The Hunting Dogs
| Abbreviation: | CVn |
| Genitive: | Canum Venaticorum |
| Origin: | Johannes Hevelius, 1690 |
| Fully Visible: | 37°S – 90°N |
Originally included in Ursa Major, the stars that make up this constellation were mis-identified in the Middle Ages as being the dogs of the herdsman Boötes, a neighbouring constellation. Finally, in the late seventeenth century, German/Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius (1611–1687) formally created this constellation of two hunting dogs. The northern dog he called Asterion and the southern dog Chara.
Notable Features
| Visible Named Stars | ||
|---|---|---|
| α² CVn | Cor Caroli | Meaning 'heart of Charles', it commemorates the deposed Charles Ⅰ of England and the restoration of his son, Charles Ⅱ. This star sometimes appears as Al Kabid Al Asad (from the Arabic al‑kabid al‑asad meaning 'the liver of the lion') in older star atlases and catalogues. It also appears as Chara in Antonín Bečvář's Atlas of the Heavens — Ⅱ Catalogue 1950.0. |
| β CVn | Chara | The name of the southern dog is now assigned to this particular star. It appears as Asterion in Antonín Bečvář's Atlas of the Heavens — Ⅱ Catalogue 1950.0. |
| Y CVn | La Superba | This is one of the reddest stars yet discovered and one of the brightest carbon stars. |
| Other Interesting Stars | ||
| HAT‑P‑36 | Tuiren | This twelfth-magnitude star is known to have at least one exoplanet. It is located just north of the irregular galaxy C21. |
| Deep Sky Objects | ||
| M3 | This is one of the best-studied globular clusters in the sky and a medium-size telescope will resolve it into individual stars. | |
| M51 | Whirlpool Galaxy | In 1845, the third Earl of Rosse used his telescope Leviathan to reveal the spiral structure of this object, the first galaxy (or nebula as it was then known) to be identified as having a spiral shape. This 'grand design' interacting spiral (it has a dwarf companion) is visible in binoculars. |
| M63 | Lord Rosse also identified the spiral structure of this galaxy. | |
| M94 | This face-on spiral galaxy is a nice telescopic object. | |
| M106 | One of the largest and brightest nearby galaxies, it is similar to the Andromeda Galaxy. | |
| C21 | This irregular galaxy is often compared to the Large Magellanic Cloud. | |
| C26 | An edge-on spiral galaxy, it is a relatively close neighbour to our own galaxy. | |
| C29 | The bright nucleus of this spiral galaxy makes this object visible even to large amateur telescopes. | |
| C32 | Whale Galaxy | This is one of the largest and brightest edge-on galaxies in the sky. |
Copyright © 1995–2023 by L.M. Stockman and David Harper