A

David

Darling

Lepus

Lepus constellation

Lepus. © 2003 Torsten Bronger.


Lepus (abbreviation: Lep), the Hare, prey of Orion the Hunter, is a small but interesting southern constellation, located just south of Orion. Of the few stars making up a figure that looks like a smashed box kite, the brightest is only third magnitude. See below for details of the constellation's brightest stars and interesting deep sky objects.


Stars brighter than magnitude 4.0
star vis mag abs mag spec type distance (ly) RA (h m s) Dec (° ' ")
Alpha (Arneb) 2.58 -5.40 F0Ib 1,280 05 32 44 -17 49 20
Beta (Nihal) 2.81 -0.63 G5II 159 05 28 15 -20 45 35
Epsilon 3.19 -1.02 K4IIIv 227 05 05 28 -22 22 16
Mu 3.29 -0.47 B9IVpHgMn 184 05 12 56 -16 12 20
Zeta 3.55 1.88 A2Vn 70 05 46 57 -14 49 20
Gamma 3.59 3.82 F7V 29 05 44 28 -22 26 55
Eta 3.71 2.82 F1V 49 05 56 24 -14 10 04
Delta 3.76 1.07 G8IIIwkCN 112 05 51 19 -20 52 45

 

Other objects of interest
name type of object notes
Hind's Crimson Star star R Lep. See separate entry
NGC 2017 open cluster Binoculars or a small telescope reveal five stars, ranging from sixth to tenth magnitude; of these, two are binaries that can be split by a telescope of 15 cm aperture. Magnitude 6.4; diameter 15'; RA 05h 39.4m, Dec -17° 51'
M79 (NGC 1904) globular cluster A compact, interesting object for small telescopes, lying close to Herschel 3752. Magnitude 9.9; diameter 8.7'; RA 05h 24.5m, Dec -24° 33'


Constellations
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