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Musca: Difference between revisions
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Located on the border with [[Circinus]] is the unusual planetary nebula NGC 5189, estimated to be around 1750 light-years away from Earth.Its complex structure is due to multiple ejections of material from the ageing central star, which are distorted by the presence of a likely binary companion.Located 2.4° east of Eta Muscae is the magnitude-12.9 Engraved Hourglass Nebula (MyCn 18), which lies about 8000 light-years distant from Earth. To Eta's west lies IC 4191, a compact bluish planetary nebula of magnitude 10.6, thought to lie around 10,750 light-years away from Earth.<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musca Musca]</ref> | Located on the border with [[Circinus]] is the unusual planetary nebula NGC 5189, estimated to be around 1750 light-years away from Earth.Its complex structure is due to multiple ejections of material from the ageing central star, which are distorted by the presence of a likely binary companion.Located 2.4° east of Eta Muscae is the magnitude-12.9 Engraved Hourglass Nebula (MyCn 18), which lies about 8000 light-years distant from Earth. To Eta's west lies IC 4191, a compact bluish planetary nebula of magnitude 10.6, thought to lie around 10,750 light-years away from Earth.<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musca Musca]</ref> | ||
==History== | ==History== | ||
Musca was one of the twelve constellations established by the Dutch astronomer Petrus Plancius from the observations of the southern sky by the Dutch explorers Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser andFrederick de Houtman, who had sailed on the first Dutch trading expedition, known as the Eerste Schipvaart, to the East Indies. De Houtman included it in his southern star catalogue in 1598 under the Dutch name De Vlieghe, "The Fly".[2] They assigned four stars to the constellation, with a star that would be later designated as Beta Muscae marking the head, Gamma the body, and Alpha and Delta the left and right wings respectively.[3] It first appeared on a 35-cm (14 in) diameter celestial globe published in 1598 in Amsterdam by Plancius with Jodocus Hondius, though was unnamed.[4] The first depiction of this constellation in a celestial atlas was in the German cartographer Johann Bayer's Uranometriaof 1603,[5] though Bayer termed it Apis—the Bee, a name by which it was known for the next two centuries. .<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musca Musca]</ref> | Musca was one of the twelve constellations established by the Dutch astronomer Petrus Plancius from the observations of the southern sky by the Dutch explorers Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser andFrederick de Houtman, who had sailed on the first Dutch trading expedition, known as the Eerste Schipvaart, to the East Indies. De Houtman included it in his southern star catalogue in 1598 under the Dutch name De Vlieghe, "The Fly".[2] They assigned four stars to the constellation, with a star that would be later designated as Beta Muscae marking the head, Gamma the body, and Alpha and Delta the left and right wings respectively.[3] It first appeared on a 35-cm (14 in) diameter celestial globe published in 1598 in Amsterdam by Plancius with Jodocus Hondius, though was unnamed.[4] The first depiction of this constellation in a celestial atlas was in the German cartographer Johann Bayer's Uranometriaof 1603,[5] though Bayer termed it Apis—the Bee, a name by which it was known for the next two centuries. .<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musca Musca]</ref> | ||