Vulpecula

Vulpecula, the Fox, is a faint northern constellation located in the middle of the Summer Triangle, an asterism consisting of the stars Deneb, Vega and Altair.

Table of contents

1 Notable features 2 Notable deep sky objects 3 History 4 External Links

Notable features

In 1967, the first pulsar, PSR 1919+21, was discovered in this little constellation by Antony Hewish and Jocelyn Bell, in Cambridge. While they were searching for scintillation of radio signals of quasars, they found a very regular signal consisting of pulses of radiation at a rate of one in every few seconds. Terrestrial origin of the signal was ruled out because the time it took the object to reappear was a sidereal day instead of a solar day. This anomaly was finally identified as the signal of a fast rotating neutron star. The pulses came (and still come) every 1.3373 seconds - too regular to be associated with any other object. This new object was called CP 19191 for "Cambridge Pulsar near RA 19h 19m" and is nowadays called PSR 1919+21 for "PulSaR at RA 19h 19m and DECL +21 degrees".

Notable deep sky objects

• The Dumbbell Nebula (M27), one of the most observed deep-sky objects, is a huge planetary nebula which can even be seen using good binoculars in which it appears as a dim glowing disk with a diameter of approximately 6 arc minutes (including the faint halo its size is even half that of the Moon). A telescope reveals its double-lobed shape, similar to that of an hourglass. The M27 was discovered by the French astronomer Charles Messier in 1764 as the very first (and also one of the brightest) of its kind
• Brocchi's Cluster, also called the Coathanger, is an open cluster easily discerned even with the naked eye due to its distinctive star pattern.

External Links