Volans (Unduk)
Volans, resembles the shape of the flying fish, when stars in this constellation are imaginarily connected.
Where should I see…Dorado, Pictor and Mensa, are the constellations towards west of Andromeda constellation. If you
move your eyes towards east, you will see another constellation named Carina. In the North and South of Volans, you will find Carina and Chamaeleon constellations respectively. Volans is near South Pole, and so is fully part of southern Hemisphere.
It covers up 141 square degree area of the sky. Area wise it is 76th largest constellation in the sky.
When and What can I see…We cannot gaze at this flying fish shape of Volans constellation from India.
All you need is your naked eyes other than clear skies to see 32 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 Beta Volantis.
Constellations are made up of single, binary (apparent and absolute), multiple and variable stars. Out of total 32 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 | 1 | 5 | 10 |
| – | – | – | – |
| 4 | 1 | 5 | 10 |
Mythology stories…
As per Hindu mythology, there are no such known stories for this constellation.
Deep Sky Objects…
Lindsay Shapely Ring or AM 0644-741 || Lenticular Galaxy
Meathook Galaxy & NGC 2442 || 2 parts of single Spiral Galaxy
NGC 2397 || 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 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 12 such different types of Deep Sky Objects observed. Below is the list of all 12 brightest Deep Sky Objects:
| Galaxy | Open Cluster | Globular Cluster | Nebula | Supernova Remnant | ||
| Naked eye visibility
|
– | – | – | – | – | |
| Visible through Telescope | 11 | 1 | – | – | – | |
| – | – | – | – | – | ||
| – | – | – | – | – | ||
| 11 | 1 |