Canis Minor
Origin
The modern name is Latin “The Lesser Dog” in contrast to Canis Major, the Greater Dog. However, in antiquity, this constellation was named “The one [asterism] before the Dog” because it rises a bit earlier in the northern hemisphere. The Greek term for “the one before the dog”, “pro kýon”, nowadays is used as a name for the brightest star of the constellation.
Bright Stars
Procyon (Alpha Canis Minoris) has a magnitude of 0.34, and Gomeisa (Beta Canis Minoris) a magnitude of 2.9.
Photo of the constellation Canis Minor produced by NOIRLab in collaboration with Eckhard Slawik, a German astrophotographer.
The annotations are from a standardized set of 88 western IAU constellations and stick figures from Sky & Telescope. Please find here a non-annotated version of the image.
Credit: E. Slawik/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Zamani
Latin name
Canis Minor
English name
The Lesser Dog
Pronunciation
Cane-is-MY-nor
Abbreviation
CMi
Notable Objects
NGC 2459 is a small open cluster. NGC 2394 is another open cluster in Canis Minor.
NGC 2508 is a lenticular galaxy of 13th magnitude, estimated to lie at a distance of 205 million light-years.
