Post by glactus on Feb 17, 2008 11:04:35 GMT
Antlia is one of many constellations introduced by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in the mid eighteenth century, designed to fill in the southern hemisphere. It is thought to represent the air pump invented by the English physicist Robert Boyle. This already gives a hint, that this constellation does not belong to the old, long known ones. It belongs to the La Caille constellation family and is located in the southern hemisphere.
Notable stars
The double Zeta Ant is a wide pair of an A1 main sequence stars of 6.35 mag.
Zeta 2, and an A9 subgiant of 5.93 mag, Zeta 3, can easily be observed with binoculars.
Small scopes reveal another companion: another A1 main sequence star of 7.21 mag, Zeta 1.
Notable objects:
PGC 29194 the Antlia Dwarf galaxy
THe Antlia Dwarf has been discovered by research students Alan Whiting and George Hau of Cambridge University England in 1997, and its discovery is still subject to current research and discussion.
NGC 3223
NGC 3223 has tightly wrapped arms of class a, This is a galaxy brighter towards the middle and low in the southern sky. Magnitude is 11.8
NGC 3347
This is a wonderful image of NGC 3347. It lies in an intersting field of three nebulas and has a magnitude of 13, so is best seen with large scopes.
cosmic whispers
credits:
Antlia map and text ; wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antlia
antlia dwarf galaxy: seds
seds.lpl.arizona.edu/~spider/spider/LG/ant_dw.html
NGC 3223: ohio - state - edu.
www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~survey/
NGC 3347:
www.astro.virginia.edu/class/whittle/astr553/Topic02/Lecture_2.html