Cetus (Timingal)
Cetus, resembles the shape of a sea monster, when stars in this constellation are imaginarily connected, as per Indian mythology!
Where should I see…Aquarius, is the constellation which is towards west of Andromeda constellation. If
you move your eyes towards east, you will see another constellation named Eridanus and Taurus. In the North of Cetus, you will find Pisces and in South, Fornax and Sculptor constellations. Cetus is halfway above celestial equator and halfway below South Pole, and is fully part of Southern Hemisphere.
It covers up 1231 square degree area of the sky. Area wise it is 4th largest constellation in the sky.
When and What can I see…We can gaze at this beautiful sea monster shape of Cetus constellation from March
to October, as seen from India.
All you need is your naked eyes other than clear skies to see 174 stars of this constellations, as they are the one which are brighter than the lower limit of our naked eyes (i.e. 6.5 apparent magnitude) to see faintest stars.. The brightest star of this constellation is Diphda.
Constellations are made up of single, binary (apparent and absolute), multiple and variable stars. Out of total 174 stars of different types, here is the list of 20 brightest stars as per their nature:
| Binary / Multiple Stars | Variable Stars | Binary and Variable Stars | Single Stars |
| Kaffaljidhma | Diphda | Mira | 6 |
| 4 | Menkar | 3 | – |
| – | 3 | – | – |
| 5 | 2 | 4 | 6 |
As per Hindi mythology, there are no such known stories for this constellation.
Deep Sky Objects…
M77 or NGC 1068 || Spiral Galaxy
NGC 45 || Spiral Galaxy
NGC 47 || Spiral Galaxy
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. 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 647 such different types of Deep Sky Objects observed. Below is the list of 20 brightest Deep Sky Objects:
NGC 1035 || Spiral Galaxy
NGC 1042 || Spiral Galaxy
NGC 1055 || Spiral Galaxy
|
|
Galaxy |
Open Cluster |
Globular Cluster |
Nebula |
Supernova Remnant |
|
Naked eye visibility |
– |
– |
– |
– |
– |
|
Visible through Telescope |
M77 |
– |
– |
– |
– |
|
18 |
– |
– |
1 |
– |
||
|
|
19 |
– |
– |
1 |
– |
NGC 1073 || Spiral Galaxy
NGC 247 || Spiral Galaxy
NGC 17 || Spiral Galaxy