Apus – Khag
Apus, resembles the shape of a bird from heaven, when stars in this constellation are imaginarily connected; as per Indian mythology.
Where should I see…Chamaeleon and Musca, are constellations is towards
west of Apus constellation. If you move your eyes towards east, you will see another constellation named Pavo. On the North of Apus, you will find Triangulum Australae, Ara, Circinus and on South, Octans constellation. Apus is very close to South Pole, and so is fully part of Southern Hemisphere.
It covers up 206 square degree area of the sky. Area wise it is 67th largest constellation in the sky.
When and What can I see…We cannot gaze at this beautiful heavenly bird
shape of Apus constellation from India as it is near South Pole.
All you need is your eyes other than clear skies to see 37 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 Alpha Apodis.
Constellations are made up of single, binary (apparent and absolute), multiple and variable stars. Out of total 37 stars of different types, here is the list of 20 brightest stars as per their nature:
| Binary / Multiple Star system | Variable Stars | Single stars |
| 9 | 8 | 6 |
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 29 such different types of Deep Sky Objects observed.
Below is the list of 20 brightest Deep Sky Objects are listed below.
IC 4499 || loose globular cluster
IC 4635 & IC 4633 || Spiral Galaxies
NGC 6101 || Globular Cluster
| Galaxy | Open Cluster | Globular Cluster | Nebula | Supernova Remnant | ||
| Naked eye visibility | – | – | – | – | – | |
| Visible through Telescope | 18 | – | 2 | – | – | |
| 18 | – | 2 | – | – |