Saturday, September 10, 2011

How many total stars are in the constellation Capricornus (the Sea-Goat)?

I have to do a project on this constellation, and part of the paper involves the number of stars. I've looked everywhere and can't find this. Do any of you happen to know where I could find this? (I already tried Wikipedia and Google and all them)|||Alpha Capricornus is actually a double star. Giedi Prima and Giedi Secunda.

Beta Capricornus is a triple star. All three named Dabih.

Next are Nashira and Deneb Algedi, tail of the goat. On September 23, 1846, the planet Neptune was discovered near Deneb Algeda by German astronomer Johann Galle.

There are another 4 unnamed stars in the constellation.

But that is not all. There is also the globular star cluster M30 in here which contains thousands of stars. And there is also a galaxy, NGC 6907 which contains billions of stars.



So total number of stars - billions.|||This is a question which is impossible to answer. Like all constellations, Capricornus contains MILLIONS of stars. By the modern definition of the constellations, they are just areas of the sky, containing hundreds or thousands of stars of every brightness, plus star clusters and galaxies containing millions more stars. The patterns of stars which appear in books and maps are arbitrary "connect the dots" patterns, and have no physical reality. Every book and map includes or excludes different stars.|||There are 9 major stars (plus or minus one or two, depending on which charts you use) that make up the constellation as it is traditionally defined. That is the answer you are probably seeking. It is not the real answer, since there are certainly trillions of stars within the region bounded by Capricornus, but that's probably not something that your teacher understands and is therefore asking for.|||88 catalogued stars, although, if they lie within the bounds of that area of the sky, they're fair game, I guess.





en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stars_in鈥?br>




The reference should help you|||About 10^20, between us and our event horizon in that direction.|||millions of them

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