Monday, August 26, 2013

Chamaeleon

CHAMAELEON the Chameleon is a faint constellation found exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere's night sky. If you were to stand around the South Pole, Chameleon would be directly overhead. Starting to the west of Chamaeleon and going clockwise, the surrounding constellations are Apus, Musca, Carina, Volans, Mensa, and Octans. By the way, Octans the Octant (named after an instrument used to navigate across the globe) is the constellation where the current South Pole Star (Sigma σ Octantis) is located! The brightest star of Chamaeleon is Alpha (α) Chamaeleontis, which has an apparent magnitude of just under 4.1. The second brightest star is usually a beta star, but is not the case with Chamaeleon. At a magnitude of 4.1, Gamma (γ) Chamaeleontis is brighter than Beta (β) Chamaeleontis, which has a 4.4 magnitude.

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Blog Background

The background has three Hubble Space Telescope images:

— LH 95 is a star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, Dorado constellation.

— Ant Nebula (also called Menzel 3) is an aptly-named planetary nebula located in the constellation Norma.

— Egg Nebula (also called CL 2688) is a protoplanetary nebula in the constellation Cygnus.