Dorado (Asimin)
Dorado, resembles the shape of a fish, when stars in this constellation are imaginarily connected!
Where should I see…Reticulum, Hydrus and Horologium, are the constellations towards west of Dorado
constellation. If you move your eyes towards east, you will see another constellation named Volans. In the North of Dorado, you will find Caelum and Pictor and in South Mensa constellation respectively. Dorado is near South Pole, and so is fully part of Southern Hemisphere.
It covers up 179 square degree area of the sky. Area wise it is 72nd largest constellation in the sky.
When and What can I see…We cannot gaze at this fish shape of Dorado constellation from India.
All you need is your naked eyes other than clear skies to see 33 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 Doradus.
Constellations are made up of single, binary (apparent and absolute), multiple and variable stars. Out of total 33 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 |
| 2 | 6 | 2 | 10 |
Mythology stories…
As per Hindu mythology, there are no such known stories for this constellation.
Deep Sky Objects…
Ghost Head Nebula or NGC 2080 || Emission Nebula
Large / Small Magellanic Cloud || Dwarf Galaxy
Large Magellanic Cloud || Dwarf Galaxy
SNR 0509-67.5 || Supernova Remanant in LMC
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 31 such different types of Deep Sky Objects observed. Below is the list of 20 brightest Deep Sky Objects:
N44 || Emission Nebula in LMC
Spanish Dancer or NGC 1566 || Spiral Galaxy
NGC 1850 || Double Star Cluster or Super Star Cluster
NGC 2070 || Star Cluster in Tarantula Nebula
| Galaxy | Open Cluster | Globular Cluster | Nebula | Supernova Remnant | ||
| Naked eye visibility | 1 | – | – | – | – | |
| Visible through Telescope | 2 | 2 | 8 | 6 | 1 | |
| 3 | 2 | 8 | 6 | 1 |