The Star Atlas Companion What You Need to Know about the Constellations

Philip M. Bagnall

The Star Atlas Companion What You Need to Know about the Constellations

fl Springer Published in association with

Praxis Publishing Chlchester, UK

Philip M. Bagnall Wallsend UK

Front cover: Light echoes from the variable star V838 in the constellation of Monoceros as captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. Image courtesy of NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STSd).

Back cover: The Pleiades open cluster in Taurus. Image courtesy of Giovanni Benintende/Shutterstock.com

SPRINGER-PRAXIS BOOKS IN POPULAR ASTRONOMY SUBJECT ADVISORY EDITOR: John Mason, M.B.E., B.Sc., M.Sc., Ph.D.

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Cover design: Jim Wilkie Project copy editor: Dr John Mason Typesetting: Book.Ens, Royston, Herts., UK

Printed on acid-free paper

Springer is part of Springer Science+ Business Media (www.springer.com)

ISBN 978-1-4614-0829-1 I SBN 978-1-DOI 1 007/978-1-4614-0830-7Springer New York Heidelberg Dordrecht London

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012933587

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2012

4614-0830-7 (eBook)0.1

Contents

About this book Acknowledgments

Introduction Making sense of the data

Star names and designations Natural yardsticks Distance measurement Stellar diameter, D0 Stellar mass, M 0 Stellar luminosity, L0 Magnitude, Mv and mv Variable stars Star color Spectral class Temperature Radial velocity, and the motion of stars through the Galaxy Rotational velocity Rotational period Surface features Open and globular clusters Exoplanets Constellation details Illustrations

The Constellations Andromeda Antlia A pus Aquarius Aquila Ara Aries Auriga Bootes Caelum

Cancer

1 3 3 4 5 5 7 7 7 8

12 13 15 15 16 16 16 17 17 18 18

19 19 28 31 34 41 50 55 60 72 80 83 89

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vi The Star Atlas Companion

Canes Venatici 95 Canis Major 99 Canis Minor 109 Capricorn us 113 Carina 117 Cassiopeia 127 Centaurus 137 Cepheus 144 Cetus 151 Chamaeleon 157 Circinus 160 Columba 163 Coma Berenices 166 Corona Australis 170 Corona Borealis 173 Corvus 178 Crater 181 Crux 183 Cygnus 188 Delphinus 199 Dorado 202 Draco 207 Equuleus 213 Eridanus 215 Fornax 222 Gemini 224 Crus 232 Hercules 235 Horologium 242 Hydra 245 Hydrus 251 Indus 254 Lacerta 257 Leo 259 Leo Minor 265 Lepus 268 Libra 272 Lupus 277 Lynx 281 Lyra 284 Mensa 290 Microscopium 293 Monoceros 296 Musca 303 Norma 308

Contents vii

Octans 312 Ophiuchus 316 Orion 324 Pavo 338 Pegasus 342 Perseus 349 Phoenix 359 Pictor 363 Pisces 367 Piscis Australis 373 Pup pis 376 Pyx is 382 Reticulum 384 Sagitta 387 Sagittarius 390 Scorpius 399 Sculptor 409 Scutum 411 Serpens 414 Sextans 419 Taurus 421 Telescopium 434 Triangulum 436 Triangulum Australe 439 Tucana 442 Ursa Major 445 Ursa Minor 454 Vela 459 Virgo 464 Volans 469 Vulpecula 471

Index 473

To my wife, Pauline

About this book

This book is about the properties of the stars that make up the 88 constellations: how far away they are, their diameters, their color, mass, luminosity, magnitude and shape, whether they are part of a binary or multiple star system, whether they have planets or are surrounded by a debris disk. The illustrations take the reader from the pinpoints of light seen through a telescope's eyepiece to an image of what the individual stars would look like as if they were only a few astronomical units away. The text supplements the images by providing additional information to put each star in context.

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to Clive Horwood at Praxis Publishing for his faith in this project and to Dr John Mason who suggested changes that improved the original proposal immensely.

In gathering the information for this book I have drawn on a number of websites and I would particularly like to acknowledge the following:

The VizieR catalogue access tool and the SIMBAD database operated by CDS, Strasbourg, France

The WEBDA database of open star clusters at the University of Vienna The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia at www.exoplanet.eu The Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) website Jim Kaler's Stars website at the University of Illinois which often helped to

clarify a confusing jumble of data A.A.Tokovinin's Multiple Star Catalogue at the National Optical Astronomy

Observatory's Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, and The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System.

In addition I have often referred to Richard Dibon-Smith's StarList 2000 (Wiley), Wil Tirion, Barry Rappaport and George Lovi's Uranometria 2000.0 (Willmann­Bell Inc.) and, of course, Ian Ridpath's Norton's Star Atlas (Dutton).

These websites and books provided the raw data I needed to be able to write up the descriptions and construct the images for The Star Atlas Companion and it is unlikely that this book could have been written without them. I hope that I have interpreted the information correctly but any errors are all mine.

Philip M. Bagnall October 2011