Post by glactus on Feb 17, 2008 10:57:50 GMT
Aquila lies in the Milky Way and contains rich star fields, particularly towards the neighbouring constellation Scutum. Aquila straddles the celestial equator in the winter Milky Way and is easily recognised by the bright white star Altair with its two flanking yellow stars b (beta) and g (gamma), the former being the less bright.
Aquila contains the unusual object SS 433. This is a unique binary star system lying in the centre of a supernova remnant. The stars cannot be resolved apart visually, but spectroscopes on large telescopes reveal emission lines that are both red and blue shifted, showing jets emerging from the star with a velocity about one quarter the speed of light both towards and away from us.
These jets precess, and thus seem to sweep around the sky with a period of about 164 days. The object is an eclipsing binary star with a period of 6.4 days, containing a very hot star with an invisible companion, that is probably a neutron star because of the bizarre relativistic effects.
Aquila also harbours the star cluster NGC 6709, a loosely scattered cluster of medium bright stars lying in a fine field. This fairly rich cluster is not effective with small aperture
credits:
Map and major text:
www.faster.co.nz/~rasnz/Stars/Aquila.htm
images: Wikipedia
Aquila contains the unusual object SS 433. This is a unique binary star system lying in the centre of a supernova remnant. The stars cannot be resolved apart visually, but spectroscopes on large telescopes reveal emission lines that are both red and blue shifted, showing jets emerging from the star with a velocity about one quarter the speed of light both towards and away from us.
These jets precess, and thus seem to sweep around the sky with a period of about 164 days. The object is an eclipsing binary star with a period of 6.4 days, containing a very hot star with an invisible companion, that is probably a neutron star because of the bizarre relativistic effects.
Aquila also harbours the star cluster NGC 6709, a loosely scattered cluster of medium bright stars lying in a fine field. This fairly rich cluster is not effective with small aperture
credits:
Map and major text:
www.faster.co.nz/~rasnz/Stars/Aquila.htm
images: Wikipedia