Welcome to Learn the Sky, your online resource for learning about the constellations and how to find
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and need a guide visit learnthesky.com to learn more about our online classes we offer. Welcome my
name is Janine and in this video we will learn about the constellation known as Draco. Draco
is represented as a dragon and it's an ancient constellation. The ancient Babylonians, Chinese,
Greek, and Roman cultures all identified Draco. The name Draco is Latin for 'dragon' and it was recorded
as one of Ptomey's 48 constellations in the second century, which was the authority in the field of
astronomy for many centuries. Draco is known for its star called Thuban and this was the star that
was once the pole star between 3942 BC and 1793 BC. So when can you find it and how can you find
it? It's a constellation that can be seen all year round in the northern hemisphere which classifies
it as a circumpolar constellation. The way I find it is to look for the Big and Little Dippers, and
then I know that the tail of the dragon goes in between the two dippers. This can be a difficult
constellation to find because the size of it, is it's just a really large constellation, and
then the magnitude of the stars are fairly faint. There's only three stars are above 3
the 3rd magnitude, so the rest of them are 4, 5, and 6. So you really want to seek out dark skies when
you're trying to find this constellation. I also look for this quadrilateral shaped head as well
and I'll give you some different strategies throughout this video on how to find Draco.
Now let's review the pattern that Draco makes across the sky. Here we have the official star map
of Draco, and you can see all the constellations that surround it, including Ursa Minor, Ursa
Major, Cepheus, here's Hercules down here, and Boötes, Lyra, Cygnus, a lot of constellations that
are really easy to identify, but what I want you to notice is the magnitude scale down here. So 0 would
be the brightest magnitude, like this star Lyra, or the star Vega that's in the constellation Lyra,
but most of the other stars of Draco are pretty faint. Their of 4th magnitude and dimmer, so this
makes it a challenging constellation to find, but if we zoom in here the way to really find Ursa
Major or Draco is to look for Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, that's how I find it. The tail goes
between those two constellations, and then I look for this four-sided shape in the sky. So let's get
some practice trying to find this constellation. First you may notice the three brightest stars
towards the left side of the photograph, this is the handle of the Big Dipper, okay, and then here
are two of the brighter stars in Ursa Minor. So if you can figure out where Ursa Minor and Ursa
Major is know that the tail goes in between, so if we trace it through here that's where Draco
is, and here's that quadrilateral shaped head of Draco. So there's where Draco is and here's where
other constellations are situated, so we have Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, we're not seeing Polaris
here which is the North Star, and then Cepheus is right there. Here's another photograph this one
zoomed out a little bit more so you should be able to find the Big Dipper, which is an asterism. It's
a smaller pattern within a larger constellation which is part of Ursa Major, and then hopefully
you can find Ursa Minor. So if we were to point out, here's Ursa Minor, here's the
North Star, and here's the Big Dipper. Now from there you want to find the tail in between the
two, and then you can trace out Draco. So what would this look like? Here's the Big Dipper, it
points pointer stars point to Polaris and from there you can find Ursa Major, and that here is
Draco, how it goes in between the two, and another way that I help myself to find Draco is when you
have the handle of the Big Dipper you can kind of join it I'll draw a line this way and it'll point
to the head. So that's another strategy you can use to find Draco. Let's get some more practice
with identifying Draco. So here we have another photograph of the same three constellations. We
have Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, and Draco. So hopefully you can see Ursa Major on the left side and then
use the pointer stars to point to Polaris and there you can find Ursa Minor. From there you
want to find the tail of Draco, and what you should notice if we back up a little bit notice how these
stars stand out but the tail of Draco is really faint, it's really the head of the dragon that
stands out when you compare it to the rest of the stars in the constellation, okay, also
remember you can use the handle of the Big Dipper draw a line over and then you can help yourself
find the head of Draco. So here we have these two constellations and then this is where Draco is.
Let's get one more photograph here, this one I believe is digitally enhanced, the stars are
colored to bring out the stars and, that's okay for me when when you're starting to learn these
constellations if that will help you learn the different patterns I think that's fine, but just
know that this the constellation will really look like this in the sky. So hopefully looking at this
pattern and this picture you can find Ursa Major, and then from there can you find Draco? This
time you don't have the help of Ursa Major or the Big Dipper to help you. So if we were
to point out those constellations, this is that winding shape that Draco takes on the sky with
that four-sided head, and then here we have Ursa Minor. Finally we'll take a look at the celestial
objects that sit in the constellation of Draco. So there aren't a whole lot of celestial objects
even though this is a fairly large constellation, but the two we'll focus on are these two. This
one is called the Cat's Eye Nebula, which is a planetary nebula that's estimated to be 3,000
light years away, and then M102 which is one of the Messier objects. That's a spiral galaxy. So
the Cat's Eye Nebula is a planetary nebula, which is a star that's at the end of its life, it's no
longer going undergoing fusion, so it's starting to throw out the outer layers, and you kind of
can see the different layers here. Inside here is a white dwarf star which will eventually become
the leftover core of the star that used to be. It's estimated to be 3,000 light years away, and it is
such a beautiful object, you would need to see magnification in order to see it, and then this
photo of course is a long exposure photograph which allows us to see the different layers and
features of this nebula. Next we have Messier 102, and this is called sometimes called the Spindle
galaxy, and this is an S0 spiral galaxy, estimated to be 44 million light years away. If you're going
to look for it, it's in this region of Draco. So it's not as large as our Milky Way galaxy ,
it's estimated to only be 2/3 the diameter, but the mass is very similar. So this picture taken
by the Hubble is just a beautiful shot of the edge on spiral galaxy that we can see, this kind of has
this dark dust Lane, in which light is not able to penetrate through. There's one other interest
in galaxy I'd like to point out to you called the Tadpole galaxy, and this is it called it disrupted
barred spiral galaxy, and you're not likely to see this one even in with magnification. This is
taken by the Hubble and it's estimated to be 420 million light years away, so it's really really far,
and you can see how it got its name the Tadpole galaxy. It kind of has this head with a long tail.
So what's interesting here is there some sort of merger that happened here in terms of galaxies, and
this is the shape that it has, so very interesting to see. Let's examine some of the legends behind
Draco. It is often the stories of the stars that we can connect to in some way, which can help us
remember the constellation, but remember there is many mythologies and constellations as there
are stars in the sky, so there is no one correct mythology. One of the earliest stories of Draco
can be traced back to the ancient Babylonian Mythologies. Tiamat was a primordial goddess of
the salt sea, and the symbol of creation. She's often depicted as a woman and it is said that
she gave birth to a host of creatures that lived in the primordial sea, including scorpio men and
merpeople. There's some debate as to whether Tiamat takes the form of a sea serpent or dragon.
In Greek mythology there are a wide range of stories that include a dragon. One is that of
a garden of Hesperides. This was Hera's orchard and had a tree that produced golden apples, and it
would grant immortality to whoever ate the apples. The trees were given by the goddess Gaia to Hera
and Zeus for a wedding gift, and Hesperides were nymphs of the evening and golden light of sunset,
and they were given the tasks of tending to the Grove, but occasionally they picked the apples
themselves, so Hera didn't trust the nymphs and she placed a dragon around the tree for additional
protection, and here you can see the dragon is all around the nymphs. Another famous Greek legend
is that of the twelve labors of Hercules. For one of the tasks Hercules, or in Greek mythology he was
Heracles, and then it was adapted as Hercules in Roman mythology. Heracles needed to steal a
Golden Apple from Hera's garden and he killed the dragon that was protecting the apples. You can see
here's the apple tree ,and here is the dragon that's protecting the tree, and Hercules is in
fact situated next to Draco in the sky. Another tale in Greek mythology is that of Cadmus, who
is the king and founder of Thebes. In this tale Cadmus slayed a dragon that killed some of his
men as they were looking for sources of water, and one final tale includes a dragon is that of Jason
and the Argonauts in the search for the golden fleece, and you can see that in this image here.
This artwork depicts Jason being regurgitated by the serpent that guards the golden fleece,
and this is Athena, right here, that stands right next to him. So there are a variety of legends
about Draco in the sky, and without a doubt there are many many other stories that exist out there.
It's easy to see why Draco's pattern by many ancient constellations saw a snake, a sea serpent,
or a dragon that winds its way around the sky. Remember that the mythology's of the stars vary
according to time place and culture. There is no one true mythology for any constellation just a
variety of them. We have come to the end of our video about Draco's. Let's review everything we
learned so far. It's best seen all year round in the northern hemisphere, and it's classified as
a circumpolar constellation since we can see it all year round. It circles around the pole star.
The best way to find it is to use Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. The tail of Draco is in between the
two. There are a few celestial objects, such as the Cat's Eye Nebula, there's a couple galaxies,
but you would need magnification to see all of them. So this is a constellation that has taken
me years to find or at least get comfortable finding it, but now that I know that the tail
is in between the two dippers I'm able to find it. I definitely recommend that you seek out dark
sky is when trying to find this constellations, since so many of the stars are dim. So I wish
you luck finding Draco, remember practice makes perfect, keep going outside, and keep looking up.