Monoceros the Unicorn Constellation

I am collecting notes there, to monitor how it is that our planet re-aligns to the Unicorn Stars. The constellation can be oriented several ways, which is just as well, as there are several "horn" shapes in nebulas throughout the unicorn system, at least two of these vast, primal spirals are known to us well.

MONOCEROS NOTES
Monoceros is Greek for unicorn and it is a faint constellation that is on the celestial Equator. Dutch Cartographer, Petrus Plancius defined it in the 17th century.

Nearby Constellations: It is bordered by Orion to the west, Gemini to the north, Canis Major to the south and Hydra to the east. Other bordering constellations are Canis Minor, Lepus and Puppis.

Although it is not a "bright" constellation, it does have some fascinating features. Monoceros is an powerful triple star system, the trinity of stars forming a precise triangle which seems to be fixed. The visual magnitudes of the stars are 4.7, 5.2 and 6.1 making them very strong. William Herschel said it is "one of the most beautiful sights in the heavens" after discovering it in 1781.

Notes (from Wikipedia):
Epsilon Monocerotis is a fixed binary, with visual magnitudes of 4.5 and 6.5.
S Monocerotis, or 15 Monocerotis, is a bluish white variable star and is located at the center of NGC 2264. The variation in its magnitude is slight (4.2–4.6). It has a companion star of visual magnitude 8.
V838 Monocerotis had an outburst starting on January 6, 2002.
Monoceros also contains Plaskett's Star, which is a massive binary system whose combined mass is estimated to be that of almost 100 Suns put together.

Planets

Monoceros has two super-Earth exoplanets in one planetary system: COROT-7b. These planets were detected by the COROT satellite and COROT-7c was detected by HARPS from ground-based telescopes. COROT-7b has the smallest known radius of any known exoplanet, 1.7 Earth radii. Both planets in this system were discovered in 2009.

[edit] Deep sky objects

Monoceros contains many clusters and nebulae, most notable among them:

• M50, an open cluster
• The Rosette Nebula (NGC 2237-9,46), a diffuse nebula
• The Christmas Tree Cluster and associated Cone Nebula (NGC 2264)

Monoceros is a relatively modern constellation. Its first certain appearance was on a globe created by the Dutch cartographer Petrus Plancius in 1612 or 1613^[1] and it was later charted by Jakob Bartsch as Unicornus in his star chart of 1624.
Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers and Ludwig Ideler^[2] indicate (according to Richard Hinkley Allen's allegations) that the constellation may be older, quoting an astrological work^[3] from 1564 that mentioned "the second horse between the Twins and the Crab has many stars, but not very bright"; these references may ultimately be due to Michael Scot of the 13th century, but refer to a horse and not a unicorn, and its position does not quite match. Joseph Scaliger is reported^[4] to have found Monoceros on an ancient Persian sphere.

[edit] Citations

1. ^ Le costellazioni di Petrus Plancius on atlascoelestis.com
2. ^ Ideler, Ludwig (1809). Untersuchungen über den Ursprung und die Bedeutung der Sternnamen: Ein Beytrag zur Geschichte des gestirnten Himmels. Berlin. pp. 354..355. freely available HERE
3. ^ Himmels Lauffs Wirkung und natürliche Influenz der Planeten Gestirne und Zeichen aufs Grund der Astronomie. Frankfurt. 1564.
4. ^ Allen, Richard Hinckley (1899). Star Names - their lore and meaning, online link. Dover. p. 290.

[edit] References

Ridpath, Ian; Wil Tirion (2007). Stars and Planets Guide. London: Collins. ISBN 978-0-00-725120-9. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691135564.


http://www.dibonsmith.com/mon_con.htm <----website to visit when I rewrite these notes