Particulars:
General:
A quite large constellation of the southern hemisphere. Its
boundaries are roughly DECL=-40 degrees, DECL=-57 degrees, RA=11h
and RA=8h.
Together with Carina, Puppis and Pyxis Vela
forms the ancient constellation of Argo Navis, the ship of
the Argonauts. This constellation has no stars labelled with alpha
and beta. The reason is that it has been part of a bigger
constellation once, which brightest stars does not belong to Vela.
After the break up of Argo Navis into these four
constellationsd no reassignment of the stars has taken place.
Stars and other objects
This region of the sky is extremly rich in star fields. Even
random scanning with binoculars will repay the observer will
breathtaking views.
The double gamma Vel can be resolved with binoculars. It
consists of an blue-white subgiant of 4.27 mag and a bright (1.78
mag) Wolf-Rayet star. There are two wider companions of 9th and
10th magnitude; its a nice group for telescopes with small
apertures.
To resolve the components of delta Vel scopes with
apertures of at least 100 mm are needed. The stars of this tight
double are of 2nd and 6th mag.
The double b16 can be resolved with a 3 inch glas; its
components are blue and orange with 4.9 mag and 7.7 mag,
respectively.
An interesting object is p Vel: It consits of a
white-green pair with 4.6 mag and 5.1 mag. These two stars show
an extremely small revolution time: in just 16 years they
complete the orbit. Unfortunately powerful telescopes are
required two split the two stars.
Around omicron Vel a bright and close group of stars is
located, IC 2391. This little cluster is visible to the
naked eye but best viewed with binoculars.
Another binocular cluster is NGC 2547. About 50 stars of
7th mag and fainter belong to this cluster.
The meteor shower of the Gamma Velids is active the first
half of January.