Crater

Crater is a constellation. Its name is Latin for cup, and in Greek mythology it is identified with the cup of the god Apollo. It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 1st century astronomer Ptolemy, and remains one of the 88 modern constellations. It is faint, with no star brighter than fourth magnitude.

Deep sky objects

NGC 3511 is a spiral galaxy with a slight bar, seen nearly from the edge, of type SBbc. It is a member of the galaxy cluster Abell 1060. This galaxy is magnitude 12, and is 4' × 1' in size.
NGC 3887 is a barred-spiral of type SBc, magnitude 11, with a diameter of 3.5'.
NGC 3981 is a spiral galaxy with two wide spiral arms, of type SBbc. It is magnitude 12 with a diameter of 3'. This galaxy was discovered by William Herschel in 1785.

Mythology

Crater is identified with a story from Greek mythology in which a crow or raven serves Apollo, and is sent to fetch water, but it rests lazily on the journey, and after finally obtaining the water in a cup, takes back a water snake as well, as an excuse. According to the myth, Apollo saw through the fraud, and angrily cast the crow, cup, and snake, into the sky. The constellations of Corvus the crow and Hydra the water-snake are also identified with this myth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crater_(constellation)

Chamaeleon

Chamaeleon is a small constellation in the southern sky. It is named after the chameleon, a form of lizard. It was first defined in the sixteenth century. In Australia it is sometimes unofficially called "the Frying Pan" when finding the south by the stars.

History

Chamaeleon was one of twelve constellations created by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. It first appeared on a 35-cm diameter celestial globe published in 1597 (or 1598) in Amsterdam by Plancius and Jodocus Hondius. The first depiction of this constellation in a celestial atlas was in Johann Bayer's Uranometria of 1603.

Notable features

In 1999, a nearby open cluster was discovered centered on the star η Chamaeleontis. The cluster, known as either the Eta Chamaeleontis cluster or Mamajek 1, is 8 million years old, and lies 316 light years from Earth.

The constellation contains a number of molecular clouds (the Chamaeleon dark clouds) that are forming low-mass T Tauri stars. The cloud complex lies some 400 to 600 light years from Earth, and contains tens of thousands of solar masses of gas and dust. The most prominent cluster of T Tauri stars and young B-type stars are in the Chamaeleon I cloud, and are associated with the reflection nebula IC 2631.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamaeleon

Antlia

Antlia from Ancient Greek is a constellation in the southern sky. Its name means "pump" and it specifically represents an air pump. The stars comprising Antlia are faint, and the constellation was not created until the eighteenth century. Beginning at the north, Antlia is bordered by Hydra the sea snake, Pyxis the compass, Vela the sails, and Centaurus the centaur.

History

Antlia was created by the French astronomer Abbé Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, who created fourteen constellations for the southern sky to fill some faint regions. It was originally denominated Antlia pneumatica to commemorate the air pump invented by the French physicist Denis Papin. The International Astronomical Union subsequently adopted it as one of the 88 modern constellations. There is no mythology attached to Antlia as Lacaille discontinued the tradition of giving names from mythology to constellations and instead chose names mostly from scientific instruments. This constellation has not 3, but 4 main stars.

Notable features

Antlia is devoid of bright stars. The brightest star is α Antliae, a magnitude 4.25m orange giant. Antlia contains the following deep sky objects:

NGC 2997, a spiral galaxy of type Sc which is inclined 45° to our line of sight.
NGC 3132, a planetary nebula, also called the Eight-burst Nebula or Southern Ring Nebula. At its heart is a binary star system.
The Antlia Dwarf, a 14.8m dwarf spheroidal galaxy that belongs to our Local Group of galaxies. It was discovered only as recently as 1997.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antlia

Volans

Volans is a constellation in the southern sky. It represents a flying fish; its name is a shortened form of its original name, Piscis Volans. Volans was one of twelve constellations created by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman and it first appeared on a 35-cm diameter celestial globe published in 1597 (or 1598) in Amsterdam by Plancius with Jodocus Hondius. The first depiction of this constellation in a celestial atlas was in Johann Bayer's Uranometria of 1603.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volans

April 1

I find this a very simple explanation of the co-dependence earth has on the sun and how fragile the give and take balance really is. How lucky we are to be alive today. How lucky we are that life started out here at all. We are blessed to have the star we orbit. There are some things to be said about consistency and comfort...

From 365 Starry Nights.

"In sandy soil at the side of the road the fiddlehead ferns unroll their sun-catching fronds. It is truly spring, and the sun moves northward on its long arc. Every second the sun converts 657 million tons of hydrogen into 653 million tons of helium by a process called nuclear fusion. The missing 4 million tons of mass are converted into energy and hurled into space as heat and light.

The earth intercepts only about one two-billionth of this energy, or about 4 pounds worth of the vanished matter. The sun never misses so tiny a fraction of its huge bulk, but to the earth that 4 pounds worth of energy every second is the difference between day and night. It is also the difference between death and life.

In its journey around the sun, the earth leans into its curve like a sailor bracing against the wind. In April we begin to lean toward the sun. The sun climbs higher and higher into the sky. Its rays hit the earth's surface more directly in the northern hemisphere and the earth responds. In the summer, about a millionth of an ounce of the sun's mass falls every second at my location; in the winter less that half as much. A fraction of a millionth of an ounce of the sun's depleated mass is all it takes to tip the balance of the season back toward winter or forward to spring.

The sun, as always, goes on turning hydrogen into helium. We lean up toward the sun, tired of winter, greedy for our share of the missing 4 million tons."

If you are interessted, there are some great videos on my "Look Up!" blog showing our sun and earth and moon from completely different perspectives. I encourage all to take a look.

Good night for now and may spring provide for you a sense of re-birth.