Constellation Chart

The Crow

You can detect a small-distorted square formed from four stars with 3rd magnitudes just above the Hydra that is lying in spring southern skies. The square represents the constellation of Corvus, the crow. The square is positioned at southwest of Spica, alpha Virginis. This noticeable asterism has been taken an attention since ancient times, is called "The star of sail" in Japan. And the square has been called the "Spica's Spanker" in England, because you can find Spica by stretching the northern edge of the square eastward. A Greek myth says that the crow had served Apollo, the crow could talk and had the silvered wings. But he was very clever and told a lie that wife of Apollo had an affair. Apollo got angry and he killed her, but became aware that was his lie. Apollo regretted intensely, and made the crow black and be in mourning for his wife.

Corvus lies in the direction of the distant Sagittarius Arm, but somewhat 'above' the plane of the Milky Way.

Galaxies In Corvus

NGC4038

This is a famous pair of galaxies in collision at the western edge of Corvus. Galaxy NGC4038, and NGC4039. Both galaxies have apparent sizes of about 5 arc minutes and 10th or 11th magnitudes, your naked eyes can detect the pair as very dimmed two nebula-like lights snuggling up each other through large sized telescopes. This interacting galaxy pair has two "Ring tale" structures being stretched in the eastern region, the characteristic structure gives the pair a nickname of "Ring tale Galaxy" or "The Antennae". But unfortunately the ring tales are extraordinary dimmed; it's fairly difficult to capture that on films with amateur telescopes. An image below shows an emphasized figure of the Antennae by using of pseudo-color process.

NGC4039

The image tells us the faintest root of a ring tale is stretching toward southeast, and it's known that there is another tale being stretched toward northeast although this picture cannot detect. It's considered that these anomalous structures have been formed from flicked stars by the collision. And upper image shows you several lumps of bluish lights paralleling along an arm of NGC4038. Those lights are considered as "Star burst" regions where new stars are born intensively raised by the complicated inter-galactic interaction. It's a scene of grandeur head-on impact in distant space about 63 millions light years away.

NGC4361

NGC4361 is a compact planetary nebula positioned in the square of Corvus in spring's southern skies. The nebula has a brightness and size of 10th magnitude and only 1.8 arc minutes, respectively. Maybe you can distinguish the nebula from normal stars by using of magnifying power over 100, and the nebula has a bit bluish color. The picture tells you the nebula has a fairly warped shape, not simple oval appearance. The nebula was formed by gaseous matter gushed out from a dead dwarf star.