Lynx (constellation)

Coordinates: Sky map 08h 00m 00s, +45° 00′ 00″
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Lynx
Constellation
28th)
Main stars4
Bayer/Flamsteed
stars		42
Stars with planets6
Stars brighter than 3.00m0
Stars within 10.00 pc (32.62 ly)1
Brightest starα Lyn (3.14m)
Messier objects0
Meteor showersAlpha Lyncids
September Lyncids
Bordering
constellations		Ursa Major
Camelopardalis
Auriga
Gemini
Cancer
Leo (corner)
Leo Minor
Visible at latitudes between +90° and −55°.
Best visible at 21:00 (9 p.m.) during the month of March.

Lynx is a

passed in front of the host star
.

Within the constellation's borders lie NGC 2419, an unusually remote globular cluster; the galaxy NGC 2770, which has hosted three recent Type Ib supernovae; the distant quasar APM 08279+5255, whose light is magnified and split into multiple images by the gravitational lensing effect of a foreground galaxy; and the Lynx Supercluster, which was the most distant supercluster known at the time of its discovery in 1999.

History

Depictions on star charts
An old drawing depicting a lynx overlaying a chart of stars
Earliest depiction of Lynx, in 1690
An old drawing depicting a lynx and telescope overlaying a chart of stars
Illustration from Urania's Mirror (1825). The obsolete constellation Telescopium Herschelii is to its right.

Polish astronomer

Richard Hinckley Allen, the chief stars in Lynx "might well have been utilized by the modern constructor, whoever he was, of our Ursa Major to complete the quartette of feet."[2]

Characteristics

The constellation of Lynx as it can be seen by the naked eye

Lynx is bordered by

28th of the 88 constellations in size,[3] surpassing better known constellations such as Gemini.[4] The three-letter abbreviation for the constellation, as adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1922, is "Lyn".[5] The official constellation boundaries, as set by Belgian astronomer Eugène Delporte in 1930,[a] are defined by a polygon of 20 segments (illustrated in infobox). In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of these borders lie between 06h 16m 13.76s and 09h 42m 50.22s, and the declination coordinates are between +32.97° and +61.96°.[7] On dark nights, the brighter stars can be seen as a crooked line extending roughly between Camelopardalis and Leo,[8] and north of the bright star Castor.[2] Lynx is most readily observed from the late winter to late summer to northern hemisphere observers, with midnight culmination occurring on 20 January.[8] The whole constellation is visible to observers north of latitude 28°S.[b]

Notable features

Stars

See also: List of stars in Lynx

English astronomer Francis Baily gave a single star a Bayer designation—Alpha Lyncis—while Flamsteed numbered 44 stars, though several lie across the boundary in Ursa Major.[9] Overall, there are 97 stars within the constellation's borders brighter than or equal to apparent magnitude 6.5.[c][3]

The brightest star in this constellation is Alpha Lyncis, with an

Alsciaukat (from the Arabic for thorn), also known as 31 Lyncis, located 380 ± 10 light-years from Earth.[12] This star is also an evolved giant with around twice the Sun's mass that has swollen and cooled since exhausting its core hydrogen. It is anywhere from 59 to 75 times as wide as the Sun, and 740 times as luminous.[13] Alsciaukat is also a variable star, ranging in brightness by 0.05 magnitude over 25 to 30 days from its baseline magnitude of 4.25.[15]

Lynx is rich in

″ (as of 1992) and a yellow-hued star of magnitude 7.2 at a separation of 8.6″ (as of 1990).[16][18] The two brighter stars are estimated to orbit each other with a period that is poorly known but estimated to be roughly 700 to 900 years.[17] The 12 Lyncis system is 210 ± 10 light years distant from Earth.[12]

44 Lyncis became part of Ursa Major.[9]

semiregular variable ranging in brightness from magnitude 6.2 to 8.9.[21] These shifts in brightness are complex, with a shorter period of 110 days due to the star's pulsations, and a longer period of 1400 days possibly due to the star's rotation or regular cycles in its convection.[22] A red supergiant, it has an estimated diameter around 580 times that of the Sun, is around 1.5 to 2 times as massive, and has a luminosity around 25,000 times that of the Sun.[21] 1 Lyncis and UX Lyncis are red giants that are also semiregular variables with complex fluctuations in brightness.[22]

Exoplanets

Six star systems have been found to contain

SuperWASP program in 2009. The planet is around half as massive as Jupiter and takes 4.35 days to complete a revolution.[29]

Deep-sky objects

A round cluster of tiny distant stars with two bright bluish stars to the upper left
NGC 2419 (Credit: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona)

Lynx's most notable

deep sky object is NGC 2419, also called the "Intergalactic Wanderer" as it was assumed to lie outside the Milky Way. At a distance of between 275,000 and 300,000 light-years from Earth,[30] it is one of the most distant known globular clusters within our galaxy. NGC 2419 is likely in a highly elliptical orbit around the Milky Way.[31] It has a magnitude of +9.06 and is a Shapley class VII cluster.[32] Originally thought to be a star, NGC 2419 was discovered to be a globular cluster by American astronomer Carl Lampland.[33]

Very Large Array showed the two galaxies lie at different distances.[35]

The NGC 2841 group is a group of galaxies that lie both in Lynx and neighbouring Ursa Major. It includes the loose triplet NGC 2541, NGC 2500, and NGC 2552 within Lynx. Using cepheids of NGC 2541 as standard candles, the distance to that galaxy (and the group) has been estimated at around 40 million light–years.[36] NGC 2841 itself lies in Ursa Major.[37]

LBV star to a Wolf–Rayet star,[40][41] before it was observed erupting as hypernova SN 2006jc on October 11, 2006.[42]

The Modest Galaxy
Galaxy UGC 3855 captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

XMM Newton and the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in Arizona discovered the huge galaxy cluster 2XMM J083026+524133.[45][46]

The Lynx Supercluster is a remote supercluster with a redshift of 1.26–1.27.[47] It was the most distant supercluster known at the time of its discovery in 1999.[48] It is made up of two main clusters of galaxies—RX J0849+4452 or Lynx E and RX J0848+4453 or Lynx W—and several smaller clumps.[47] Further still lies the Lynx Arc, located around 12 billion light years away (a redshift of 3.357). It is a distant region containing a million extremely hot, young blue stars with surface temperatures of 80,000–100,000 K that are twice as hot as similar stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Only visible through gravitational lensing produced by a closer cluster of galaxies, the Arc is a feature of the early days of the universe, when "furious firestorms of star birth" were more common.[49]

Meteor showers

The September Lyncids are a minor meteor shower that appears around 6 September. They were historically more prominent, described as such by Chinese observers in 1037 and 1063, and Korean astronomers in 1560.[50] The Alpha Lyncids were discovered in 1971 by Malcolm Currie,[51] and appear between 10 December and 3 January.[52]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Delporte had proposed standardising the constellation boundaries to the International Astronomical Union, who had agreed and gave him the lead role[6]
  2. ^ While parts of the constellation technically rise above the horizon to observers between 28°S and 57°S, stars within a few degrees of the horizon are to all intents and purposes unobservable.[3]
  3. ^ Objects of magnitude 6.5 are among the faintest visible to the unaided eye in suburban-rural transition night skies.[10]
  4. ^ The distance between the Earth and the Sun is one astronomical unit
  5. ^ Far distant objects are measured in redshift rather than light-years. See also Hubble's law

References

  1. ^ Wagman 2003, pp. 202–03.
  2. ^
    ISBN 978-0-486-21079-7
    .
  3. ^ a b c Ridpath, Ian. "Constellations: Lacerta–Vulpecula". Star Tales. Self-published. Retrieved 7 March 2016.
  4. ^ Ridpath, Ian. "Lynx". Star Tales. Self-published. Retrieved 8 March 2016.
  5. Bibcode:1922PA.....30..469R
    .
  6. ^ Ridpath, Ian. "Constellation boundaries: How the modern constellation outlines came to be". Star Tales. self-published. Retrieved 1 June 2016.
  7. ^ "Lynx, Constellation Boundary". The Constellations. International Astronomical Union. Retrieved 7 March 2016.
  8. ^
    ISBN 978-0-596-52685-6
    .
  9. ^ a b Wagman 2003, pp. 433–34.
  10. ^ Bortle, John E. (February 2001). "The Bortle Dark-Sky Scale". Sky & Telescope. Sky Publishing Corporation. Retrieved 4 March 2016.
  11. Bibcode:2002yCat.2237....0D
    .
  12. ^
    S2CID 18759600
    .
  13. ^
    University of Illinois
    . Retrieved 9 March 2016.
  14. S2CID 118533297
    . For Mbol, see Table 1.
  15. doi:10.1086/133324
    .
  16. ^
    ISBN 978-1-4419-6851-7
    .
  17. ^
    doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201219774
    . A69.
  18. doi:10.1086/323920
    .
  19. ISBN 978-1-4614-0830-7
    .
  20. ^ Kaler, James B. "10 UMA (10 Ursae Majoris) = HR 3579 Lyncis". Stars. University of Illinois. Retrieved 9 March 2016.
  21. ^
    doi:10.1093/mnras/256.2.321
    .
  22. ^
    doi:10.1086/322153
    .
  23. S2CID 67841762
    .
  24. S2CID 14454598
    .
  25. S2CID 118567085
    .
  26. S2CID 13468914
    .
  27. arXiv:0805.2921 [astro-ph
    ].
  28. S2CID 14043772
    .
  29. S2CID 16678658
    .
  30. doi:10.1086/118116
    .
  31. ISBN 978-1-139-49368-0
    .
  32. Bibcode:1927BHarO.849...11S
    .
  33. ISBN 978-1-59102-361-6
    .
  34. ISBN 978-0-387-71609-1
    .
  35. S2CID 15329889
    .
  36. S2CID 204935980
    .
  37. ISBN 978-3-7091-0626-6
    .
  38. S2CID 118697339
    .
  39. ^ "Catching the Light of a Baby Supernova". Gemini Observatory. 21 May 2008. Archived from the original on 23 August 2015. Retrieved 7 July 2015.
  40. S2CID 17217253
    .
  41. Bibcode:2007cxo..pres....5.
    Retrieved 4 April 2007.
  42. ^ "NASA – Supernova Imposter Goes Supernova". NASA.Gov. Retrieved 4 April 2007.
  43. S2CID 14924830
    .
  44. S2CID 13959993
    .
  45. ^ Baldwin, Emily (27 August 2008). "XMM discovers monster galaxy cluster". Astronomy Now. Retrieved 4 July 2016.
  46. doi:10.1051/0004-6361:200810255
    .
  47. ^
    S2CID 34625476
    . 141.
  48. ISBN 0-521-84908-X
    .
  49. S2CID 17808828
    .
  50. ISBN 978-0-486-42820-8
    .
  51. ^ Jenniskens 2006, p. 198.
  52. ^ Jenniskens 2006, p. 738.

Sources

External links
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