10 lines
1.1 KiB
Markdown
10 lines
1.1 KiB
Markdown
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name: Cetus
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created_by: skybber
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created_date: 2021-06-06 08:45:38.851588
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updated_by: skybber
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updated_date: 2022-01-17 18:26:52.240422
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A large constellation, the fourth largest, located mostly in the southern sky. Only the head of the Whale, the stellar pentagon, extends north of the world equator. The Whale extends south of Aries and Pisces and lies well away from the Milky Way. Although it essentially fills a large empty space in the sky, the star pattern that forms the constellation's skeleton is not hard to find in a dark sky. The head of the Whale, adjacent to Taurus, is formed by the stars Menkar (2.53mag), γ (3.47mag), ξ (4.28mag) and μ Ceti (4.27mag), followed by the constellation's main jewel, the long-period variable Mira Ceti, with the glow of Deneb Kaitos (2.04mag) on its tail. Missing from the deepsky objects are open clusters and diffuse nebulae. The main objects of interest are the Seyfert galaxy M77, the nice planetary nebula NGC 246, a fair number of nice binaries and, for large telescopes, a number of distant galaxies.
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