Hercules (Shouri)
Hercules, resembles the shape of a strong man, when stars in this constellation are imaginarily connected, as per Indian mythology!
Where should I see…Corona Borealis and Serpens, are towards west of Hercules constellation. If you
move your eyes towards east, you will see another constellation named Lyra, Vulpecula and Sagitta. In the North and South of Hercules, you will find Draco and Oppiuchus constellations respectively. Hercules is halfway between celestial equator and North Pole, and so is fully part of Northern Hemisphere.
It covers up 1225 square degree area of the sky. Area wise it is 5th largest constellation in the sky.
When and What can I see…We can gaze at this strong man shape of Hercules constellation from February to
September, as seen from India.
All you need is your naked eyes other than clear skies to see 259 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 Kornephoros.
Constellations are made up of single, binary (apparent and absolute), multiple and variable stars. Out of total 259 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 |
| 3 | 5 | Kornephoros | 1 |
| – | – | Sarin | – |
| – | – | Rasalgethi | – |
| – | – | 8 | – |
| 3 | 5 | 11 | 1 |
Mythology stories…
As per Hindi mythology, there are no such known stories for this constellation.
Deep Sky Objects…
Abell 2199 || Galaxy Cluster
Abel 39 || Planetary Nebula
Arp 272 || pair of interacting galaxies
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 311 such different types of Deep Sky Objects observed. Below is the list of 20 brightest Deep Sky Objects:
Hercules Cluster or Abell 2151 || Cluster of Galaxies
Hercules A || Radio Source from Galaxy 3C 348
M13 or Hercules Globular Cluster || Great Globular Cluster
| Galaxy | Open Cluster | Globular Cluster | Nebula | Supernova Remnant | ||
| Naked eye visibility | – | – | M13 (Hercules Cluster) | – | – | |
| – | – | M92 | – | – | ||
| Visible through Telescope | 14 | – | 1 | 3 | – | |
| 14 | – | 3 | 3 | – |
M92 or NGC 6341 || Globular Cluster
NGC 6166 || Elliptical Galaxy
NGC 6210 || Planetary Nebula