Explore the Universe - Leo

When I first started out in astronomy Leo was my go to constellation.  It is high in the sky during the month of April and is recognizable by its many bright stars.  It is a zodiacal constellation corresponding to those born between July 23 and August 22.

Leo has been known since the earliest civilizations in Mesopotamia more than 6000 years ago.  All of the ancient records agree that it represents a great Lion.  In Greek Mythology a fearsome beast known as the Nemean Lion would capture women and hold them in his cave located on the northeastern Peloponnese.  Many warriors would fight for their freedom but the Nemean Lion legendary golden fur was immune to any attacks with weapons.  The king dismayed by this beast had Heracles participate in his first of twelve labours to rid the land of the great lion.  Heracles fought the lion in his cave with his bare hands and defeated it and freed the trapped maidens.  The goddess of wisdom and war taught Heracles to use the lion's own claws to skin it since no instrument known to man could.  Upon his triumph, Zeus placed the lion in the sky as a tribute to this great labour.  An artistic interpretation is shown below.

Leo (Artist Interpreation)

Mapping the constellation was not incredibly easy.  Leo is a fairly large constellation with broad borders both in right ascension and declination.  Some of the Bayer classified stars are in regions with very little else in the sky.  A review of the Bayer system is linked below from a previous blog entry.

http://simonjastronomy.blogspot.com/2017/01/explore-universe-alpha-capricorni.html

An image of the binocular mapping I created is shown below.

Leo Observing Record

Leo has many deep sky objects and contains five Messier objects.  There are many NGC objects scattered around under the lion's stomach and in the hindquarters area.  I am hoping to study some of these deep sky objects in the coming weeks and months.  I had a difficult time finding them last year but lacked the expertise to regularly even find a bright star in my telescope.  Leo is home to the famous Leo Triplet, a close group of three galaxies that can easily fit in an eyepiece with an apparent field of view of 40' or above.

In mid-November there is a meteor shower that has a radiant point just above Leo's neck.  The shower is typically only around 15 meteors per hour but has known to storm in the hundreds some years.  There is a paper written on predictions for the shower during the 21st century.  A link to it is provided below:

Leonid Meteor Shower Predictions