Canis Minor
Origin
Canis Minor is a small constellation in the northern celestial hemisphere. Its name is Latin for ‘lesser dog’, in contrast to Canis Major, the ‘greater dog’; both figures are commonly represented as following the constellation of Orion the hunter.
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
English name
Canis Minor
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.
