of the modern constellations. Of these families, one (Zodiac) straddles the ecliptic which divides the sky into north and south; one (Hercules) has nearly equal porti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
