Diagram caption: The constellation Indus with its bright stars and surrounding constellations. Indus is surrounded by (going clockwise from the top): Microcopium, Sagittarius, Telescopium, Pavo, Octans, Tucana and Grus.

Indus lies near the south celestial pole and thus the whole constellation is visible at some point in the year throughout the southern hemisphere. The whole constellation is also visible to a thin strip of the northern hemisphere near the equator with remaining northern equatorial regions able to see parts of the constellation. Indus is circumpolar for temperate and antarctic regions of the southern hemisphere. Indus is best viewed in the evenings in the northern hemisphere autumn and southern hemisphere spring.

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

Related glossary terms: Apparent Magnitude , Celestial Coordinates , Circumpolar Stars , Constellation , Declination , Right Ascension (RA)
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