Leo

Constellation
Cameron Owen
Physics 1040
Professor Harrison
29 Jul. 2014

Leo Constellation Map, by IAU and Sky & Telescope magazine

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Mythology
The constellation of Leo has two mythological stories associated with it. The first is the
nemean lion. The giant beast roamed the land killing all who came near it. Not only was the lion
fiercer, stronger and larger than other lions, it had skin that was impervious to any weapon. The
demigod Hercules, for one of his twelve tasks, killed the beast by blocking one of the entrances
to the cave the lion lived in and upon confirming that its skin was impenetrable by testing it with
his own weapons. Hercules wrestled with the lion and eventually strangled it to death. Hercules,
noticing the benefits of the lions skin, learns that the lions claws could cut it and makes a cloak
out of the lions hide and places the body in the heavens as one of his conquests.
The second story and least known is a story created by the poet Ovid about two lovers,
Pyramus and Thisbe.
Their parents forbade them to marry. The two talked secretly through a chink in the wall
between their houses and one day made a plan to meet outside the city beside a certain
mulberry tree with white berries. When Thisbe came to the meeting place, Pyramus was
not there, but she was startled by a lion, bloody from a kill. As she ran away, her veil
slipped and fluttered past the lion which snatched it with it's paw. When Pyramus arrived
he saw Thisbe's torn veil, bloody from the Lion and assumed that his love had been
killed. In anguish, he killed himself with his sword but at that moment, Thisbe ran back
and flung herself on her dead lover's body before taking the sword and thrusting it into
her own flesh. Their blood coloured the white mulberries red and they have remained this


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way ever since. Zeus placed the veil in the sky as Coma Berenices, floating down by the
lion. (Starry Skies)
Objects of Interest
Alpha Leonis also known as Regulus, The stars name, Regulus, means little king or
prince in Latin. (Constellation guide) Its a blue-white class star 150 times more luminous,
and has a diameter and mass three times our sun. Regulus has a companion star which hasnt
been resolved; we believe it to be a white dwarf. It is the brightest star in Leo and the twenty
second brightest star in the sky.
Beta Leonis or Denebola is a main sequence star. Has 75% more mass than the Sun,
173% of the solar radius, and is 12 times more luminous.(Constellation guide) Denebola is in
the IC 2391 super cluster; a stellar association whose members motion is the same through space,
but do not affect each other gravitationally. Other stars in this group this group are Alpha
Pictoris, Beta Canis Minoris.
Wolf 359 is a red dwarf star. Despite its proximity to the Sun, Wolf 359 can only be seen
through a large telescope.(Constellation guide) In our list of lowest mass stars it is one of the
faintest and lowest mass stars we have hound so far. It is .08 solar masses and .16 the radius of
our sun. It is the third closest star right after Alpha Centauri and Barnards star. Because of how
close the star is, it is mentioned in a few works of fiction such as star trek and an episode of the
outer limits.


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Messier 65 is an intermediate spiral galaxy in Leo. It has an apparent visual magnitude
of 10.25 and is approximately 35 million light years distant.(Constellation guide) It was
discovered by Charles Messier in 1780. The galaxy is old due to the fact there isnt much gas
and dust left making it so there isnt that much star formation going on. It is in what is known to
be the Leo Triplet Galaxy along with Messier 66 and NGC 3628.
Messier 95 is a barred spiral galaxy. It has a visual magnitude of 11.4 and is
approximately 38 million light years distant.(Constellation guide) Spanning approximately
2,000 light years make up the star burst region around the core. We were able to observe a super
nova that occurred in March 2012. It was discovered by Pierre Mchain a French astronomer in
1781.
NGC 3842 The galaxy has an apparent magnitude of 12.8 and is approximately 331
million light years distant from Earth.(Constellation Guide) What is most notable for this galaxy
is it having one of the largest black holes known to us, which we believe to be 9.7 billion solar
masses. This elliptical galaxy was found by William Herschel.
NGC 3628 is an unbarred spiral galaxy approximately 35 million light years distant
from the solar system.(Constellation guide) Discovered in 1784 by William Herschel, it has a
300,000 light year tidal tail with an obscuring dust band on the outer edge. We see NGC 3628 on
its edge just like how we see the Milky Way galaxy on a clear night.
Brightest Stars
The top twenty from brightest to dimmest best shown in graph on the next page.

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Name RA DEC Vis. Mag. Distance (ly) Spectral
Class
Regulus 10 08 22.46 +11 58
01.9
1.36 77 B7V
Y1 Leo 10 19 58.16 +19 50
30.7
2.01 126 K0III
Denebola 11 49 03.88 +14 34
20.4
2.14 36 A3Vvar
Leo 11 14 06.41 +20 31
26.5
2.56 58 A4V
Leo 09 45 51.10 +23 46
27.4
2.97 251 G0II
Leo 11 14 14.44 +15 25
47.1
3.33 178 A2V
Leo 10 16 41.40 +23 25
02.4
3.43 260 F0III
Leo 10 07 19.95 +16 45
45.6
3.48 2131 A0Ib
Leo A 09 41 09.12 +09 53
32.6
3.52 1358 A5V
Leo B 09 41 13.40 +09 54
35.0
3.70 130 K0 IIIb
2 Leo 10 19 58.60 +19 50
26.0
3.80 5719 B1Ib SB
Leo 10 32 48.68 +09 18
23.7
3.84 133 K0III
Leo 09 52 45.96 +26 00
25.5
3.88 79 F2IV SB
Leo 11 23 55.37 +10 31
46.9
4.00 214 B9.5Vs
Leo 11 21 08.25 +06 01
45.7
4.05 289 A1
54 Leo 10 55 36.85 +24 44
59.1
4.30 178 G9III
Leo 11 36 56.93 00 49
25.9
4.30 336 K5IIIvar
Leo 09 31 43.24 +22 58
05.0
4.32 274 K4III
31 Leo 10 07 54.32 +09 59
51.6
4.39 124 A1m
60 Leo 11 02 19.78 +20 10
47.1
4.42 195 A7IVn
Lists of stars in Leo. Chart. Wikipedia. 5 Jun. 2014. Web. 24 Jul. 2014

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Constellation
The constellation of Leo is one of the twelve Zodiacs, and is easy to recognize in the
spring sky for us here in the northern hemisphere. Around 240 B.C., Leo was robbed of his
splendid tail. The astronomer-priest under Ptolemy III chopped of the tail of Leo when they
invented the new constellation Coma Berenices (Berenice's Hair).(Starry Skies) Its name Leo
is Latin for lion. The head is outlined in the shape of a sickle and contains six stars, the last one
being Regulus which marks the lions heart and is the brightest star in the constellation. The
second brightest being Denebola, which marks the end of the lion and is also known as the lions
tail. Most Cultures from the past such as Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations associated the
lion with the sun and believed that the combination from the sun and star Alpha Leonis caused
the summer season, associating it with the element of fire. As said in the article of top
astronomer,
The constellation Leo occupies an area of 947 square degrees and contains eight stars
with known planets. It can be seen at latitudes between +90 and -65 and is best visible at 9
p.m. during the month of April. The Sun is considered to be in the constellation between August
16 and September 15 in sidereal astrology and between July 24 and August 23 in tropical
astrology.
Constellations that border Leo are Cancer to the west and Virgo to its east. others
include Leo Minor, Ursa Major, Hydra, Sextans, Coma Berenices and Crater.


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Bibliography
Miles Kathy and Peters Chuck. Leo constellation. Starry Skies. 2008. Web. 28 Jul 2014.
http://starryskies.com/The_sky/constellations/leo.html
Leo Constellation. Constellation Guide. Constellations: A Guide to the Night Sky. 2014. Web.
24 Jul. 2014
http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/leo-constellation/
Wright Anne and Allen Richard H. Leo the Lion 1889, 2008. Web. 24 Jul 2014
http://www.constellationsofwords.com/Constellations/Leo.html
Lists of stars in Leo. Chart. Wikipedia. 5 Jun. 2014. Web. 24 Jul. 2014
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stars_in_Leo
Constellation Guide: Leo Top Astronomer. Top Astronomer. N.d. Web. 24 Jul. 2014
http://www.topastronomer.com/StarCharts/Constellations/Leo.php
Sparrow, Giles. Constellations: A Field Guide to the Night Sky. London: Quercus, 2013. Print