Cygnus

Cygnus is a Northern Hemisphere constellation otherwise known as the Swan. It is one of the 48 Greek constellations originally described by the 2nd century astronomer Claudius Ptolemy (Wikipedia). Cygnus remains one of the 88 modern constellations defined by the International Astronomical Union (Wikipedia).

Cygnus (abbrev. = Cyg; genitive = Cygni) covers 804 square degrees or 1.95% of the celestial sphere making it the 16th largest constellation. It contains 262 stars brighter than apparent magnitude 6.5, the brightest star being Deneb (Alpha Cygni). See Cygnus for a photo this constellation from Bifrost Observatory.

For more information see the entries for Cygnus at Wikipedia and U. Wisconsin. For a chart of Cygnus, see Cyg (IAU).






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