Lepus (Shashak)
Lepus, resembles the shape of a rabbit, when stars in this constellation are imaginarily connected, as per Indian mythology!
Where should I see…Eridanus constellation is towards west of Lepus constellation. If you move your
eyes towards east, you will see another constellation named Canis Major. In the North of Lepus, you will find Orion and Monoceros and in South Columba constellations respectively. Lepus is halfway between celestial equator and South Pole, and so is fully part of Southern Hemisphere.
It covers up 290 square degree area of the sky. Area wise it is 51st largest constellation in the sky.
When and What can I see…We can gaze at this rabbit shape of Lepus constellation from August to April, as
seen from India.
All you need is your naked eyes other than clear skies to see 76 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 Arnab.
Constellations are made up of single, binary (apparent and absolute), multiple and variable stars. Out of total 76 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 |
| ૫ | ૩ | અર્ણબ | ૯ |
| – | – | નિહાલ | – |
| – | – | ૧ | – |
| ૫ | ૩ | ૩ | ૯ |
Mythology stories…
As per Hindu mythology, there are no such known stories for this constellation.
Deep Sky Objects…
NGC 1821 || Irregular Galaxy
Spirograph Galaxy or IC 418 || Planetary Nebula
M79 or NGC 1904 || 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. 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 54 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 | – | – | – | – | – | |
| Visible through Telescope | 18 | M79 | – | 1 | – | |
| 18 | 1 | – | 1 | – |