Antlia – Vatpurak
Antlia, resembles the shape of an air pump when stars in this constellation are imaginarily connected, as per Indian mythology!
Where should I see…
Pyxis, is towards west of Antlia constellation. If you move your eyes towards east, you will see another constellation named Centaurus. On the North and South of Antlia, you will find Hydra and Vela constellation respectively. Antlia is halfway between celestial equator and South Pole, and so is fully part of Southern Hemisphere.
It covers up 232 square degree area of the sky. Area wise it is 62nd largest constellation in the sky.
When and What can I see…
We can gaze at Antlia from April to June as it is lower in Southern hemisphere; as seen from Gujarat.
All you need is your eyes other than clear skies to see 47 stars of this constellations, as they are the one which are brighter than the limit of our eyes (i.e. 6.5 apparent magnitude). The brightest star of this constellation is Apha Antailae.
Constellations are made up of single, binary (apparent and absolute), multiple and variable stars. Out of total 47 stars of different types, here is the list of 20 brightest stars as per their nature:
| Binary / Multiple Star system | Variable Stars | Single stars |
| 7 | 4 | 10 |
Mythology stories…
As per Indian mythology, there are no such known stories for this constellation.
Deep Sky Objects
All the stars that we see naked eyes, all belong to our own, Milky way galaxy (Akash Ganga Tara vishv). Bright stars can be seen naked eye and faint one through telescope. But the curtain of sky that we see in 2D is actually a huge universe we are talking about, with 3 dimension. There are many nebulous objects visible in every constellations, they differ widely by distances and nature. Many are different types of nebulae like Emission Nebula, Reflecting Nebula, Absorption Nebula, Star Birth Nebula, Supernova Remnants (SNR) and Open Stars cluster which are within the disk of our own Milky Way galaxy. Globular cluster are also found, which are in the halo of our galaxy and some most distant objects like galaxies are also visible through telescope. Such objects are defined as “Deep Sky Objects”.
In this constellation there are 102 such different types of Deep Sky Objects observed.
Below is the list of 20 brightest Deep Sky Objects:
Antlia Cluster || 3rd nearest cluster of galaxies
IC 2545 || Pair of merging galaxies
IC 2560 || Spital Galaxy
| Galaxy | Open Cluster | Globular Cluster | Nebula | Supernova Remnant | ||
| Naked eye visibility | – | – | – | – | – | |
| Visible through Telescope | 20 | – | – | – | – | |
| 20 | – | – | – | – |
NGC 2997 || Unbarred Spiral Galaxy
NGC 3125 || starburst galaxy
NGC 3244 || Spiral Galaxy