Puppis
Pi Puppiden Puppiden - Velids
- Unicorn
- Big Dog
- Dove
- Painter
- Keel of the boat
- Sailing of the ship
- Marine Compass
- Water snake
The aft deck of the ship, in today's technical language use Puppis ( ancient Egyptian water stars) is a constellation of the southern sky. It represents the aft deck of a ship
Description
The aft deck is a vast constellation west and south of the Great Dog (Canis Major). Four of his stars are brighter than the third magnitude.
Through the western part of the band of the Milky Way pulls, so you can find the quarterdeck several open clusters, such as M46, M47 and M93.
The location of the constellation can be seen from Europe in full only in the extreme south ( southern Spain, Sicily, the Peloponnese ). From Central Europe from the constellation rises to just south of the center.
History
The aft deck of the ship is part of the ancient constellation Argo Navis, which was one of the 48 constellations described by Ptolemy.
The French astronomer Lacaille divided the very extensive and confusing constellation in 1763 in the constellations keel of the ship ( Carina ), Sailing Ship ( Vela ) and back deck. The original star designations have been retained, so that each Greek letter in the three constellations occurs only once. Therefore, there is a star α Carinae ( Canopus ), but no star Puppis α or α Velorum.
The Dutchman Petrus Plancius, the most Christian motifs related to the constellations suggested for the stars between the aft deck and the Canis Major, the constellation Gallus (Hahn ) ago. It should be the cock, whose crowing was Jesus Christ that his disciples Peter had betrayed him three times. However, the constellation not prevailed.
Mythology
Argo Navis was in Greek mythology, the ship of Jason and his companions, the Argonauts, who sought the Golden Fleece, a golden ram's fleece. Jason, son of King Aeson of Thessaly had been brought by his half- brother Pelias succession to the throne. Jason should get the throne again when he brought Pelias the Golden Fleece - a task almost impossible, because the fabulous fur was guarded in a sacred grove in Colchis from a deadly dragon. With the help of the king's daughter Medea, however, Jason came into the possession of the coat. The ship Argo and the fleece was placed in the sky, the latter as the constellation Aries.
In ancient Egypt, the constellation was also a ship with which their god Osiris was driving.
Celestial objects
Stars
The brightest star ζ Puppis is an extremely luminous supergiant of spectral type O5 1100 light years away. He has about 60 times the mass, the 40 times the diameter and the bolometric luminosity 790.000fache our sun. Its proper name Naos comes from the Greek and means " ship".
Double stars
π Puppis, the second brightest star, is a double star system in some 800 light years away. It is a bright orange supergiant, which is accompanied by a white shining star.
The system ξ Puppis is about 1200 light years away and consists of two stars of spectral classes G3 and G0. Due to their wide angular distance of 288 arc seconds they can already be observed with a prism binoculars.
When k Puppis is an optical double star, formed of HR 2948 (k1) and HR 2949 (k2).
Variable Stars
L2 Puppis is a 198 light -years away half Regularly Variable star that changes brightness over a period of about 140 days. He is a reddish star of spectral M5IIIe - M6IIIe. While the maximum he is conspicuously bright, the minimum he can just be seen under favorable viewing conditions even with the naked eye.
RS Puppis is a variable giant star, similar to the Delta Cepheid and the only known of this type, which is embedded into an existing fine dust reflection nebula. Through this fog his removal could be determined very accurately to 6,500 ± 90 light years. It is about 200 times larger, 10 times heavier and 15,000 times more luminous than our Sun.
Messier and NGC objects
In the aft deck there is a series of open star clusters. Three took the French astronomer and comet hunter Charles Messier in his catalog of nebulous objects ( Messier catalog).
M 46 is a star cluster in about 6,000 light-years away. In a telescope a myriad of stars is visible.
In the northern part of M 46 can be seen in the telescope the planetary nebula NGC 2438, which repelled gaseous envelope of a star. The fog, however, does not belong to the cluster, as it is much closer with a distance of 4,000 light years.
M 47 is about 1,800 light years away. He can be seen with the naked eye as a misty spot. At low magnification it offers a beautiful sight in the telescope. It is a relatively young star clusters with luminous bluish stars.
M 93 is about 4,000 light years away. With a telescope you can about 50 stars perceive.
NGC 2451 is the brightest star clusters in the aft deck and with the naked eye clearly visible. Because of its southern location, it can not be observed, however, from Central Europe. It is about 5,000 light- years away.