Diagram caption: The constellation Scutum with its brighter stars and surrounding constellations. Scutum is surrounded by (going clockwise from the top): Serpens Cauda, Sagittarius and Aquila.

Scutum is a southern constellation and thus the whole constellation is visible at some point in the year throughout the southern hemisphere. The whole constellation is also visible from equatorial and temperate regions of the northern hemisphere with parts of the constellation visible from all but the most arctic regions.

Two open clusters lie in Scutum: M11, commonly known as the Wild Duck Cluster; and M26. Both of these are marked here with yellow circles.

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. The blue line at the bottom of the diagram marks the ecliptic. Neither the constellation boundaries, nor the lines joining the stars, nor the ecliptic, 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 , Constellation , Declination , Open Cluster , 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