Leo Minor
Leo Minor, resembles the shape of a lesser lion when stars in this constellation are imaginarily connected, as per Indian mythology!
Where should I see…Lynx constellation is towards west of Leo Minor constellation. If you move your
eyes towards east, you will see another constellation named Ursa Major. In the North and South of Leo Minor, you will find Ursa Major and Leo constellations respectively. Leo Minor is halfway between celestial equator and North Pole, and so is fully part of Northern Hemisphere.
It covers up 232 square degree area of the sky. Area wise it is 64th largest constellation in the sky.
When and What can I see…We can gaze at this lesser lion shape of Leo Minor constellation from November to
July, as seen from India.
All you need is your naked eyes other than clear skies to see 36 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 Procyon. The Hindu name is Shooni.
Constellations are made up of single, binary (apparent and absolute), multiple and variable stars. Out of total 36 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 |
| 5 | Procyon | 1 | 9 |
| – | 4 | – | – |
| 5 | 5 | 1 | 9 |
As per Hindu mythology, there are no such known stories for this constellation.
Deep Sky Objects…
Hanny’s Voorwerp || Quasar Ionization Echo
IC 2497 with Hanny’s Voorwerp || Spiral Galaxy
NGC 3003 || Barred Spiral Galaxy
NGC 3432 || 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 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 111 such different types of Deep Sky Objects observed. Below is the list of 20 brightest Deep Sky Objects:
NGC 2859 || Lenticular Galaxy
NGC 3021 || Spiral Galaxy
NGC 3486 || Barred Spiral Galaxy
NGC 3344 || Isolated Barred Spiral Galaxy
| Galaxy | Open Cluster | Globular Cluster | Nebula | Supernova Remnant | ||
| Naked eye visibility | – | – | – | – | – | |
| Visible through Telescope | 20 | – | – | – | – | |
| 20 | – | – | – | – |