1.5 KiB
| name | created_by | created_date | updated_by | updated_date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leo | skybber | 2021-06-29 07:18:34.329773 | skybber | 2021-06-29 07:18:34.330039 |
A prominent animal constellation located mostly in the northern sky. Together with Shepherd and Virgo, it is one of the most famous constellations of the spring sky. The main group of stars is an easily recognisable six - Ras Elazed Australis, Ras Elazed Borealis, Adhafera, Algieba, η Leonis and Regulus - forming the so-called crescent, an inverted question mark or crescent representing the lion's head and chest. The main skeleton of the constellation is then formed by three other bright stars - Zosma and Chertan, with the bright Denebola completing the tail. In Ancient Greece, the faint stars of the constellation of Berenice's Hair were also considered to be the end of this tail, which did not become definitively independent until the 16th century. Leo is a typical constellation outside the Milky Way crowded with galaxies. A fair number of them represent fairly distinctive objects, in one relatively close group of galaxies. Five of them are also in the famous Messier catalogue: M65, M66, M95, M96 and M105. The first four in particular are quite visible in small telescopes, or in light sorters and binoculars, under favourable observing conditions. However, we must not forget the others from the "anonymous" NGC catalogue, as some of them could easily be included in the much better known catalogue of Charles Messier.
