Hydra Constellation | Constellations In The Southern Hemisphere
HYDRA CONSTELLATION – In this topic, we are going to know and learn about the southern constellation Hydra , the water snake.
It is one of the larger constellation in the southern sky. Its head is located south of the constellation Cancer and its tail lies between Centaurus and Libra.
It represents the Lernaean Hydra from the Greek myth of Heracles’ Twelve Labours or represent the water snake from the myth about the crow that tried to trick the god Apollo by blaming the snake for its tardiness.
It contains Messier 48, Messier 68, and Messier 83
It is the largest of the 88 constellations and occupies an area of about 1303 square degrees. It lies in SQ2, the second quadrant of the southern hemisphere.
Hydra belongs to the Hercules family, along with Aquila, Ara, Centaurus, Corona Australis, Corvus, Crater, Crux, Cygnus, Hercules, Lupus, Lyra, Ophiuchus, Sagitta, Scutum, Sextans, Serpens, Triangulum Australe and Vulpecula.
There are two meteor showers associated with the constellation: the Alpha Hydrids and the Sigma Hydrids.
Stars
Among the stars include:
- 27 Hydrae
- Alphard
- Ashlesha
- Beta Hydrae
- Delta Hydrae
- Epsilon Hydrae
- Felis
- Gamma Hydrae
- Lerna
- Minchir
- Nu Hydrae
- Pi Hydrae
- R Hydrae
- Ukdah
- U Hydrae
- V Hydrae
- Zeta Hydrae
- Zhang
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