Draco (Kaliya)
Draco, resembles the shape of a python, when stars in this constellation are imaginarily connected, as per Indian mythology!
Where should I see…Ursa Major, is the constellation which is towards west of Draco constellation. If you
move your eyes towards east, you will see other constellations named Cephus and Cygnus. In the North of Draco, you will find Ursa Minor and in South Lyra, Hercules and Bootes constellations respectively. Draco is near North Pole, and so is fully part of Northern Hemisphere.
It covers up 1083 square degree area of the sky. Area wise it is 8th largest constellation in the sky.
When and What can I see…We can gaze at this python shape of Draco constellation from November to March,
as seen from India.
All you need is your naked eyes other than clear skies to see 224 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 Eltanin.
Constellations are made up of single, binary (apparent and absolute), multiple and variable stars. Out of total 224 stars of different types, here is the list of 20 brightest stars as per their nature:
| Binary / Multiple Star system | Variable Stars | Binary and Variable Stars | Single stars |
| Eltanin | Thuban | Athebyne | Aldibah |
| Rastaban | Giausar | Edasich | 3 |
| Altais | 2 | 4 | – |
| Grumium | – | – | – |
| Dziban | – | – | – |
| 1 | – | – | – |
| 6 | 4 | 6 | 4 |
Mythology stories…
As per Hindu mythology, there are no such known stories for this constellation.
Deep Sky Objects…
Abell 2218 || Cluster of Galaxies
Cat Eye Nebula or NGC 6543 || Planetary Nebula
Draco Dwarf Galaxy || Spheroidal 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 349 such different types of Deep Sky Objects observed. Below is the list of 20 brightest Deep Sky Objects:
NGC 6340 || Spiral Galaxy
NGC 4236 || Spiral Galaxy
NGC 4319 || Barred Spiral Galaxy
| Galaxy | Open Cluster | Globular Cluster | Nebula | Supernova Remnant | ||
| Naked eye visibility | – | – | – | – | – | |
| Visible through Telescope | Spindle Galaxy | – | – | Cat’s Eye Nebula | – | |
| 18 | – | – | – | – | ||
| 19 | – | – | 1 | – |
NGC 5879 || Spiral Galaxy
NGC 5949 || Dwarf Spiral Galaxy
NGC 6503 || Dwarf Galaxy