Diagram caption: The constellation Lepus with its bright stars and surrounding constellations. Lepus is surrounded by (going clockwise from the top): Orion, Eridanus, Caelum, Columba, Canis Major and Monoceros.

Lepus is a southern constellation and thus the whole constellation can be viewed at some point in the year throughout the southern hemisphere. The whole constellation can also be viewed from temperate and equatorial regions of the northern hemisphere. Lepus is best viewed in the evening in the northern hemisphere winter and southern hemisphere summer.

The globular cluster M79 lies in Lepus. It is marked here with a yellow circle with a plus sign superimposed on it.

The y-axis of this diagram is in degrees of declination with north as up and the x-axis is in hours of right ascension with east to the left. The sizes of the stars marked here relate to the star's apparent magnitude, a measure of its apparent brightness. The larger dots represent brighter stars. The Greek letters mark the brightest stars in the constellation. These are ranked by brightness with the brightest star being labeled alpha, the second brightest beta, etc., although this ordering is not always followed exactly. The dotted boundary lines mark the IAU's boundaries of the constellations and the solid green lines mark one of the common forms used to represent the figures of the constellations. Neither the constellation boundaries, nor the lines joining the stars appear on the sky.

Diagram credit: Adapted by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education from the original by the IAU and Sky & Telescope. Credit Link

Diagram translation status: Not yet approved by a reviewer
Related glossary terms: Ascension droite (AD) , Constellation , Coordonnées célestes , Déclinaison , Magnitude apparente
Categories: Naked Eye Astronomy

Diagram license: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons