Seema's blog

   The star-studded sky , What a wonderful sight !! That star in the southern sky, the star Agastya, how bright it is!  ‘What a great sage!’ we reflect. The star reminds us of his magnificent life. It is known as Canopus  in Western countries.  Canopus is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Carina and the second-brightest star in the night sky.  It is also designated α Carinae, which is Latinised to Alpha Carinae. With a visual apparent magnitude of −0.74, it is outshone only by Sirius.  Located around 310 light-years from the Sun, Canopus is a bright giant of spectral type A9, so it is essentially white when seen with the naked eye.  It has a luminosity over 10,000 times the luminosity of the Sun, is eight times as massive, and has expanded to 71 times the Sun's radius.  Its enlarged photosphere has an effective temperature of around  7,400 K.  Canopus is undergoing core helium burning and is currently in the so-called blue loop phase of its evolution, having alrea

Centaurus  is a bright constellation in the southern sky. Indian  name is Narturang (नरतुरंग).  One of the largest constellations, Centaurus was included among the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations.  In Greek mythology, Centaurus represents a centaur; a creature that is half human, half horse (another constellation named after a centaur is one from the zodiac: Sagittarius).  Notable stars include Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to the Solar System, its neighbour in the sky Beta Centauri, and V766 Centauri, one of the largest stars yet discovered. The two bright stars are (left) Alpha Centauri and (right) Beta Centauri. The faint red star in the center of the red circle is Proxima Centauri.  The constellation also contains Omega Centauri, the brightest globular cluster as visible from Earth and the largest identified in the Milky Way, possibly a remnant of a dwarf galaxy. One reasonable explanation