Musca

No

  • Southern Cross
  • Centaur
  • Keel of the boat
  • Chameleon
  • Bird of paradise
  • Circle

The Fly ( Musca Latin ) is a constellation of the southern sky.

Description

The fly is a small but clearly recognizable constellation south of the Southern Cross. It includes an eye-catching star of the second magnitude.

Through the constellation the band of the Milky Way moves. Striking a vast dark cloud, the Coal Sack, its southern part is protruding into the fly. In Prism Binoculars offers the sky region around the fly is an impressive sight.

History

The Fly is one of the twelve new constellations, which were introduced by the Dutch navigators Pieter Keyser and Frederick de Houtman Dirkszoon end of the 16th century. Johann Bayer, she took over as bee ( Apis ) in his 1603 celestial atlas published Uranometria.

1752 Nicolas Louis de Lacaille renamed it La Mouche to ( Planisphère the Stars Austral, dated 1752, published 1756 ), Musca Latinized on the Coelum Australe Stelliferum ( posthumously published in 1763 ). Later it is called Musca Australis as opposed to Musca Borealis in Aries by Johannes Hevelius ( which goes back to Plancius ' bee).

After Johann Elert Bode's atlas 1782 the use of the northern fly stops though, and today it is called, therefore, again short and sweet Musca.

On ancient star maps the tongue of the neighboring chameleons rockets towards fly.

Celestial objects

Stars

δ Muscae is a 91 light-years distant star of spectral type K2 III.

When θ Muscae is the second brightest known Wolf- Rayet star.

Double stars

α Muscae is a blue supergiant in 306 light years away with a luminosity of 20,000 times our sun. At a distance of 2600 AU is a faint companion star orbiting it in 45,000 years.

β Muscae is a double star system 311 light-years away. The two components belong to the spectral B2 and B3. To resolve the system into single stars one needs an average telescope.

Variable Stars

The main star of the system α Muscae light pulsates, with its brightness varies over a period of 2.2 hours to about 1%. He is one of the variable stars on the type of Cepheids.

ε Muscae is 302 light years distant semi- regular variable star whose brightness varies over a period of about 40 days. It is a red giant of spectral type M5 III.

Misty objects

The Coal Sack is a vast dark cloud in 600 light years away.

NGC 4833 is a globular cluster in 18,000 light years away. In a medium-sized telescope in the edge region can be resolved into individual stars.

The planetary nebula NGC 5189 is the desquamated gaseous envelope of a star at a distance of 2,600 light years. The fog has an unusual elongated shape, which is already visible in a small telescope.

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