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Vulpecula and Sagitta
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Mythology - Vulpecula is a relative newcomer to the celestial menagerie, only appearing for the first time in a catalogue drawn up by Hevelius in 1690 (he originally named it the fox and goose) and has no bright stars to distinguish it. Sagitta by contrast is enmeshed in Greek mythology. Who fired this arrow is uncertain, but it may be Heracles rescuing Prometheus from the daily torment of the eagle Aquila. Stars - Casual observers trawling this area with binoculars have been delighted to discover an upside down coathanger. This goes by the more formal name of Collinder 399 or Brocchi's cluster. Deepsky - The showpiece object in Vulpecula is the Dumbbell Nebula or M27 (also called the "apple core nebula") This is an 8th magnitude gaseous disk with a double lobed appearance and is the last stage in a star's evolution before it collapses to become a white dwarf. The central star is visible in larger telescopes, but binoculars will pick out the nebula easily. In Sagitta there is the globular cluster M71, just visible in binoculars but an interesting telescopic object. Visibility - These two constellations are visible from July to October |
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