Post by glactus on Feb 17, 2008 10:17:50 GMT
Canis Major is one of the 88 modern constellations.
It is said to represent one of the dogs following Orion the hunter. (The other dogs are the constellations of Orion, Canis Minor, and Canes Venatici.) part of the Winter Triangle,
Canis Major's star Sirius, is the brightest star besides the Sun as seen from Earth, and is also one of the nearest, being only 8.7 light years from Earth.
The star's name means scorching, since the summer heat occurred just after Sirius' heliacal rising. The Ancient Greeks referred to such times in the summer as dog days, as only dogs would be mad enough to go out in the heat, leading to the star being known as the Dog Star. Consequently, the constellation was named after it, as the Big Dog.
Notable deep sky objects
ngc 2362
The star cluster NGC 2362. This nice little cluster of about 40 stars surrounds the star tau CMa, a blue giant of 4th mag. The cluster can be spotted by binoculars or small scopes.
Messier 41
Another notable star cluster is M41. Its a larger cluster with the brightest stars of about 7th mag. Under good conditions it is visible to the naked eye. A good view is obtained by small scopes or binoculars: the brightest stars seemed to be arranged in chains.
In 2003 an international team of astronomers discovered a small irregular galaxy in this constellation. It is only 42,000 light years away making it to the nearest neighbour galaxy to our own one.
credits:
constellation map and text: wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canis_Major
image: ngc 2362
seds.org/messier/xtra/ngc/n2362.html
image: m41: wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_41