{"id":651,"date":"2021-03-19T03:51:28","date_gmt":"2021-03-19T03:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lunar.org\/wp\/?p=651"},"modified":"2021-03-19T03:51:28","modified_gmt":"2021-03-19T03:51:28","slug":"watch-the-lion-celestial-wonders-in-leo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.lunar.org\/wp\/?p=651","title":{"rendered":"Watch the Lion: Celestial Wonders in Leo"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Prosper\"\"<\/a>
\nNASA JPL<\/p>\n

Leo is a prominent sight for stargazers in April. Its famous sickle, punctuated by the bright star Regulus, draws many a beginning stargazer\u2019s eyes, inviting deeper looks into some of Leo\u2019s celestial delights, including a great double star and a famous galactic trio.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Leo\u2019s distinctive forward sickle, or \u201creverse question mark,\u201d is easy to spot as it climbs the skies in the southeast after sunset. If you are having a difficult time spotting the sickle, look for bright Sirius and Procyon – featured in last month\u2019s article \u2013 and complete a triangle by drawing two lines to the east, joining at the bright star Regulus, the \u201cperiod\u201d in the reverse question mark. Trailing them is a trio of bright stars forming an isosceles triangle, the brightest star in that formation named Denebola. Connecting these two patterns together forms the constellation of Leo the Lion, with the forward-facing sickle being the lion\u2019s head and mane, and the rear triangle its hindquarters. Can you see this mighty feline? It might help to imagine Leo proudly sitting up and staring straight ahead, like a celestial Sphinx.<\/p>\n

If you peer deeper into Leo with a small telescope or binoculars, you\u2019ll find a notable double star! Look in the sickle of Leo for its second-brightest star, Algieba – also called Gamma Leonis. This star splits into two bright yellow stars with even a small magnification – you can make this \u201csplit\u201d with binoculars, but it’s more apparent with a telescope. Compare the color and intensity of these two stars – do you notice any differences? There are other multiple star systems in Leo \u2013 spend a few minutes scanning with your instrument of choice, and see what you discover.<\/p>\n

One of the most famous sights in Leo is the \u201cLeo Triplet\u201d: three galaxies that appear to be close together. They are indeed gravitationally bound to one another, around 30 million light years away! You\u2019ll need a telescope to spot them, and use an eyepiece with a wide field of view to see all three galaxies at once! Look below the star Chertan to find these galaxies. Compare and contrast the appearance of each galaxy \u2013 while they are all spiral galaxies, each one is tilted at different angles to our point of view! Do they all look like spiral galaxies to you?<\/p>\n

April is Citizen Science Month, and there are some fun Leo-related activities you can participate in! If you enjoy comparing the Triplets, the \u201cGalaxy Zoo\u201d project (galaxyzoo.org<\/a>) could use your eyes to help classify different galaxies from sky survey data! Looking at Leo itself can even help measure light pollution: the Globe at Night project (globeatnight.org<\/a>) uses Leo as their target constellation for sky quality observations from the Northern Hemisphere for their April campaign, running from April 3-12. Find and participate in many more NASA community science programs at science.nasa.gov\/citizenscience<\/a>. Happy observing!<\/p>\n

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The stars of Leo: note that you may see more or less stars, depending on your sky quality. The brightness of the Leo Triplet has been exaggerated for the purposes of the illustration – you can\u2019t see them with your unaided eye.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Your view of the three galaxies in the Leo Triplet won\u2019t look as amazing as this image taken by the VLT Survey Telescope, unless you have a telescope with a mirror 8 feet or more in diameter! Still, even a small telescope will help your eyes pick up these three galaxies as \u201cfaint fuzzies\u201d: objects that seem blurry against a background of pinpoint stars. Let your eyes relax and experiment with observing these galaxies by looking slightly away from them, instead of looking directly at them; this is called averted vision, a handy technique that can help you see details in fainter, more nebulous objects. <\/em><\/p>\n

Image Credit: ESO, INAF-VST, OmegaCAM; Acknowledgement: OmegaCen, Astro-WISE, Kapteyn I.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

This article is distributed by NASA Night Sky Network\u00a0 <\/strong>The Night Sky Network program supports astronomy clubs across the USA dedicated to astronomy outreach. Visit nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov<\/a> to find local clubs, events, and more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Prosper NASA JPL Leo is a prominent sight for stargazers in April. Its famous sickle, punctuated by the bright star Regulus, draws many a beginning stargazer\u2019s eyes, inviting deeper looks into some of Leo\u2019s celestial delights, including a great double star and a famous galactic trio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nasa-space-place"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lunar.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lunar.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lunar.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lunar.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lunar.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=651"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.lunar.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":654,"href":"http:\/\/www.lunar.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651\/revisions\/654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lunar.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lunar.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lunar.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}