The story behind the name: Canis Major, "great dog" in Latin, is a constellation built around Sirius, known as the Dog Star, the brightest star in the sky. The dog features in a variety of myths, including one in which it was sent to hunt the Teumessian fox, a fox that could never be caught. Right Ascension: 07h. When facing below, since Sirius was considered a dog in its own right, early Greek mythology sometimes considered it to be two headed.Together with the area of the sky that is deserted (now considered as the new and extremely faint constellations Camelopardalis and Lynx), and the other features of the area in the Zodiac sign of Gemini (i.e. In another myth, Canis Major is Laelaps, a dog so swift that it was destined that no pray would outrun it. Canis Major is a constellation in the southern celestial hemisphere. It will still be quite faint, so spotting it will take time and patience. Its annual appearance just before dawn at the Summer Solstice heralded the flooding of the Nile, upon which Egyptian agriculture depended. This helical rising is referred to in many temple inscriptions, where the star is known as the Divine Sepat, identified as the soul of Isis.This constellation and its most prominent stars were also featured in the astrological traditions of the Maori people of New Zealand, the Aborigines of Australia, and the Polynesians of the South Pacific.Between Sirius at the northern tip, and Adhara at the south, you can also spot M41 residing almost about halfway. But as our understanding of the cosmos has improved (not to mention our instruments) we have come to find just how many impressive stars and stellar objects are located in this region of space.Want to be part of the questions show? With a visual magnitude of 4.39, it is 280,000 times more luminous than Sol. There have been a number of mythical dogs tied to Canis Major.
What are the limits to gravitational slingshots, and how astronomers know where to point their telescopes in the Universe.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. NGC 1261 is another nearby cluster, but its velocity is different enough from that of the others to make its relation to the system unclear.Canis Major has several notable stars, the brightest being Sirius A. It’s luminosity in the night sky is due to its proximity (8.6 light years from Earth), and the fact that it is a magnitude -1.6 star. Named Laelaps, or the hound of Prociris in some accounts, this dog was so … the Milky Way, and the constellations Gemini, Orion, Auriga, and Canis Minor), this may be the origin of the myth of the cattle of Geryon, which forms one of The Twelve Lab ours of Heracles.To the ancient Greeks, Canis Major represented a dog following the great hunter Orion. Its Alpha star, Sirius, is the brightest object in the sky (besides the Sun, the Moon and nearest planets). To find it, you’ll need a mid-to-large telescope with a high power eyepiece and good viewing conditions – a stable evening (not night) when Sirius is as high in the sky as possible. This association is what led to Sirius coming to be known as the “Dog Star”. The star Sirius had significance for early civilizations. Tau CMa is also brighter component of a spectroscopic binary and studies of NGC 2362 suggest that it will survive longer than the Pleiades cluster (which will break up before Tau does), but not as long as the Hyades cluster.In this week's questions show, I explain how it's possible for stars to orbit so closely they're actually touching. The Milky Way passes through Canis Major and several open clusters lie within its borders, most notably M41. I gather a bunch up each week and answer them here.Then there’s NGC 2354, a magnitude 6.5 star cluster. Declination: -20º. It is Cane Maggiore in Italy; Caes in Portugal; Grand Chien in France; and Grosse Hund … In the second century, it was included in Ptolemy's 48 constellations, and is counted among the 88 modern constellations. Because of this, it produces so much light that it often appears to be flashing in vibrant colors, an effect caused by the interaction of its light with our atmosphere.Sirius was revered as the Nile Star, or Star of Isis, by the ancient Egyptians. In 1922, the International Astronomical Union would include Canis Major as one of the 88 recognized constellations.Globular clusters thought to be associated with the Canis Major Dwarf galaxy include NGC 1851, NGC 1904, NGC 2298 and NGC 2808, all of which are likely to be a remnant of the galaxy’s globular cluster system before its accretion (or swallowing) into the Milky Way. Named Laelaps, or the hound of Prociris in some accounts, this dog was so swift that Zeus elevated it to the heavens. These observations confirmed what Friedrich Bessel proposed in 1844, based on measurements of Sirius A’s wobble. Realizing that they were doomed to be the hunter and the hunted for eternity, Zeus turned them both to stone then placed them in the sky as the constellations we know as Canis Major (Laelaps) and Canis Minor (the Teumessian fox). One is that Canis Major, “the great dog”, and Canis Minor, “the little dog”, are the hunting companions of Orion, “the hunter”.