Pictor, resembles the shape of a Painter’s easel, when stars in this constellation are imaginarily connected!
Where should I see…
Caelum, is the constellation which is towards west of Pictor constellation. If you move your eyes
towards east, you will see another constellation named Puppis and Carina. In the North of Pictor, you will find Columba and in South Volans and Dorado constellations respectively. Pictor is nearly halfway between celestial equator and South Pole, and so is fully part of Southern Hemisphere.
It covers up 247 square degree area of the sky. Area wise it is 59th largest constellation in the sky.
When and What can I see…
We can gaze at this shape of Pictor constellation from September to April, as seen from India.
All you need is your naked eyes other than clear skies to see 49 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 Pictoris.
Constellations are made up of single, binary (apparent and absolute), multiple and variable stars. Out of total 49 stars of different types, here is the list of 20 brightest stars as per their nature:
| Binary / Multiple Star system |
Variable Stars |
Binary/multiple and Variable Stars |
Single stars |
| 4 |
4 |
– |
12 |
Mythology stories…
As per Hindu mythology, there are no such known stories for this constellation.
Deep Sky Objects…
NGC 1705 || Lenticular Dwarf Galaxy
SPT-CL_J0546-5345 || Massive Galaxy Cluster
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 Starscluster 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 23 such different types of Deep Sky Objects observed. Below is the list of 20 brightest Deep Sky Objects:
Pictor A || Double Lobed Radio Galaxy
| |
Galaxy |
Open Cluster |
Globular Cluster |
Nebula |
Supernova Remnant |
|
| Naked eye visibility |
– |
– |
– |
– |
– |
|
|
| Visible through Telescope |
20 |
– |
– |
– |
– |
|
|
|
| |
20 |
– |
– |
– |
– |
|
