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Jewel Box (star Cluster)
The Jewel Box (also known as the Kappa Crucis Cluster, NGC 4755, or Caldwell 94) is an open cluster in the constellation Crux, originally discovered by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1751–1752. This cluster was later named the Jewel Box by John Herschel when he described its telescopic appearance as "...a superb piece of fancy jewellery". It is easily visible to the naked eye as a hazy star some 1.0° southeast of the first-magnitude star Mimosa (Beta Crucis). This hazy star was given the Bayer star designation "Kappa Crucis", from which the cluster takes one of its common names. The modern designation Kappa Crucis has been assigned to one of the stars in the base of the A-shaped asterism of the cluster This cluster is one of the youngest known, with an estimated age of 14 million years. It has a total integrated magnitude of 4.2, is located 1.95 kpc. or 6,440 light years from Earth, and contains just over 100 stars. Discovery and observation The Jewel Box as a star c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Snapshot Of The Jewel Box Cluster With The ESO VLT
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English grammar, " a", and its variant " an", are indefinite articles. History The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to distinguish it f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnitude (astronomy)
In astronomy, magnitude is a unitless measure of the brightness of an object in a defined passband, often in the visible or infrared spectrum, but sometimes across all wavelengths. An imprecise but systematic determination of the magnitude of objects was introduced in ancient times by Hipparchus. The scale is logarithmic and defined such that a magnitude 1 star is exactly 100 times brighter than a magnitude 6 star. Thus each step of one magnitude is \sqrt \approx 2.512 times brighter than the magnitude 1 higher. The brighter an object appears, the lower the value of its magnitude, with the brightest objects reaching negative values. Astronomers use two different definitions of magnitude: apparent magnitude and absolute magnitude. The ''apparent'' magnitude () is the brightness of an object as it appears in the night sky from Earth. Apparent magnitude depends on an object's intrinsic luminosity, its distance, and the extinction reducing its brightness. The ''absolute'' magni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
DU Crucis
DU Crucis is a red supergiant and slow irregular variable star in the open cluster NGC 4755, which is also known as the Kappa (κ) Crucis Cluster or Jewel Box Cluster. Location DU Crucis is one of the brighter members of the Jewel Box Cluster and the brightest red supergiant, strongly contrasting with the other bright members which are blue supergiants. It is part of the central bar of the prominent letter "A"-shaped asterism at the centre of the cluster. The cluster is part of the larger Centaurus OB1 association and lies about 8,500 light years away. The cluster is just to the south-east of β Crucis, the lefthand star of the Southern Cross. Properties DU Crucis is an M2 intermediate luminosity supergiant Supergiants are among the most massive and most luminous stars. Supergiant stars occupy the top region of the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram with absolute visual magnitudes between about −3 and −8. The temperature range of supergiant stars spa ... (luminosity ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beta Cephei Variable
Beta Cephei variables, also known as Beta Canis Majoris stars, are variable stars that exhibit small rapid variations in their brightness due to pulsations of the stars' surfaces, thought due to the unusual properties of iron at temperatures of 200,000 K in their interiors. These stars are usually hot blue-white stars of spectral class B and should not be confused with Cepheid variables, which are named after Delta Cephei and are luminous supergiant stars. Properties Beta Cephei variables are main-sequence stars of masses between about 7 and 20 M_\odot (that is, 7–20 times as massive as the Sun). Among their number are some of the brightest stars in the sky, such as Beta Crucis and Beta Centauri; Spica is also classified as a Beta Cephei variable but mysteriously stopped pulsating in 1970. Typically, they change in brightness by 0.01 to 0.3 magnitudes with periods of 0.1 to 0.3 days (2.4–7.2 hours). The prototype of these variable stars, Beta Cephei, shows variation in appar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giant Star
A giant star is a star with substantially larger radius and luminosity than a main-sequence (or ''dwarf'') star of the same surface temperature.Giant star, entry in ''Astronomy Encyclopedia'', ed. Patrick Moore, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. . They lie above the main sequence (luminosity class V in the Yerkes spectral classification) on the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram and correspond to luminosity classes II and III.giant, entry in ''The Facts on File Dictionary of Astronomy'', ed. John Daintith and William Gould, New York: Facts On File, Inc., 5th ed., 2006. . The terms ''giant'' and ''dwarf'' were coined for stars of quite different luminosity despite similar temperature or spectral type by Ejnar Hertzsprung about 1905. Giant stars have radii up to a few hundred times the Sun and luminosities between 10 and a few thousand times that of the Sun. Stars still more luminous than giants are referred to as supergiants and hypergiants. A hot, luminous main-sequenc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eclipsing Binary
A binary star is a system of two stars that are gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other. Binary stars in the night sky that are seen as a single object to the naked eye are often resolved using a telescope as separate stars, in which case they are called ''visual binaries''. Many visual binaries have long orbital periods of several centuries or millennia and therefore have orbits which are uncertain or poorly known. They may also be detected by indirect techniques, such as spectroscopy (''spectroscopic binaries'') or astrometry (''astrometric binaries''). If a binary star happens to orbit in a plane along our line of sight, its components will eclipse and transit each other; these pairs are called ''eclipsing binaries'', or, together with other binaries that change brightness as they orbit, ''photometric binaries''. If components in binary star systems are close enough they can gravitationally distort their mutual outer stellar atmospheres. In some cases, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BU Crucis
BU Crucis (HD 111934) is a variable star in the open cluster NGC 4755, which is also known as the Kappa Crucis Cluster or Jewel Box Cluster. Location BU Cru is one of the brightest members of the NGC 4775 open cluster, better known as the Jewel Box Cluster. It forms the right end of the bar of the prominent letter "A" asterism at the centre of the cluster. The cluster is part of the larger Centaurus OB1 association and lies about 8,500 light years away. The cluster, and BU Crucis itself, is just to the south-east of β Crucis, the lefthand star of the famous Southern Cross. Properties BU Crucis is a B2 bright supergiant (luminosity class Ia). It is 275,000 times the luminosity of the sun, partly due to its higher temperature over 20,000 K, and partly to being forty times larger than the sun. The κ Crucis cluster has a calculated age of 11.2 million years, and BU Crucis itself around five million years. Variability BU Crucis is a variable star with a brightness ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alpha Cygni Variable
Alpha Cygni variables are variable stars which exhibit non-radial pulsations, meaning that some portions of the stellar surface are contracting at the same time other parts expand. They are supergiant stars of spectral types B or A. Variations in brightness on the order of 0.1 magnitudes are associated with the pulsations, which often seem irregular, due to beating of multiple pulsation periods. The pulsations typically have periods of several days to several weeks. The prototype of these stars, Deneb (α Cygni), exhibits fluctuations in brightness between magnitudes +1.21 and +1.29. Small amplitude rapid variations have been known in many early supergiant stars, but they were not formally grouped into a class until the 4th edition of the General Catalogue of Variable Stars was published in 1985. It used the acronym ACYG for Alpha Cygni variable stars. Many luminous blue variables (LBVs) show Alpha Cygni-type variability during their quiescent (hot) phases, but the LBV class ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
DS Cru
DS Crucis (HR 4876, HD 111613) is a variable star near the open cluster NGC 4755, which is also known as the Kappa Crucis Cluster or Jewel Box Cluster. It is in the constellation Crux. Location DS Crucis is one of the brightest stars in the region of the NGC 4775 open cluster, better known as the Jewel Box Cluster, but its membership of the cluster is in doubt. The cluster is part of the larger Centaurus OB1 association and lies about 8,500 light years away. DS Crucis and NGC 4755 lie just to the south-east of β Crucis, the lefthand star of the famous Southern Cross. Variability DS Crucis is a variable star with an amplitude of about 0.05 magnitudes. It was found to be variable from the photometry performed by the Hipparcos satellite. The variability type is unclear but it is assumed to be an α Cygni variable Alpha Cygni variables are variable stars which exhibit non-radial pulsations, meaning that some portions of the stellar surface are contracting at the same ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HR 4887
HR 4887 (HD 111904) is a suspected variable star in the open cluster NGC 4755, which is also known as the Kappa Crucis Cluster or Jewel Box Cluster. Location HR 4887 is one of the brightest members of the NGC 4775 open cluster, better known as the Jewel Box Cluster. It forms the apex of the prominent letter "A" asterism at the centre of the cluster. The cluster is part of the larger Centaurus OB1 association and lies about 8,500 light years away. The cluster, and HR 4887 itself, is just to the south-east of β Crucis, the lefthand star of the famous Southern Cross. Properties HR 4887 is a B9 bright supergiant (luminosity class Ia). It is over 100,000 times the luminosity of the sun, partly due to its higher temperature over 12,680 K, and partly to being seventy times larger than the sun. The κ Crucis cluster has a calculated age of 11.2 million years, and HR 4887 itself eight million years. In 1958, HR 4887 was reported to be at visual magnitude 6.80 and on this ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asterism (astronomy)
An asterism is an observed pattern or group of stars in the sky. Asterisms can be any identified pattern or group of stars, and therefore are a more general concept than the formally defined 88 constellations. Constellations are based on asterisms, but unlike asterisms, constellations outline and today completely divide the sky and all its celestial objects into regions around their central asterisms. For example, the asterism known as the Big Dipper comprises the seven brightest stars in the constellation Ursa Major. Another is the asterism of the Southern Cross, within the constellation of Crux. Asterisms range from simple shapes of just a few stars to more complex collections of many stars covering large portions of the sky. The stars themselves may be bright naked-eye objects or fainter, even telescopic, but they are generally all of a similar brightness to each other. The larger brighter asterisms are useful for people who are familiarizing themselves with the night sky ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; and to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini. It also completely Enclave and exclave, enclaves the country Lesotho. It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World, and the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous country located entirely south of the equator, after Tanzania. South Africa is a biodiversity hotspot, with unique biomes, plant and animal life. With over Demographics of South Africa, 60 million people, the country is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, 24th-most populous nation and covers an area of . South Africa has three capital cities, with the executive, judicial and le ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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