Another southern hemisphere constellation created by Petrus Plancius in 1598 based on observations by Pieter Keyser and Frederick de Houtman while exploring southeast Asia. The constellation represents a native Indian although there is some confusion as to what Indian is being represented. It was introduced to stellar maps by Johan Bayer in 1603.
As in the case of many other modern constellations, Indus is
very faint and it contains no really bright stars. The two brightest stars
alpha and beta can be seen with the naked eye but any misty or haze would make
them difficult to see.
Indus is similar to other modern southern hemisphere
constellations in that it was unknown in Europe or the Middle East hence there
is no old mythology attached to Indus.
Alpha has a magnitude of 3.1 and lies at a distance of 98 light years, the star is a K class giant star cooler than the Sun.
Beta is fainter with a magnitude of 3.7, another orange K
class giant star lying 600 light years away.
There are no bright deep sky objects to be seen in Indus.
www.theramblingastronomer.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment