Sextans constellation lies in the southern sky, near the celestial equator. It represents the astronomical sextant.
Sextans is located in a dim region of the sky between the constellations Hydra, Crater, and Leo. The constellation was created by the Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius in the 17th century. It is a rather faint one, with only one star brighter than fifth magnitude.
Sextans contains several notable deep sky objects, among them the Spindle Galaxy (NGC 3115), the spiral galaxies NGC 3166 and NGC 3169, and the irregular galaxies Sextans A and Sextans B. It is also home to the most distant known galaxy cluster, CL J1001+0220, and the Cosmos Redshift 7 galaxy, which contains stars formed soon after the Big Bang.
FACTS, LOCATION & MAP
Sextans is the 47th constellation in size, occupying an area of 314 square degrees. It is located in the second quadrant of the southern hemisphere (SQ2) and can be seen at latitudes between +80° and -90°. The neighboring constellations are Crater, Hydra and Leo.
Sextans does not have any stars brighter than magnitude 3.00 and contains five stars located within 10 parsecs (32.6 light years) of Earth.
The brightest star in the constellation is Alpha Sextantis, with an apparent magnitude of 4.49. The nearest star is the red dwarf LHS 292 (spectral class M6.5 V), located at a distance of only 14.8 light years from Earth.
Sextans has five stars with confirmed exoplanets, HD 86081 (spectral class F8V), HIP 49067 (K3V), WASP-43 (K7V), 24 Sextantis (G5III, two giant exoplanets), and HD 92788 (G5V). The planet orbiting WASP-43, discovered on April 15, 2011, was the most closely orbiting hot Jupiter ever found at the time of discovery. The two planets orbiting the star 24 Sextantis are in a 2:1 resonance, which means that the outer planet orbits the star once every time the inner planet completes two orbits.
Sextans belongs to the Hercules family of constellations, along with Aquila, Ara, Centaurus, Corona Australis, Corvus, Crater, Crux, Cygnus, Hercules, Hydra, Lupus, Lyra, Ophiuchus, Sagitta, Scutum, Serpens, Triangulum Australe and Vulpecula.
Sextans does not contain any Messier objects. There is one daytime meteor shower associated with the constellation, the Sextantids, occurring in late October and early November.
STORY
Sextans constellation is not associated with any myths. It was introduced by the Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius in 1687.
He originally named the constellation Sextans Uraniae after the instrument he had used to measure star positions until it was destroyed in a fire at his observatory in 1679.
Even though telescopes were available to him, Hevelius preferred to use the sextant for naked-eye sightings, and continued to do so throughout his life.
0 Comments