Columba (constellation)
- Hare
- Burin
- Painter
- Aft deck of the ship
- Big Dog
The pigeon ( Columba in Latin ) is a constellation of the southern sky.
Description
The dove is a faint constellation below the rabbit. It consists of a zigzag chain of stars, none of which reached the second size class. In the constellation dove is the Antapex our solar system. The sun and its planets move relative to its neighboring stars, at 20 km / s of this "point" away.
In the winter sky, the dove at midnight has its highest position. In the north of Germany, only the northernmost stars rise above the southern horizon, while totally absorbed in southern Germany.
History
The dove is none of the 48 classical constellations of the ancient world.
It is one of three newer constellations, which introduced the Dutch astronomer Petrus Plancius and theologian in the 17th century.
It is linked with the neighboring constellations aft deck of the ship ( Puppis ), keel of the ship ( Carina ) and sails ( Vela ), which at the time the extended constellation ship Argo ( Argo Navis ) formed.
The dove is supposed to represent the bird that had Jason and his Argonauts way through the dangerous cliffs of the Bosphorus.
Celestial objects
Stars
β Columba, is a 86 light-years distant yellowish star of spectral class K2. The name Wezn or wazn is of Arabic origin and means " weight ".
μ Columba heard with AE Aurigae and 53 Arietis to the class of so-called runaway stars; All three stars are moving at high speeds of the Orion association away from where they were ejected before about 2.5 million years ago.
Double stars
α Columba, the brightest star in the pigeon, is a double star system 268 light-years away. To his observation one needs an average telescope of 10 cm aperture. The name of Arabic name Phakt probably derives from al - fakhita, " the dove " from.
NGC objects
The globular cluster NGC 1851 is about 40,000 light years away. In prism binoculars he can be seen as a misty spot. In a medium-sized telescope of 15 cm aperture, the edge region can be resolved into individual stars. The globular cluster was discovered in 1828 by James Dunlop.