Indus (Sindhu)
Indus, resembles the shape of a historical literature, when stars in this constellation are imaginarily connected, as per Indian mythology
Where should I see…Sagittarius, Telescopium and Pavo are the constellations towards west of Indus
constellation. If you move your eyes towards east, you will see another constellation named Tucana and Grus. In the North and South of Indus, you will find Microscopium and Octans constellations respectively. Indus is halfway between celestial equator and South Pole, and so is fully part of Southern Hemisphere.
It covers up 294 square degree area of the sky. Area wise it is 49th largest constellation in the sky.
When and What can I see…We can gaze at this historical literature shape of Indus constellation from April to
December, as seen from India.
All you need is your naked eyes other than clear skies to see 39 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 Alpha Indi.
Constellations are made up of single, binary (apparent and absolute), multiple and variable stars. Out of total 39 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 |
| 7 | 1 | – | 12 |
Mythology stories…
As per Hindu mythology, there are no such known stories for this constellation.
Deep Sky Objects…
NGC 7064 || Barred Spiral Galaxy
NGC 7029 || Elliptical Galaxy
NGC 7041 || Lenticular Galaxy
IC 5152 || Irregular 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 84 such different types of Deep Sky Objects observed. Below is the list of 20 brightest Deep Sky Objects:
NGC 7083 || Spiral Galaxy
NGC 7090 || Spiral Galaxy
NGC 7140 || Spiral Galaxy
NGC 7049 || Lenticular Galaxy
| Galaxy | Open Cluster | Globular Cluster | Nebula | Supernova Remnant | ||
| Naked eye visibility | – | – | – | – | – | |
| Visible through Telescope | 20 | – | – | – | – | |
| 20 | – | – | – | – |