Starsurfing | Lepus





(The Hare)

Seen in winter skies underneath the bright well known constellation of Orion, Lepus is quite faint as well as its deep sky objects. Other ancient civilisations saw it as something other than a hare, the ancient Egyptians considered it to be the boat that transported the chief god Osiris across the sky, others saw it as a chair for Orion. Lepus is quite far away from the Milky Way so it contains mainly faint galaxies although it has one lone Messier object within its borders.



	M79:
One of the many globular clusters in the Messier catalogue, M79 is a moderately bright cluster of stars that lies at a distance of 42 000 light years. It was discovered by Pierre Mechain in 1780 and was recognized as a globular cluster in 1784 by William Herschel. It happens to be one of the least brightest of the globulars in the Messier catalogue and shines at a 7.7 magnitude.


	IC 418:
Popularly known as the Spirograph Nebula due to a famous Hubble Space Telescope image, IC 418 is a tiny but bright planetary nebula that can easily be seen in large telescopes. The colour of this 9th magnitude planetary is a rosy pink and it is also fairly easy to see the magnitude 10 central star.


Leo Minor		Libra