Carina (Noutal)
Carina, resembles the shape of keel of ship, when stars in this constellation are imaginarily connected, as per Indian mythology!
Where should I see…Pictor, is the constellation which is towards west of Carina
constellation. If you move your eyes towards east, you will see another constellation named Musca and Centaurus. In the North of Carina, you will find Puppis and Vela and in South, Volans and Chameleon constellations. Carina is very near to South Pole, and so is fully part of Southern Hemisphere.
It covers up 494 square degree area of the sky. Area wise it is 34th largest constellation in the sky.
When and What can I see…We can gaze at this keel of ship shape of Carina constellation from September to May, as seen from India.
All you need is your naked eyes other than clear skies to see 210 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 and 2nd brightest star in the entire night sky is Canopus.
Constellations are made up of single, binary (apparent and absolute), multiple and variable stars.
Out of total 210 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 |
| 1 | Avior | 3 | Canopus |
| – | Aspidiske | – | Miaplacidus |
| – | 8 | – | 4 |
| 1 | 10 | 3 | 6 |
Mythology stories…
As per Hindi mythology, there are no such known stories for this constellation.
Deep Sky Objects…
NGC 3606 || Compact Open Cluster || HII region
Keyhole Nebula || Small dark nebulosity within Carina Nebula
NGC 2808 || Globular 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. Many are different types of nebulae 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 61 such different types of Deep Sky Objects observed.
Below is the list of 20 brightest Deep Sky Objects:
| Galaxy | Open Cluster | Globular Cluster | Nebula | Supernova Remnant | ||
| Naked eye visibility | – | 4 | 1 | Carina Nebula | – | |
| Visible through Telescope | – | Wishing Whale Cluster | – | – | – | |
| – | 8 | – | 5 | – | ||
| – | 13 | 1 | 6 | – |
Eta Carinae Nebula || include keyhole nebula, numerrous open clusters and dark nebulae
NGC 3532 || Pincushion Cluster || Football cluster || Black Arrow Cluster || Wishing Well Cluster