Crux Wikipedia. Crux is a constellation located in the southern sky in a bright portion of the Milky Way. It is among the most easily distinguished constellations, as all of its four main stars have an apparent visual magnitude above 2. Its name is Latin for cross, and it is dominated by a cross shaped or kite like asterism that is commonly known as the Southern Cross. Predominating is the first magnitude blue white star of Alpha Crucis or Acrux, being the constellations brightest and most southerly member. Crux is followed by four dominate stars, descending in clockwise order by magnitude Beta, Gamma one of the closest red giants to Earth, Delta and Epsilon Crucis. Owler is the crowdsourced competitive intelligence platform that business professionals use to outsmart their competition, gain information uncover industry data. BibMe Free Bibliography Citation Maker MLA, APA, Chicago, Harvard. FF2/9780618225682.jpg' alt='Houghton Mifflin Alpha Friends Cd Box' title='Houghton Mifflin Alpha Friends Cd Box' />Extra Cyber Week Savings take up to 15 off all orders Click here for more info. Many of these brighter stars are members of the ScorpiusCentaurus Association, a large but loose group of hot blue white stars that appear to share common origins and motion across the southern Milky Way. The constellation contains four Cepheid variables that are each visible to the naked eye under optimum conditions. Crux also contains the bright and colourful open cluster known as the Jewel Box NGC 4. Coalsack Nebula. HistoryeditThe stars within Crux were known to the Ancient Greeks, where Ptolemy regarded them as part of the constellation Centaurus. They were entirely visible as far north as Britain in the fourth millennium BC. However, the precession of the equinoxes gradually lowered the stars below the European horizon, and they were eventually forgotten by the inhabitants of northern latitudes. By AD 4. 00, most of the stars in the constellation we now call Crux never rose above the horizon for Athenians. Water World Download. The 1. Venetian navigator Alvise Cadamosto made note of what was probably the Southern Cross on exiting the Gambia River in 1. However, Cadamostos accompanying diagram was inaccurate. Historians generally credit Joo Faras astronomer and physician of King Manuel I of Portugal who accompanied Pedro lvares Cabral in the discovery of Brazil in 1. European to depict it correctly. Faras sketched and described the constellation calling it Las Guardas in a letter written on the beaches of Brazil on May 1, 1. Portuguese monarch. Explorer Amerigo Vespucci seems to have observed not only the Southern Cross but also the neighboring Coalsack Nebula on his second voyage in 1. Another early modern description clearly describing Crux as a separate constellation is attributed to Andreas Corsali, an Italian navigator who from 1. China and the East Indies in an expedition sponsored by King Manuel I. In 1. 51. 6, Corsali wrote a letter to the monarch describing his observations of the southern sky, which included a rather crude map of the stars around the south celestial pole including the Southern Cross and the two Magellanic Clouds seen in an external orientation, as on a globe. Emery Molyneux and Petrus Plancius have also been cited as the first uranographers to distinguish Crux as a separate constellation their representations date from 1. Both authors, however, depended on unreliable sources and placed Crux in the wrong position. Crux was first shown in its correct position on the celestial globes of Petrus Plancius and Jodocus Hondius in 1. What Really Matters in Writing ResearchBased Practices Across the Curriculum, Patricia M Cunningham, James W. Cunningham. Crux k r k s is a constellation located in the southern sky in a bright portion of the Milky Way. It is among the most easily distinguished constellations. Houghton Mifflin Alpha Friends Cd Box' title='Houghton Mifflin Alpha Friends Cd Box' />Its stars were first catalogued separately from Centaurus by Frederick de Houtman in 1. Later adopters of the constellation included Jakob Bartsch in 1. Augustin Royer in 1. Royer is sometimes wrongly cited as initially distinguishing Crux. CharacteristicseditCrux is bordered by the constellations Centaurus which surrounds it on three sides on the east, north and west, and Musca to the south. Covering 6. 8 square degrees and 0. The three letter abbreviation for the constellation, as adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1. Cru. 1. 3 The official constellation boundaries, as set by Eugne Delporte in 1. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of these borders lie between 1. The whole constellation is visible to observers south of latitude 2. N. 1. 5aIn tropical regions Crux can be seen in the sky from April to June. Crux is exactly opposite to Cassiopeia on the celestial sphere, and therefore it cannot appear in the sky with the latter at the same time. For locations south of 3. S, Crux is circumpolar and thus always visible in the night sky. Crux is sometimes confused with the nearby False Cross by stargazers. Crux is somewhat kite shaped a Latin cross, and it has a fifth star Crucis. The False Cross is diamond shaped a Greek cross, somewhat dimmer on average, does not have a fifth star and lacks the two prominent nearby Pointer Stars. Visibilityedit. Stacked 2 minute exposure of Crux. Crux is easily visible from the southern hemisphere at practically any time of year. It is also visible near the horizon from tropical latitudes of the northern hemisphere for a few hours every night during the northern winter and spring. For instance, it is visible from Cancun or any other place at latitude 2. N or less at around 1. April. 1. 61. 7 There are 5 main stars. Due to precession, Crux will move closer to the South Pole in the next millennia, up to 6. But in AD 1. 80. 00 or BC 8. Crux will bewas less than 3. Northern Europe. Even in AD 1. Europe and the whole United States. Use in navigationedit. Locating the south celestial pole. In the Southern Hemisphere, the Southern Cross is frequently used for navigation in much the same way that Polaris is used in the Northern Hemisphere. Alpha and Gamma known as Acrux and Gacrux respectively are commonly used to mark south. Tracing a line from Gacrux to Acrux leads to a point close to the Southern Celestial Pole. Alternatively, if a line is constructed perpendicularly between Alpha Centauri and Beta Centauri, the point where the above mentioned line and this line intersect marks the Southern Celestial Pole. Another way to find south, strike line through Gacrux and Acrux, 4 12 times the distance between Gacrux and Acrux, directly below that point is south. The two stars of Alpha and Beta Centauri are often referred to as the Southern Pointers or just The Pointers, allowing people to easily find the asterism of the Southern Cross or the constellation of Crux. Very few bright stars of importance lie between Crux and the pole itself, although the constellation Musca is fairly easily recognised immediately beneath Crux. A technique used in the field is to clench ones right fist and to view the cross, aligning the first knuckle with the axis of the cross. The tip of the thumb will indicate south. Argentinegauchos are well known for using it for night orientation in the vast Pampas and Patagonic regions. Featuresedit. The constellation Crux as it can be seen by the naked eye. Within the constellations borders, there are 4. The four main stars that form the asterism are Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta Crucis. Also known as Acrux, Alpha Crucis is a triple star 3. Earth. Blue tinged and magnitude 0. The two close components are resolved in a small amateur telescope and the wide component is readily visible in a pair of binoculars. Beta Crucis, called Mimosa, is a blue hued giant of magnitude 1. Free Download Remove Spyware. Earth. It is a Beta Cephei type Cepheid variable with a variation of less than 0. Gamma Crucis, called Gacrux, is an optical double star. The primary is a red hued giant star of magnitude 1. Earth. The secondary is of magnitude 6. Earth. Delta Crucis is a blue white hued star of magnitude 2. Earth. It is the dimmest of the Southern Cross stars.