Constellation Chart

The Ram

Derivation
Phrixus and Helle were the children of Athamas the King of Thebes. When their wicked step-mother threatened to have them killed, they escaped on a magical flying ram with a golden fleece. Helle was understandably alarmed by this experience, and fell from the ram into the sea, but her brother Phrixus survived and landed safely in Colchis. There, he sacrificed the ram to Zeus, who promptly placed it among the stars, while the King of Colchis kept its golden fleece.

Stars
Aries is one of the least conspicuous of the zodiacal constellations, and has only two stars above third magnitude. These are Hamal and Sheratan, the Alpha and Beta stars of the constellation. Unusually, these two stars not only appear to be close together in the sky, but actually are: they lie just six light years from one another.

The First Point of Aries
The First Point of Aries is a place of vital importance in the sky - here, the Ecliptic and the Celestial Equator cross, and when the Sun reaches this point, as it does once a year, the Vernal Equinox occurs. The First Point of Aries also marks the Celestial Meridian, which is the zero-point for calculations of Right Ascension.

Because of the effects of precession on the Earth, though, the First Point of Aries moves through the sky, and in fact it left the constellation from which it takes its name in about the year 70 BC, when it entered the neighbouring constellation of Pisces. Nonetheless, it retains the name 'First Point of Aries'. Roughly 23,000 years from now, the Sun will have completed its circuit of the zodiac, and the First Point will once again lie among the stars from which it takes its name.

Scorpius includes a broad region of the Galaxy, in the general direction of the Core. This explains the density of the Milky Way in the constellation, and the large number of star clusters

Constellation of Aries is a member of zodiac just west of the Pleiades (M45) in Taurus, an asterism of three stars with second or third magnitude lined up a bit strained marks the head of the Ram. Though Aries is tiny and very faint constellation, that had included the vernal equinox about two thousand years ago, and Aries was an important zodiac as the first member of that.

Galaxies In Aries

NGC772

NGC772 is a small spiral galaxy just 2 degrees southeast of beta Aries. The galaxy has a brightness of 11th magnitude and a long axis of 7 arc minutes or so. You can see dimmed elliptic light by using of telescopes about 20cm (8 inches) in aperture. This image shows you two arms stretched and west one is fairly opened, it can be seen that the galaxy looks asymmetry. NGC 680 Pretty bright, pretty large, round and much brighter in the middle at 165X.

NGC 678

NGC 678 In the 1940's and 1950's one of the problems that astronomers worked on was whether the spiral arms of galaxies curved in the direction of a galaxy's rotation- or followed it. In order to figure it out, astronomers needed to know which arms where in the foreground and which parts of the galaxy were on the "backside." This would be determined by the dust lanes in the galaxy (which block the light of things behind them). The rotation of a galaxy would be determined by the spectra of its stars. In this example, there is little question as to what is in the foreground- the prominent dust lane divides the disk and bulge dramatically. The rotation of the galaxy is also easy to determine. However, figuring out which way the arms spiral in a nearly edge-on galaxy requires some detective work. The ends of the galaxy show a bit of spiral structure (especially the left side in this image) and give astronomers that vital clue to solving this typical problem. Famous astronomers such as Hubble and Vaucouleurs worked on these projects to further our understanding of the cosmic frontier. NGC 678 is more than 120 million light years away. Note that the gravitational influence of NGC 678 has distorted its nearby elliptical neighbor- NGC 680.

NGC 877

NGC 877 Pretty bright, pretty large, elongated 2 X 1 in PA 0 and a little brighter in the middle at 165X.

NGC 1156

NGC 1156 Pretty bright, pretty large, elongated 2 X 1 in PA 30 and somewhat mottled at 165X.

NGC 691

NGC 691 Pretty bright, pretty small, much brighter middle, little elongated 1.5X1 in PA 75.

NGC 697

NGC 697 Pretty bright, pretty large, elongated 3 X 1 in PA 110 degrees. This galaxy is much brighter in the middle at 165X and it displays very obvious mottling in the spiral arms. There is a tiny cluster of very faint stars at the eastern edge of this galaxy, a unique view at 100X.

NGC 972

NGC 972 Pretty bright, pretty small, much brighter in the middle, elongated 3 X 1 in PA 145 at 165X. This galaxy really grows with averted vision.

NGC 1012

NGC 1012 Faint, pretty small, elongated 1.5 X 1 in PA 30, much brighter in the middle at 165X. There are several stars involved on the east side.

Planetary Destinations In Aries

HD 12661

Parent Star: HD 12661 (G6 V) in the constellation of Aries is located at a distance of 121.2 Light Years from our Solar system Co-ordinates of Right Ascension: 02 04 34.29 & Declination: +25 24 51.5. The apparent Magnitude of the star is 7.44. The Inner Edge of Habitability Zone is 0.6 AU & the Outer Edge of Habitability Zone: 1.89 AU and the estimated stellar lifespan of the star is 8162 million years. Orbiting around HD 12661 are planets HD 12661b & HD 12661c. HD 12661 Star System

HD 12661 b is believed to be a Sulfurous Cloud Jovian, Eccentric planet and its exitence has been confirmed. The planets appearance is Sulfur stained clouds of water or H2 SO4. The Planet at inner edge of Habitable Zone at Mean Orbital Distance of 0.83 AU and the estimated radius of the planet is 1.031 Jupiters 1. The planet Orbits around the star every 263.558 1 1.2 Days and was discovered by Marcy and Butler in 2000.

HD 12661 c is believed to be a Water Cloud Jovian planet and its exitence has been confirmed. The planets appearance is White water ice clouds. The Planet is out side the Habitable Zone at Mean Orbital Distance of 2.56 AU and the estimated radius of the planet is 1.014 Jupiters 1. The planet Orbits around the star every 1444.5 1 12.5 Days and was discovered by Fischer et al on 13 Jun 2002.

HD 20367

Parent Star: HD 20367(G0) in the constellation of Aries is located at a distance of 88.39 Light Years from our Solar system Co-ordinates of Right Ascension: 03 17 40.0461 & Declination: 31 07 37.372. The apparent Magnitude of the star is 6.41. The Inner Edge of Habitability Zone is 0.66 AU & the Outer Edge of Habitability Zone: 2.07 AU and the estimated stellar lifespan of the star is 8638 million years. Orbiting around HD HD 20367 is planet HD 20367 b the planet is believed to be a Water Cloud Jovian, Eccentric planet and its exitence has been confirmed. The planets appearance is white water ice clouds. The Planet is believed to be at Earthlike Temperatures within the habitability zone at 1.25 AU and the estimated radius of the planet is 0.999 Jupiters 1. The planet Orbits around the star every 500 1 6 Days and was discovered by M. Mayor, D. Naef, F. Pepe, D. Queloz, N.C. Santos, S. Udry on the 18 Jun 2002.